Non-fiction Books

Under the Eye of the Clock is the autobiography of Christopher Nolan, the talented young poet with cerebral palsy. He can't walk or talk or write in the usual manner. Since Nolan lacks the use of his hands, this book like Dam-Burst of Dreams, the book of poems that preceded it, was written by means of a typing stick affixed to his head. The book succeeds both as pure artistry and as a window into the world of the disabled. Nolan has re-named himself Joseph Meehan and told his story entirely in the objectivity of the third person. This brilliant stroke allows him to avoid excessive self-pity while making his sufferings and triumphs real and deep. Nolan's use of language had earned him comparisons with James Joyce, Yeats, and Dylan Thomas. Nolan stretches the meanings and implications of words, rearranges their spelling, and even invents new ones to communicate his moods and perceptions and illuminate life, his own and those he observes, with his unique poet's sensibility.

As a college English and literature instructor, I intend to make this book a required reading if it becomes available in print again. It should bless all readers because it becomes a reminder that NO matter what the circumstances, people should still be respected, loved, and appreciated. And, with this in mind, the reader may receive a self-esteem boost when being reminded of inner-personal value. I appreciate this book so much. I have three copies and continually loan them out.

Christopher Nolan's "Under The Eye Of The Clock" is an autobiographical account of his incredibly awe-inspiring and miraculous life. Born a cripple, he could have been consigned to the rubbish heap but instead and against all odds became a celebrated writer of this Whitbread Book winner, "The Banyan Tree" as well as an early book of poems. Without taking anything away from Joseph Meehan (a self portrait of Nolan), he couldn't have overcome his debilitating handicaps to scale the heights he did without the steady support and tender loving care of his family. A father, mother and sister who are such warm and emotionally intelligent human beings anybody would be blessed and proud to have them as family. The school principals, teachers and fellow students who accepted him, nurtured him and gave him the chance to prove himself equal to the best among physically whole human specimens are themselves shining examples of humanity who deserve as much recognition in Nolan's lifestory. Although it has been compared with James Joyce's "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man", it is in reality nothing like it. Whereas Joyce's work is for the most part depressing and full of pain and harshness, Nolan's story is so morally uplifting you almost forget its grave subject matter. Nolan's dazzling and inventive writing style is also unique and something to relish. He coins and mints new words which have a yet found a conventional meaning but are so emotionally accurate you know they're right. Read this if you're feeling down and need something to restore your faith in mankind !

To learn about such an exceptional poet who, without the faith of his family, would never have been revealed to the world, gives the reader a new view of people's limitations. I bought 12 copies of this book (when it was in print)and somehow have given them all away over time.

I found my way to this book after I had read "The Banyan Tree" by Christopher Nolan. This was a book that I read and reviewed back in February, and ever since I have been mystified why the book never seemed to gain the wide acceptance of readers. All of the reviews that have been posted by readers for "The Banyan Tree" have been 5 star reviews, and the same is the case for "Under The Eye Of The Clock".

If you read you understand how difficult it is to write anything, much less a full book, and then have it selected for and win a prestigious award. In the case of the book I review now it was the 1987 Whitbred Award that was awarded to Mr. Nolan. All very impressive, but that's just the start.

This is an autobiography written by a very young man who next wrote the book "The Banyan Tree" and would take 12 years to do so. This is a painfully candid, but uplifting book about a man with the support of a wonderful Family overcomes extreme realities that are his life to become an Author of international renown.

Mr. Nolan cannot speak, he can barely move at all. He types with what he calls his "Unicorn Stick" that he wears on his head, and even then his head must be supported while he works.

An Autobiography is a courageous work if honestly presented. When you add Mr. Nolan's additional challenges he faces as a writer, and as a person living with his physical issues it becomes an extraordinary autobiographical book.

I hope more readers find Mr. Nolan, he is a unique writer of immense talent, and if you pass by his work you deprive yourself of great literature.

This novel opens in Sydney, 1845, with the German explorer Voss preparing to cross the Australian continent. This physical aspect of the novel is loosely based on the ill-fated expedition of Ludwig Leichhardt.

Prior to leaving Sydney, Voss meets Laura Trevelyan. Laura is the niece of one of Voss's patrons and is perhaps the only person apart from Voss himself who perceives that his journey is a challenge of will as much as a geographical journey of discovery. Voss and Laura, despite only meeting four times before he departs, form a spiritual bond which strengthens during the course of the novel.

The novel is about discovery, about triumph and about failure. The physical elements of the journey describe many of the challenges facing explorers within central Australia at the time and combines elements of human suffering and religious metaphor.

The intense relationship between Laura and Voss develops during the course of the journey, and is conducted both through letter and telepathy.

This novel can be read as a simple story of an ill-fated expedition. Alternatively, it can be read as one man's challenge to the physical world, and of the good and evil in each of us.

By the end of the novel, the discovery seems clear, the triumphs and the failures are obvious. Or are they? Perhaps it depends on which viewpoint you choose to adopt.

I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to read well written literature which, under the guise of telling a story, invites the readers to confront their own thinking. The choice is yours.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

This is a deeply sad story of tragic love in Australia's colonial times. Voss, "The German" and Laura, a young Sydney woman, are societal misfits who meet quite awkwardly in drawing room one day. Soon after this meeting, Voss begins his epic journey into the unknown Australian outback. As the journey progresses he realizes his love for Laura and writes her a letter asking for her hand in marriage. She accepts his proposal and a love affair of the minds begins. More letters are written but never received by either party. Amazingly, their love blossoms for each other in a small minded, petty, and class driven society. Sadly, in the end their love is tragically never to be.
I found this book to be extremely well written and deeply moving. I believe that this novel is on par with Bronte's Jane Eyre and I do not understand why it is not on any classical reading lists. There are parts of the book that move somewhat slowly, but each part has its purpose in bringing you deeper into the story. The insights into the human soul are incredibly poignant. If you do decide to give Voss a chance read it slowly and in quite spaces. Soak up the meanings within the writing and enjoy this sad, sad tale.

This epic about a man's journey into the heart of the Australian desert and into his own heart and mind is a classic of modern literature. Johann Ulrich Voss, though he remains always just beyond the reader's grasp as a character, is as memorable as any great figure in modern literature. If Marlow and Kurtz in Heart of Darkness were one man, this would be him.

The novel is also a love story about two people who go beyond the mediocrity of their surroundings to embark on interior journeys where they learn to know themselves and unite with each other in spirit.

For 80% of the novel I was gripped, running home from college to read more and more. My only qualm would be the ending, as the tension dissipates and the last 80 pages or so peter out under the excessive Christian symbolism. But there is no way that a potential reader should be put off by this assessment

Sentence for sentence, word for word, Patrick White is as good a prose stylist as I've ever read. The phrase "tour de force" could have been invented for this book.

