The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar

 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Roald Dahl

A strange little story about a man who learned to see through things - blindfolds, closed eyelids, etc. He practiced for years the art of concentrating on a single object until eventually he could read a playing card laying face down on a table. At first it seemed an easy way to make money so he went to casinos, winning every game he played but carefully limiting himself at each location so as not to arouse suspicion.

He found the mere accumulation of wealth not very interesting when there was no challenge to it, so he looked for a purpose and found one in establishing and funding orphanages around the world. He hired a financial officer to take care of the money and handle the business end of things while he took to wearing various disguises so he could continue to gamble and win the funds needed to support the cause. This is how he lived the remainder of his life.

I listened to a very good audio version (2 hrs, 16 mins) narrated by Martin Jarvis. It’s odd - it is Roald Dahl - and kind of mesmerizing. Henry is…or at least, becomes…an appealing character, the plot is truly unique, and the story is well told. I’m about to watch the short film with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role and am curious to see how he interprets Henry.    

Quirky and satisfying; it made me smile.      

Wives And Daughters

 Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

When young Molly is invited to visit a neighbouring family for a few days, her father, Dr. Gibson, permits it, and so begins a relationship between the two families which will have consequences happy and sad for both.

Molly and her father are alone since her mother’s death and Molly grows attached to Mrs. Hamley. With the Hamley's sons away at school, they delight in the youthful energy Molly brings to their home again. 

When Mr. Hamley remarks to the doctor that Molly should have a mother to guide her as she grows to womanhood, he takes the advice seriously and begins looking around. The pickings are slim but he chooses a local widow, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, whom he believes will be a good mother to his daughter, and so, much to Molly's dismay, they are married. His choice turns out to be less than ideal but they all muddle along as best they can.

Clare Kirkpatrick brings with her to the marriage a daughter, the beautiful Cynthia, who doesn’t always make the wisest decisions but usually means well and becomes a much loved sister to Molly. When the Hamley boys, Osborne and Roger, come home from school, one is concealing from his father the fact that he has married a girl his family would never approve of and that they are expecting a child, and the other embarks on an ill-fated romance with one of the Gibson girls. The unexpected death of one of the young people affects both families deeply, but by the end of the book they all sort themselves out and Molly gets the happy ending the reader wants her to have.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and would have loved it for its language and narration even if it hadn’t had a good story. The audio version I listened to was nearly 27 hours long but was so beautifully read by Josephine Bailey that I wished there was more of it. I love the elegance of nineteenth century English in novels written before we started filling them with slang and swear words and such. It was a relief and a joy to sink into this one and hear it spoken with such grace. 

      

A Year of Living Prayerfully

 A Year of Living Prayerfully by Jared Brock

I honestly wasn't looking forward to reading this. My prayer life had been in a rut for some time and I figured it would be page after page of guilt, but no. It gave me a new perspective, a next step. I learned a great deal from it, and then, not wanting to forget the things he said that spoke so clearly to me, I read it again. Now I'm taking notes from all the parts I underlined. Half the book must be underlined by now and the next time I read it I'll probably underline the other half.

Jared Brock spent a year traveling the world and examining the prayer practices of various faiths. His goal was to learn what prayer meant to them and see how they communicated with God. As much as possible he wanted to experience prayer the way they did. He met with Hasidic Jews in New York, Quakers in Maryland, visited churches in Israel, stayed at a monastery in Greece and a Taizé community in France, and met the Pope at the Vatican. He offended North Korean authorities by not bowing to a picture of their leader, got caught in a hurricane at the end of the Camino de Compostela, visited a nudist church in Virginia, and asked the people at Westboro Baptist why they do the things they do. A roller-coaster of experiences.

His openness to new experiences and respect for people who believe differently than he does took him into situations and communities he might otherwise never have found and never benefitted from their teachings. The things he learned about silence and what it means to pray without words all came as a breath of fresh air to me. Here are some of his own thoughts and what he was taught by others that made, and continue to make, a difference for me:  

"God doesn't need our praise at all. We need it. We need the reminder."

"But prayer isn't a mind game; it's not a pseudo-scientific technique for achieving success in life. It's a deeply intimate form of communication with the Lover of our souls. Prayer isn't about self-improvement. We don't 'gain confidence'; we enter God's.....Prayer can get us through the fiery seasons of life, but it's not the prayer that gets us through - it's the God who's willing to carry us..."

"The third prayer practice is called examen,' he answered. 'You do it in the evenings, and it's a way of going back through your day and seeing where God was at work in your life. God is calling us