Patrick White gained fame as the Australian Nobel prize winner in literature, and as a person with a prickly or what some call a difficult personality. He was educated at Cambridge but then settled and wrote in Australia after World War II. He has about a dozen novels and I have read two of them, the other being The Tree of Man which is set in rural but agricultural Australia, not in the Outback as is Voss.

This is a good novel, and it deserves 5 stars. After a dozen pages or so it becomes clear to the reader that White has an unusual style and he is a gifted writer. There is no question about his writing ability.

This particular story starts off in Sydney in the mid-19th century, and White uses real street names and locations in central Sydney, just east of Darling Harbour. Since the same streets still exist today, his setting and references to the city bring a high degree of realism to the story.

The plot is about a man and a woman who become engaged by mail after meeting. Voss is the man, and he leads a voyage of discovery into the Outback, north and west of Sydney. The plot involves the hardships of the trip, the interaction among the characters travelling with Voss, the natives, and what takes place in Sydney with his fiancee while Voss is away on the trip.

The discouraging feature of White's writing is that the characters seem stiff or cardboard, a bit lifeless. Voss is not a man to show much emotion or talk. So, there are many passages where White simply describes the activities. That gives the book - especially in the middle - a dry feel. This was reinforced for me when I read The Tree of Man where White has a similar strong male protagonist, the farmer; but there, White goes into much more depth with the man's personality in the novel.

The tale has a strong and a surprise ending, and the novel picks up as the story closes.

Overall, I enjoyed the read and would recommend the book. It is not a quick read nor is it compelling stuff to digest, but it is an interesting and well written novel.

Big, powerful novel by a skilled storyteller, a master of the Australian landscape and peoples. In the 1800's the German settler Voss meets Laura Trevelyan in Sydney once or twice, then together with an ill-assorted ragtag of followers he sets off on an ill-fated expedition from Sydney westwards through the Australian desert.

Voss's purpose seems to be to get to 'love the land'. Laura waits in Sydney; she's a thoughtful person, different from the others, aware that Australian white society in those days could be shallow and not in tune with deeper things. When Voss and Laura are not together, the relationship takes place in the mind, with some sort of sixth sense resulting in a synchronisation of feelings. The is cleverly done and works well.

Aboriginals figure strongly - they are part of the land, timeless, noble. But, in the period set in this novel, there is a dark side; through and through they come across as bestial savages. They could help and save Voss, who reaches out to them, but instead they thwart and eventually kill him.

Patrick White won the 1973 Nobel prize for literature, and it's not surprising. But his style in Voss is not always easy; he's always invading his characters' minds and trying too hard to explain every nuance of their thinking. This slows it down. Ideas about 'point of view' have to be put on hold in this novel.

Ultimately though it's an indelible experience, and one is left with haunting images of Australia.

This final entry--1988 marks its long-delayed arrival--in a lengthy career (starting in the mid-1940s) of scant fiction marks the end of the postwar, triumphalist, yet marginalized, Midwestern Catholic parish--and notably here, rectory--intrigues that Powers excelled at conveying. His scale, being so focused, gains accuracy and depth by its concentration upon detail. Like a model railroad set, the 1:150 (or whatever!) ratio means painstaking attention to fidelity. Such realism to the untutored eye appears grotesque or caricatured, but to an aware observer reveals a nearly exact fit of form with content.

I give it four rather than five stars as I have re-read (and reviewed here, "Morte" and the thirty stories in their original three volumes as well as the collected reissue) all of Powers recently, and I believe that his many strengths as a writer are at times clouded slightly by his tendency towards oversubtlety. A forgivable fault in an era of so many authors straining for the obvious or what critics call "overdetermining" their subject, but Powers tends in all his work towards lengthy passages where not much goes on at all, but in which an editor could have polished the presentation and refined the craft even further. Powers appears to have been his own worse enemy and his own most scrupulous critic, on the other hand. Be it as it may, Powers makes nearly all of his peers look hasty, scattered, and undisciplined by comparison.

Action over the course of a priest's youth, coming of age, and gradual rise from curate to administrative assistant (when that word did not connote a secretary or receptionist) and then pastor comprises the narrative. Less verve here than the worldlier, more urbane Fr Urban had, but perhaps in his principled if compromised (the whole crux of the tension) fidelity to the needs of separating "Church from Dreck" Powers reveals that the need for reform Fr Urban realized while Vatican II was still in session (so to speak) by the end of the decade became all the more apparent as the slow slide downhill accelerated. Set by its conclusion around 1968, if offhandedly, the Catholic Worker roots of Powers and his conservative radicalism stand his fictional main character in good stead as priests wander off, parishioners ignore crusty priests' reprimands, malls open on Sundays, the hillbilly's war machine thunders on in the small town press, and guitars with cant supplant chant.

This novel, like his earlier (sharing with it a clumsy if rarified referential title) "Morte d'Urban," (1962), suffers from arid stretches, where the humor is so deadpan, the pace so true that the inert nature of our own shared experience with the clerical protagonists appears too neatly aligned. Dullness enters. A VD quarantine warning takes up one and a half pages verbatim. A few sample sermons from Father Felix (who helps out saying weekend Masses) summarize the stultifying, yet sincere, homiletics of a certain, less soundbitten, age. So with Powers, who in this novel had been criticized as a man out of time, with figures he identified with whose era had passed them by. Joe is only in his mid-forties. He seems much older. This may be a sign of now-diminished respect, when the maturity demanded of authority figures gave an earned dignity and a bit of unearned noblesse oblige to the clergy in smaller towns where the collar still mattered. Joe Hackett manages to get through the routine, and out of the limelight that had once courted his counterpart Fr. Urban, this parish priest does his best balancing God with Mammon, as the demands of a new accounting system make fundraising all the more essential, even as this pulls at the Gospel admonition that it's better to give alms in secret. How to square this with the need to make accountable freeloading parishioners when the Archbishop's needs come payable on demand? Out of such quandaries, Powers raises his own quiet art.

The need in fiction for a jolt, a spark, a spin off from the quotidian to the profound nestles, certainly, in Powers. This, however, moves along leisurely, and often nothing seems to happen for chapters at a time. Then, you understand that this accurately limns the trajectory of a recognizably human life like our own. You can see Powers' study of Joyce in his preparation of the slow ascent to epiphanies, such as Fr. Joe Hackett's finessed blessing of a scruffy draft resister who steps to tie his shoelaces while the padre finagles praying over his head and out of eyesight or earshot as the young man prepares to flee to Canada, on the pastor's unspoken advice but according to his moral example.

Re-reading this nearly two decades after it appeared, I admire Powers' critique of not only the institutional Church and its compromises with the world, but of his own admission that holy Joes only go so far in their own zeal in battling for their losing side. They must do so, vowed to do so and called by their Maker, but Powers recognizes in his own mellowing how annoying piety and phariseeism can be for the rest of us. Not for nothing is an early battle Joe engages in at the seminary, much to the disgust of some classmates and the suspicion of his rector, over the necessity of wearing a hairshirt.

Constructed in part from stories written over the past (two of which appeared in the last of his three thin story collections, 1975's "Look How the Fish Live," the novel does let its seams show. I wonder if parts of this novel were left too long on the shelf, or in hibernation. Yet, this is how Powers wrote. Very slowly, spending days pondering if a character would use the term "pal" or "chum" in referring to a confrere. Such was his state of mind, and more power to him. Probably a patron saint of scrupulous writers, if he is canonized as he deserves! His friend and colleague Jon Hassler eulogized him as "a saint with a bad temper." Hassler notes how Powers could strain so long over a detail that a reader, even an informed one such as himself, might miss the very nuanced finesse.

The extended battle of the story that was "Bill" for Joe to learn his new curate's name appears tedious and unbelievable, a shaggy-dog tale after a few pages of the many devoted to this embarrassing and rather cryptic episode. The story earlier published as "Priestly Fellowship" enters the novel mostly unchanged, but again the dive into the post-Vatican II uproar appears muted, if perhaps less dated for its lack of topicality to specific changes so much as the persistent lack of clerical fidelity. Yet, as the novel lengthens, the episodes do build upon possibilities tucked into these two stories, and while they unfold in off-handed and perhaps overly-controlled fashion, they are truer to the texture of everyday life for being so controlled. Holiness comes, if at all, minutely slow. The lack of histrionics or forced symbolism remains despite the uneven pacing in his longer works Powers' greatest talent. Powers knew when and how indirect first-person voice carried his stories; his shift in and out of his protagonist's minds is at its best in the imagined reverie Joe lets himself into as he pitches in the yard with Bill to let off steam. As with Urban's similarly prosy--both exaggerated and ordinary-- temptation at Belleisle in "Morte," the priestly heroes let their deepest selves emerge when they pretend they are just like the rest of us. Powers, and we, know better.

A final word, quoted from one of his students in Commonweal on his death in 1999. In the novel, out of his collar on a much-needed vacation, Joe passes himself off at the hotel bar as working for a "big concern," in "life insurance." The firm? "Eternal." Sort of a multinational, he admits, although he works out of a local "branch office." Powers explained when asked in class why he wrote so much about the clergy, and if he was anticlerical. "I'm not anticlerical. I simply look for a story that elucidates truth. If a human being buys an insurance policy, that's not much of a story. But when a priest buys an insurance policy, there's something going on that needs to be said and I want to say it." It took him nearly fifty years to write it.

Anyone who has not read J.F. Powers is missing a major American voice in letters. This review will not be adequate to even speak of his skill.

Complete lives are sketched with the faintest of references, such as a family who the hero, Father Joe Hackett, brings from the city to remind his comfy parishioners of the trials of the poor (shades of the "holy poverty in the city" mantra so common from my youth). He tells their entire story with three unconnected lines sprinkled as a leitmotif throughout the narrative.

The hero's interior monologue is both revealing, and surprising. Throughout the novel faint points of challenges and grace (and simple, just-sufficient grace) carry the reader along with Father Joe's eventual conversion (rededication?). This is the story of a bumbling soul who eventually inhales the breath of the Divine.

Every person I've ever given a J.F. Powers book to has thanked me (Catholics and non-Catholics alike). Highly recommended, for this is monumentally great literature.

It is nothing short of a tragedy that more readers aren't familiar with J.F. Powers. This book is truly brilliant. Powers is at heart more craftsman than contemporary novelist, which is doubtless why he only published two novels. Wheat That Springeth Green is unlike anything else I've ever read. It's that rare novel that achieves perfection.

Joe Hackett, for all his faults, is one of the most fully-realized and sympathetic characters in contemporary fiction. As he matures, so does the book: from his hilariously overblown pretensions at the seminary, to his ennui and malaise as a pastor, to his subtly glorious final redemption.

In the final analysis, the book is not so much satire as fable about goodness. Despite being about the life of priests, the book is more a moral fable than a simply Catholic one: it's about how to do good in a world where it all seems futile. Joe Hackett is a cynic, but he's also at heart an idealist and optimist. So is J.F. Powers.

I read it in the early fall, a perfect time of year for me to read this sort of book, as it reminded me of my early years as a student at a Catholic elementary school in the suburbs. The book follows the life of a Catholic priest named Joe Hackett who struggles with faith and politics and more than anything else the shattering mundanity of his suburban life. Tree-lined streets, shopping malls, station wagons, vinyl siding, and wall to wall carpeting are Hackett's foils in a book that manages to be charming, melancholy, and very funny at the same time. Reading the book turned out to be a great way to spend a few September weeks. If anyone out there happened to enjoy The Sportswriter and Independence Day by Richard Ford, then you will enjoy this book as well.

The best of the series of books published by The New York Review of Books are all the works of J.F. Powers, who died in 1989. Powers' novels and stories are almost entirely concerned with Catholic clerical life in the midwest. I hadn't read his last novel, Wheat That Springeth Green, and I was happy to find that the new edition contained an introduction by the author's daughter, Katherine Powers. Wheat That Springeth Green is every bit as fine as Morte D'Urban, his first and only other novel written some 25 years earlier, and a National Book Award winner as well. In its treatment of character and plot the latter novel is theologically perhaps even more complex.

Joe's character is cast from the first pages: as a toddler he gets attention from his parents' friends merely for declaiming at a party "I go to church!" We also learn of his parents' antipathy towards the parish priest's intoning on the subject of the "Dollar-a-Sunday Club," an attitude that Joe will inherit, and which becomes a theme that will be played out in a number of surprising ways. We also sense something of his aloofness in these first chapters as well. He doesn't keep up with many friends, but he does seem to know the value in keeping up appearances: "Joe just smiled at Frances and everybody, so they couldn't tell how he really felt about being in the sack race..." Joe is a good athlete, even in grade school, and the race he really wants, but doesn't get, is the sprint.

Much of the story revolves around Joe's relation to money, so that even an early adventure (described in nearly pornographic detail) involving his first adult relations with women is later understood to be subsumed by his larger pecuniary obsessions. His sexual sins, or at least the memory of them, turn out to be something of a red herring: at the seminary he asks his instructor, "Father, how can we make sanctity as attractive as sex to the common man?" a question that (rightly) earns him nothing but mirth from his fellow seminarians. We are given hints that as Joe grows older he succeeds in overcoming his youthful scrupulosity. After a stint at Archdiocesan Charities he is assigned to the parish of St. Frances - a name shared by his childhood infatuation and a co-traveler in that youthful adventure. So as far as sex is concerned, there is in his maturity there a sense that all is right with Joe, if not the world. That this is the case is dramatically reinforced by the nearly hopeless entanglements of an ex-seminarian, some of which leads to misplaced retribution that Joe patiently, even faithfully endures. These episodes are magnificently structured, displaying in Joe's life a kind of fate that is worked out through choices made less in freedom than with a concern for propriety and in service to principles that are neither his own, nor of the church in which, as he says in other circumstances, he does so much hard time.

Other obstacles to holiness, as perhaps they always must, remain. Although his basic attitude is good, the reader realizes that the young Father Hackett has refused one halo in favor of another when he refuses to toady up to either the priest in his parish or to the archbishop in his archdiocese. Money matters are everywhere in evidence: the rectory built by Joe; bribes offered by parishoners; purses collected on behalf of retiring priests; inheritence; a collection drive that is farmed out to a private firm - in which Joe will take no part. All this points to beyond the contradiction in one man's character to a paradox that is funamental to our very being. How do we care for an abundance which is most fully ours when we least consider it our own?

Joe's misappropriation of his own nature, and indeed human nature, leads to a truly heinous transgression in one of the final chapters. That this transgression is committed and then resolved in secret, without comment from Joe or even the narrator, points toward a God who is as truly all merciful as he is unnoticed even by lesser beings working on his behalf. I would guess that the true thorn in Joe's side is also Powers', and while reading I several times wondered whether the crux of the story wasn't inspired by his frustration at watching baskets and plates passed through the pews, week in and week out, for a lifetime.

Very highly recommended.

I bought this book when (I'm ashamed to admit) McD's came out with Wizard of Oz toys. My 5yo wanted to know who all the characters were, and what they "say". She loved the artwork, pouring over each page to find each character. The book is so eloquent, it's not nearly as scary as the movie. Also, because she's just beginning to read I could gloss over scary parts or words. She has loved it! The day we finished it she wanted to start over and read a second time. I highly recommend for reading with your child!

I bought this book years ago and am looking for another copy as a gift. This edition is the entire MGM script (including the lyrics to the songs) of the 1939 movie and is is wonderfully illustrated with stills from the movie. My family has practically worn out this oversized book and we need another! My husband recently witnessed my daughter's new boyfriend reading along as they watched the movie because he knew we were just fans and he had better catch up! Our families favorite book!

I think that this is a very good book and it also helps me because I have to do a research project on childrens literature and I needed to get pictures of the wizard of Oz and Amazon.com took me right to it!! I was so happy and also I tried other book websites and could not even find a thing!!!

The imagery of the century-old text is superb, and Michael Hague does it a great service. I've been reading this edition to my five year-old son over the past several nights, and he lingers over each lovingly detailed illustration. I'm surprised The Wizard of Oz doesn't have more high-quality editions in print. This volume is a wonderful item to add to your child's library, or even to libraries of adults who enjoy children's books. Highly recommended.

Here's a trivia question for you. When Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the West by dropping her house on the witch, was the witch wearing (a) ruby slippers? (b) silver shoes? (c) both?

If you answered "both," you have the correct answer. L. Frank Baum's original story (found in this book) has magical silver shoes in it. The movie version of the story, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, had ruby slippers. Why the change? Well, ruby slippers film much better. So the Wicked Witch of the West wore both types of footwear, depending on whether you are reading the book or watching the movie.

I share that example with you because 9 people out of 10 have seen the movie, but never read the book. When I was a wee lad, I started in the opposite direction and was sorry to see how much of the Oz story was left out in the movie.

Now, you can make up for lost time by reading or rereading the original. I commend it to you for three primary reasons. First, the book version is built around the idea that the different parts of Oz cannot be easily traversed and the ensuing travel complications make for a better plot. Second, there are many more types of imaginative creatures in the book than in the movie. Third, the book has been lovingly enhanced by new illustrations done in turn of the 20th century style by Michael Hague. The illustrations encompass styles from immediately post van Gogh (yes, there are sunflowers) through Art Deco. I especially liked the water colors of gloomy and darkening skies.

If you are like me, you will chortle when you read L. Frank Baum's comment in the beginning that the story was "written solely to please children . . . a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained . . ." while the scary parts are left out. If you remember frightening moments, you are thinking about the movie. The book is much more gentle, which makes it more suitable for the youngsters. Yes, there are frightening villains, but they are quickly dispatched rather than being allowed to hang around to menace and frighten children just before bedtime. Still, children must have been braver in those days. This story is still scary enough for most to feel a deathly chill now and then.

Many of the ambiguities and confusing aspects of the movie are clearer and less disconcerting in the book, as well.

I won't go into a fine comparison of the two, because that will just spoil the plot for you. Do let me mention a few chapters that you will not recognize from the movie . . . just to whet your appetite for the book -- Away to the South, Attacked by the Fighting Trees, The Dainty China Country, and The Country of the Quadlings.

After you have finished enjoying the wonderful story and new illustrations, think about some of the lessons of the book. Notice that by teaming up, Dorothy and her friends could combine strengths to overcome individual weaknesses. This is the ultimate group of superheroes. How can you combine your talents with others so that all of you combined can accomplish vastly more than any one of you can individually?

Stay on the Yellow Brick Road with effective allies!

Oscar Rubio
December 12th, 2003
Book Report

I read a book written by A.E. Maxwell and Ivar Ruud, and it is called The Year-Long Day. This book is called this way since in the Arctic Circle a year seems like a day in terms of weather and light. This book is written in the form of a non-fiction book or narrative and its genre is considered to be travel-adventure. The book was published and copyrighted in 1976 in the United States of America. I will try to review and identify the topics covered in the book, which have made it so interesting to read.

The thesis of the book was to narrate the story of Ivar Ruud, a Norwegian who felt he could live in solitude with nature for one year, in a novel-like manner. He arrives in Spitzbergen Island, in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, slightly north of Norway. This is where it all begins. As his life unfolds, it becomes increasingly interesting because of the struggles he must go through in order to triumph or in some cases be let down by nature and himself sometimes. The true story becomes more amusing with the meticulous planning of every action, every little detail. A perfect example of this is the way he times the hunting season, so that if he were to shoot a seal it would be in winter when the water was dense and he could lift it into the boat before it sank, or the way he prioritizes what supplies should be stored and in what order to prevent wildlife and especially polar bears from getting to his cabin. The book clearly illustrates the type of person he is. Not everyone has the will and courage to live for one year in Hornsund Fjord, where sometimes he would be stuck in his cabin for days because he was snowed in, because he was being hunted by a polar bear, or because he woke up under the claws of one of those dwarfing creatures.

The story deals a lot with survival, courage, independence and more importantly, learning to change your way of life. There are many ways in which Ivar tries to keep his life normal. One of these is taking a years supply of newspaper, building a mailbox, and reading the year old news every day. Survival is another topic that is covered in the book and it is important because he knows what he must do, even if it hurts, even if it means not eating for a day. At one point in the book he shoots an 800 pound bearded seal and accidentally drops it into the water. Since the seal was tied by a rope, he decides to drag it 11 miles back to bird mountain cabin where he realizes there is no snow in the beach to drag it and is forced to let it go to waste. He also identifies the place as his by naming the landmarks himself, after his experiences, rather than using the official name. The book is divided into the different times of day and it explains the changes in the lifestyle that occur in each of them. Basically an example would be that the animals that can be hunted in the summer and vice-versa. This book had very interesting facts and is told in a way that it doesn't seem like a text book, but a novel.

I have reviewed and identified the topics covered in the book, which have made it so interesting to read. I would recommend this book to others very much even though it is the kind of book that people either can't stand or love. I identify more with the second type, since I think Svalbard is a beautiful place and I have also seen the cabins and other landmarks described in the book, I think it is even better. This can be vaguely seen in the pictures from the book. This book is not only entertaining, but also important. The book teaches a lot about geography, animal behavior, and human necessities as well as unconformities. The best thing of all is that it teaches all these things without facts; but rather, second hand experience. Everything in the book is described thoroughly, in ways that people understand and are convinced by, thus improving the effect on people. This book is without a doubt one of the best narratives I have ever read and I recommend it to whoever has the opportunity.

I read Year-LongDay over twelve year ago.As a matter of fact I read it twice.In the interim I've read hundreds of books and forgotten the authors and titles.I still remember the Year-LongDay and the effect it had on me.The memory of the two hunters meeting after almost a year of no human contact and happy when the day was over so they could return to their solitude. The best yarn I've ever read.A book that can be read,re-read and read again and still be enjoyed.

I spent a year in the Arctic while in the service and even though that is 30 years in the past I keep reading books like this about people who have the courage and strength to pit themselves against the forces of nature, sometimes winning other times losing, but always on their terms. My overwhelming feeling about the book is admiration for a man who has lived his life to the fullest.

I have been reading and re-reading this book since Junior high school (I'm 30 something now) and it never fails to provide hours of enjoyment. The descriptions and feelings of a man who loves and more importantly respects nature in all it's raw glory will move anyone who has ever taken a walk in a beautiful place to enjoy their surrounding. The tale is full of gentle observations of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances; a man who knows and loves his arctic world. It makes me want to go and see the arctic beauty, with nothing but a dog sled team and lots of warm clothing. Do yourself a favor and curl up with this wonderful book. It will allow you to glimpse life simplified to the bare essentials and all the wonder that comes with that process.

Ever since I got this book, I have been reading and rereading it about once every other month. To show you how good it is, my dad, before he gave it to me, gave it to a friend, who gave it to another friend, etc., etc. He didn't get it back until six years later when he had to hunt it down. This is a book anyone would love.

I bought this for my 12 y.o. niece last year and it was a hit - this year she'll be getting Okorafor-Mbachu's new novel for Christmas. I love that the main character is female. The themes and images in this book are strong and beautiful - reading it will stimulate your imagination.

Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu is a wonderfully written fairytale. This story is for anyone who would like to escape reality and jump back into their childhood made up of dreams and fantasies.

Zahrah is a thirteen year old girl with a rare gift which no one is entirely sure what she will be able to do. Born with vines growing in her hair, she has bee taunted beyond tears most of her life. Very shy, withdrawn with low self confidence and a deadly fear of heights she is about to find herself doing things she never would have remotely considered.

Dari is a fifteen year old boy and quite the daring adventurer. Always wanting to do the forbidden, his insatiable curiosity leads him into a life and death situation that will change forever how the people in his city look at life and what it has to offer.

The story starts off with our two characters supporting each other with their problems and how to deal with them. They are the best of friends and can share anything with each other without fear of ridicule or chance of gossip. They are indeed true friends beyond the sense of the word.

After Dari is attacked and left in a coma it is up to Zahrah to go into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle to find the one item that may save her friend from a possible permenant coma to quite likely death. Does she have the courage and stamina to accomplish such a task. This is something she is about to find out the hard way.

Relying on an out dated field guide Zahrah sets off to find her way through the Jungle braving all kinds of horrible creatures and plants, eating what is available and taking chances that she will not be poisoned in the process. She soon finds out that the field guide has only the basic information when it decides to give it and she must rely on her on intuition to help her accomplish something that has not been done by an adult in many years and has never been tried by a child.

The author has given us an amazing story of love, devotion and courage that it was a true delight to read. I can actually envision being a child in a village at dusk with an elder sitting there telling all the children of this marvelous tale. It is highly colorful, intriguing and encouraging to say the least. A delight for teens and adults this tale should not be missed.

Magical...creative...imaginative!!! In the traditional of exceptional young adult fantasy writers, Okorafor-Mbachu's debut novel represents the next generation of fantastical heroines. Okorafor-Mbachu creates a world where nothing is exactly what it appears to be, teaching us all that anything is possible and a young girl is capable of the wondrous. I urge every parent to share this treasure with their children and everyone else to share the fantasy too. Trust me folks, there is a lesson to be learned here!

Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu's book ZAHRAH THE WINDSEEKER introduces readers to the Ooni Kingdom and one of its residents, a young girl named Zahrah who becomes famous. Zahrah is a unique girl, she was born "dada." People who are dada have hair known as dada locks, which are similar to dreadlocks with vines that attach themselves to the locks and grow along with the hair. Zahrah considers her hair a curse, but, because it grows that way, there isn't much, aside from cutting them off, that she can do about it. People who are dada are also known to have special gifts; Zahrah's gift is that she is a Windseeker but she doesn't initially embrace or develop the gift. She is teased in school because she is dada, and her only real friend is a boy named Dari. Dari and Zahrah are always involved in one drama or another, but in an effort to help Zahrah cultivate her gift as a Windseeker, the two friends decide to go into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle, which of course they were not allowed to do. Their visits to the jungle eventually result in a tragedy that only Zahrah can fix, but she must find strength and courage in order to do so.

ZAHRAH THE WINDSEEKER is a wonderful book that teaches important lessons by example rather than explicitly. The plot is fast moving, unpredictable and engrossing. I love the way Zahrah transforms over the course of the story. In the beginning she was somewhat shy, afraid to take risks or stand up for herself, crippled by fear, and ashamed of the fact that she is dada. The journeys into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle change her; she learns to trust herself, appreciate her strengths, and most importantly she learns to have courage. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu has a fluid writing style that is filled with rich descriptions and vivid details. Her words brought the scenes to life and made it easy to visualize the events as they took place. I enjoyed the prominent role nature played in the book; from the dada locks (vines and all), to talking animals and buildings made entirely of plants. ZAHRAH THE WINDSEEKER is a unique book that young readers will enjoy, relate to, and be inspired by and I highly recommend it.

Reviewed by Stacey Seay
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

A real rarity, this book has a brain, a heart, and a soul. What I mean is this: it's intelegent without being boring, emotional without being sappy, and moral without being preachy.

If that weren't enough, it's also got a strong, smart female main character, which is a pleasant surprise in YA fantasy. The world that Zarah explores is unique and exciting. It reminded me of the books I enjoyed back when I was still a kid. Best of all, I enjoyed reading it, even though I am, technically, an adult these days.

This wonderful anthology contains some of the best short sci-fi tales of the pulp era. An excellent introduction to classic American speculative fiction. Not a klinker in the bunch.
2000x: The Proud Robot (Unabridged)2000x: The Marching Morons (Dramatized)2000x: By His Bootstraps (Dramatized)

Due to a combination of hard work, circumstance, and just plain old luck Raymond Healy was able to lock up the reprint rights to many of the best SF stories from the thirties and early forties. They range from what's considered to be the best SF story of all time (Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall") to my own favorite novella (John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"). Sure they're dated a bit but there's nevertheless a lot of reading pleasure to be found between it's two covers.

'Famous Science Fiction Stories' edited by Raymond J Healy and J Francis McComas was one of my very early hardcover book purchases. At the time, it was 'A Modern Library Giant' selling for $2.95 when this Random House series of inexpensive hardcover books was quite a bargain before the widespread publishing of trade and mass market paperbacks.

I must have read this book from cover to cover at least five times and I probably have read some of the better stories several more times. Other reviews recount all the many accolades the book and its stories have received. I will concentrate on my personal impressions.

I read this first when I would go through four or five similar collections of science fiction stories each summer from my local library. And yet, I would always come back to this volume as more satisfying than all the others.

These are all written before the days of Harlan Ellison, Phillip K. Dick, and Gene Wolfe when things were just a little more literal than they have become when we have become hemmed in by the limits of the speed of light, the Godel uncertainty principle and the unknowability of quantum physics.

I sense an urge to read these again and I envy you if you are coming to them for the first time.

Very highly recommended!

Dated? Of course -- this landmark collection came out in 1946. But "Adventures in Time and Space" defined Astounding magazine as the foundation of modern sci-fi and every single story in it has a twist, a sparkle and that elusive sense of wonder you just can't get any more because we, and science, and science-fiction, and maybe even dreams, have changed. Other good points: lots of humorous stories and passages; a nearly definitive selection of the now almost defunct genre of time-travel tales. If you think of these as uncommonly intelligent Saturday matinees on the page, there's nothing but hours of pleasure here. "Adventures in Time and Space" remains essential for anyone who wants to understand the full range of science fiction.

This is one of the best collections of science fiction short stories, novellas, and novelettes ever published. Originally released in August of 1946 as collection of 35 works from what are now considered the legends of science fiction. It was tied for 4th on the Arkham Survey in 1949 and the top rated book on the Astounding/Analog polls in 1952 and 1956. In 1966, 20 years after it was published, it was still rated as the 20th best science fiction book on the Astounding/Analog pole, and in 1999 it was ranked as the 3rd best SF anthology of all time.

Fourteen of the original 35 stories have also been long remembered by science fiction fans, including such stories as `Requiem' (Robert Heinlein), `Forgetfulness' (Don A. Stuart, a.k.a. John W. Campbell, Jr.), Nerves (Lester Del Rey), Black Destroyer (A.E. van Vogt), Nightfall (Isaac Asimov), and many more. One must be careful in purchasing this book to be sure to get the full collection. The second edition omits five of the stories, and there are several derivative collections that were released using the same or similar names. The original 35 story collection was republished in 1957 under the title `Famous Science Fiction Stories: Adventures in Time and Space.'

and you passed this series by, you would have been making a BIG mistake! I almost did, and I am so glad I didn't, since Tory and her involvements with the El Paso police dept. and a certain Detective Alvarez have been some really entertaining reading. The plots seem well described here on Amazon, so I won't add to it. Suffice to say that this is a well written series (you won't be cringing over the sentence structure with this author) with characters that are interesting and with depth. I will be watching for Aileen Schumacher and putting this series on my keeper shelf.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as I have her 2 others. Aileen's prose is very crisp, and enjoyable to read. The mix of the main character Tory's personal life (for instance, she is struggling with her 16 year old son noticing a girl for the first time) and the actual crime is well balanced. The characters have been developing over the series, and the relationship between Tory and David is fun to watch. The mystery unfolded nicely, certainly surprising me at the end.

I would recommend reading this series in order, because there is reference to the previous book (Framework for Death). But by all means, read it.

I polished off Affirmative Reaction by Aileen Schumacher in one day and thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, I am a big fan of hers anyway, but I think that each book gets better. This one had a great combination of humor and suspense and a great opening line: She figured it came down to a choice between going to work or committing murder.

Aileen switches emphasis between her main character and the man who would like to be her significant other. I love the shifting between the two though I know that such is not to everyone's taste. But it makes it much more believable to me on how this amateur detective gets involved in the homicides.

Highly recommended.

Affirmative Reaction is the third detective David Alvarez and Tory Travers mystery.

This time, it's Tory Travers turn to ask Detective Alvarez for help because someone wants her dead and seems at any cost. Ms. Travers finds a woman's body in a storm drain of an abandoned subdivision. The body turns out to be a city employee who was known for speaking out against affirmative action programs. The Hispanic contractor, who built the now abandoned subdivision, was thought to have committed suicide, but could it have really been murder too? David and Tory must go back into the past in search of answers they need in the present.

These characters are growing on me. I love the under current of romance between these two. They continue to work together and try to hide their feelings for each other. Be prepared to enjoy every minute of this book. I found it to be an Excellent Read.

Pam Stone

Fifteen years ago, affirmative action was coming into vogue, allowing Craig Diaz to expand his one person contracting firm into a large conglomerate. Craig was awarded the contract to build Monte Vista Heights, a hundred-acre development with a 350 home proposal. Craig also planned to run for city commissioner, a situation that alienated radical right wingers who prefer Hispanics to remain in their place. Craig's work sites were under harassment and the Monte Vista storm drains failed the test, forcing him into bankruptcy. Craig ultimately committed suicide.

In the present time, the engineering firm of Tory Travers is commissioned to determine the cost of bringing the Monte Vista project up to code. Tory inspects the site and realizes that the drains work properly. Just prior to a city run water test, Tory finds the body of a dead woman in one of the drains. Tory teems up with El Paso detective David Alvarez to uncover what happened to the victim, a bigot who had the power to deny permits to Diaz. The investigation shows the current crime links to the Diaz fiasco. Though many suspects surface, only one of them is willing to kill again to keep certain secrets buried.

The third "Travers-Alvarez" murder mystery (see ENGINEERED FOR MURDER and FRAMEWORK FOR MURDER) is a complex, often times humorous, and very entertaining novel. The relationship between the two protagonists boils to a new temperature high, but that does not stop them from professionally working to solve the homicide. Aileen Schumacher is a talented author who has cross appeal to romantic suspense fans as well as who-done-it readers. She is a rising star in both genres.

Harriet Klausner

This is the 4th work by Mr. John Banville that I have read, and I am nearly finished with his fifth. There is much that is factual about this writer, amongst these would be, his intellect, his range as a writer, and the competency he writes with while ranging through very different subject matter and material. As others have noted he is adept with metaphor. I feel his talent is not that he uses the device so frequently, but does so with such a subtle touch, it is more akin to absorbing his thoughts, as opposed to checking them off, or making a list.

This is easily the most difficult of his works that I have been through. This is not because he is vague, or style overrides substance. He is clear in what he says; placing it all into proper context and order is another matter. I do not suggest this book is an exercise in chaos. I do feel it is a reading experience that is in fact as far from definitive as the book jacket suggests it to be. Another reader has suggested that prior to reading this book that, "Ghosts", and "Book Of Evidence", should be read first. I am sufficiently unsure that I came away from the book with the Author's entire message, so if you can read the other two first, it may help.

Primarily written in the first person in the voice of, "Morrow", a new name to distance himself from a past, allows the reader to listen in as he recounts his period of time with, "A". At times we witness events in the present, but more frequently we are told of what has already taken place, what decisions were made and why. Just the explanation of how Morrow arrived at his new name will either bore you, or entice you into Mr. Banville's narrative style. For Morrow nearly everything is the result of, or likened to another, be it an event, a person, a name, or a moment in time. The relationships he devises are indicative not of a man who was an unsuccessful felon, but more of a mind bordering on that of an Oxford Don.

Regardless of how well educated our narrator is, he is also willing to engage in a relationship with "A" that evolves into what some may compare to Nabokov, although this time age is not the issue. And then there are the balance of the cast all that are creatures that might be termed, "Banvillian", just as Marley and Drood are classified Dickensian. Dickens players had their kinks just as Banville's do, although Banville's are closer to seriously bent than kinked.

The plot line that is sketched on the jacket of our Morrow and some paintings of dubious status together with a mention of "A" does not begin to explore the depths of this work. As has been the case with all the books I have read, his writing is so well constructed, his characters so well detailed, that even if the surface storyline is as far as you choose to go, you will be rewarded. However, to do so would cheat you, of all that is there to be interpreted, and all that is almost there, or almost definitively referred to.

This Author's more existential work may be more of an acquired taste, than, "Doctor Copernicus", or, "Kepler". In any event any reader who enjoys talented writing will find time well used that is spent with Mr. Banville's work.

Yet another book by John Banville that one can only characterise as a work of art - Why this is so is hard to explain to the uninitiate. Banville's prose is both subtle and oceanic. Above all, it is seductive. Things always seem to begin simply enough in his works. But, somewhere along the way, one is taken suddenly by the realisation that s/he is under the spell of a virtuoso, a master craftsman, nay, a magician of sorts who turns every subject that falls under his pen into a work of high literary art.

The plot, such as it is, has been covered by the other reviewers. I have just a couple addenda: I'm not so sure that this book and Ghosts are sequels, as such, to The Book of Evidence or if it's particularly important if they are. Banville's narrator, especially in Ghosts, is much-taken with the notion of multiple or parallel universes. That seems to me the best way to read these works, as following Mr. Montgomery into entirely different worlds. ----Also, a bit of a personal peeve, one wishes one could get through a Banville work without his using the term "flocculent" to describe everything from clouds to pubic hair (herein). But this is a quibble.

Below a couple citations of Banvillian prose here:

The light in the room, the colour of tarnished tin, was the light of childhood. I would see again afternoons like this in the far past and myself as a child at a window watching the day fail and the rooks settling in the high, bare trees and the rain like time itself drifting down. p.151

But this is how I want it to be, all smeary with tears and lymph and squirming spawn and glass-green mucus: my snail-trail. P.220

And so it is, a lulling, seductive, dark snail-trail of poetic prose to the narrator's beloved. Follow it!

I read this after "The Book of Evidence" had introduced Freddie Montgomery, in this sequel of sorts out of prison and under an assumed name continuing his forays into the art world's underworld. Descriptions of various paintings he analyzes in the style--at least in the first few--of a catalogue raisonne make for a challenge, as it forces you as the reader to imagine what FM conjures up by words from what he only sees as art. It makes for a great distancing effect, one that another novelist might have undercut if he had insisted upon including (cf. W.G. Sebald's entries of prose, postcard, photo within his similarly undefinable free-floating books of associations--the comparison is not meant to criticize Sebald) reproductions themselves.

This book's less witty, and brims less with black humor, than "The Book of Evidence." Reading it for the erotic bits would be akin to picking up Joyce's "Ulysses" or Beckett's prose for their sexual scenes. Like his Irish predecessors, Banville chooses to focus not on the act so much as the desire, and this makes for more elusive, if more realistic--a word not otherwise applicable to this mise-en-scene--sensation. You do hang suspended in the introspective, self-absorbed, obsessively ruminating realm that Freddie creates. Perhaps only the philosophically or aesthetically rarified few readers will persevere. Still, Booker Prize winner that Banville now is, perhaps more will make the effort to explore his past fictional landscapes of devotion and desolation.

The ending, as with many of Banville's novels since the 1990s, gives a twist, here only in the very last pages. It did surprise me a bit, but not that much, for Banville's narrator throughout's a slippery character among many just--if not more--as chameleonish. This does make for some imprecision that weakens slightly the storyline in its final resolution. This shape-shifting milieu I wished had been clarified a bit more than it is, and the welcome reappearance of Inspector Hackett is not as sustained as this character deserves. Yet on the whole, readers of Banville will be satisfied again by this installment. His character of Aunt Corky, in her slow decay, is as funny and as harrowing a figure as he has ever attempted to sketch out and then fill in on these pages.

As I have in my other responses via Amazon to Banville's books, I want to include a couple of my favorite snippets to show you his command of what he evokes in his spare but detailed style. First, as he delves into "this Bermuda Triangle of the soul," he addresses his appeal to A., the recipient of this book-length outpouring of longing. Freddie's extended letter of love and loss and lust, who represents the "ineffable mystery of the Other (I can hear your ribald snigger); that is what I have plunged into again as into a choked Sargasso Sea wherein I can never find my depth. In you I thought my feet at last would reach the sandy floor where I could wade weightlessly with bubbles kissing my shins and small things skittering under my slow-motion tread. Now it seems I was wrong, wrong again." (47)

Later as he recalls his embraces of A., now speaking to her as in the third person: "devouring her slowly, minutely, as in an enraptured cannibalism of the senses. How palely delicate she was. She glimmered. Her skin had a grainy, thick texture that at times, when she was out of sorts, or menstrual, I found excitingly unpleasant to the touch. Yes, it was always there, behind all the transports and the adoration, that faint, acrid, atavistic hint of disgust, waiting, and reminding. This I am convinced is what sex is, the anaesthetic that makes bearable the flesh of another. And we erect cathedrals upon it." (121)

Certainly the polarities of attraction and repulsion have been diagrammed in so many books for so many millennia, but here once more I believe Banville shows his skill in making such magnetism and rejection fresh and as powerful as they have been expressed in Joyce or--here especially--Beckett.

One common adage in books about writing is to "kill the babies," in other words, get rid of those eloquent and delicious similes or turns of phrase that are will arrest the reader and pull him or her out of the story. Well, Banville violates this principle left and right, much to the delight of at least this particular reader. There is hardly paragraph, much less a page, that does not stop you cold you with image or simile or metaphor or simply brilliant construction, and you gladly forgive him each and every time.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves the English language. It is written by someone who probably loves it even more.

Banville writes exquisitely. Athena should be read slowly, like a fine meal. Interested readers might be advised to read his Book of Evidence, then Ghosts, before turning to this one.

I enjoyed these three novels a lot. It was not a book that I might have selected for myself but had been recommended for me. I learnt a lot about the English character at the start of World War II and also about the reality of the encroaching war - its progress in a day-to-day basis especially in countries like Rumania and Greece had been quite obscure to me previously. The evil of the fascist States is always an approaching threat in these novels and yet its reality barely imposes on the Pringles - are they courageous or foolhardy? When a few of the many well crafted characters lose their life or disappear alarmingly, disappointingly, perhaps I realised that the extent of the characterisation had perhaps diminished the depth of characterisation - I didn't feel the pain as much as I thought I should have.

But I did feel Harriet Pringle's uncertainties as she comes to grips with how poorly she knew her new husband, Guy. How he was so honourable and sincere with everyone, but in many ways a failure as a husband. How she is attracted by friendships with others - women as well as men - and is encouraged in all those friendships by Guy. Does he see no risks in this? But mostly it is her loss of a kitten in Rumania, and the need to abandon a cat, that may have been lost anyway, in Greece that really hurt Harriet. 'The poor cat' she grieves as they have to flee at the end of the three novels.

I am sure that much of these novels is autobiographical and I trust that Olivia Manning did not distort history for dramatic reasons. That would be inexcusable for me. But I am unlikley to do the research to find out.

Olivia Manning has written a monumental work, for the first time really expressing what life was like for Romanians--and giving a sense of real history. While quite long, it is worth every word. I highly recomend it.

The Balkan Trilogy is a study of marriage, an atmospheric look at the Balkans in the days before and during The Second World War, and a wonderful ride through a living and breathing cast of characters.
If you are a plot-driven reader, then this book is not for you. But for those of us who can conjure up Bucharest in our heads, know Yaki's faults and foibles as if we had shared a drink with him a hundred times, and share Harriet's privations through war-torn Europe, it is a marvellous read.

I was very disappointed to see that this collection is out of print. I have read the trilogy several times and always found something new to admire. Ms. Manning is very adept at illuminating the communications and mis-communications of marriage and politics. These novels balance emotional life and political effect very well and they work on many levels. I hope it is back in print soon so I can continue to press it on friends without relinquishing my worn copy.

I read this trilogy, in the Penguin edition, as the first volume of Olivia Manning's "Fortunes of War". Composed of three novels, it narrates the evolution and growth of Harriet Pringle, from a young, unworldly and hopeful newlywed, to self aware, disillusioned, but profoundly humane cosmopolitan who wearily flees the German advance against the backdrop of WWII in southern Europe.

We meet the main character (Harriet, from whose point of view we see everyting)as she has recently married and is travelling, in the company of her husband, Guy, to Bucharest. WWII has just begun, and the young British couple finds many alarming signs of this in their way to the country where they intend to spend some time, since Guy has a teaching post there.

As we get to know them while they settle in Bucharest, we can see how Harriet and Guy are totally different in personality: while Guy is idealistic, open and gregarious, Harriet is reserved, not very talkative and even suspicious. These differences become apparent for them, as well as for those who know them, creating tension and misunderstandings in their married life. Harriet doesn't understand why Guy seems to love to be with everybody, and have a good time on top of that, and spends so little time with her. He also cares about everybody's problems except her own (she doesn't bother to give a clue about them, but anyway expects him to at least look interested).

All this would seem ordinary, boring, married life stuff,..... except that the setting is the very troubled Europe of the war.I also think Harriet's thinking and feeling processes are quite likely and credible: we tend to see ourselves, in the middle of our misfortune and unhappiness, as the centre of the world, even when shattering, but vague and general, events sorround us. Harriet does indeed seem more interested in the obnoxiousness of her husband's behaviour than in the real tragic and dangerous situation they are in. For, even though Romanian people assure them that they are in a safe country,allied of the Germans, events begin to tell otherwise. Harriet, however, is not as much interested in historic events as in her discovery of the very real differences in character and disposition that seem to distance her from her husband or, even more surprising for her, the sudden realization of how interesting and worth of affection some of the people she meets in Bucharest are. This latter, the fact that she can feel authentic, deep affection for total strangers with whom she doesn't share anything (culture, language, age, background...) makes her worry more about the real possibilities of success her marriage has....while it also teaches her how there is a human core in herself and others, even in the middle of chaos and tragedy, that makes human connectedness possible. On the other hand, this device makes us acquainted with truly fascinatig characters, tridimensional, charming and lovable with flaws and all.

But she has to leave Bucharest in a hurry, as well as her new friends, for Greece. The Germans are sweeping over Europe. And this is the greatest charm of the trilogy: the depiction of the very last days, the agony throes one could say, of a whole world and view of life; the decadence of the old European society, torn between two visions of the world that will ultimately destroy it: fascism and comunism. Harriet's husband, Guy, likes this latter vision and, sadly and ironically, is devoted to spreading the greatest works of European culture, just in the eve of this culture's destruction through the attrocities of war.

It is a great triumph of the author that, in spite of the highly tragical, chaotic and emotional times the story is set in, she manages to convey the story in a very emotionally-controlled, sometimes even detached, way. This must be really difficult when writing about a young British couple, far from home and family, who flees the German advance in Europe. But the point of view chosen -that of a character who is really in the middle of the important, life-affirming process, of learning about herself and the world: how she can care and feel affection for other people, all kinds of people (learning to love), and who is getting to lower her expectations of what she should get in return for her affection- , diffuses the impact of the times and, through the very personal vision of the character, makes us have some hope and faith in the humanity of people.

There is a sequel to this trilogy, although not so long, that tells about Harriet and Guy after they have to leave Greece for Egypt: The Levant Trilogy. I recomend both. They convey a very good idea of the world and way of life that died with WWII.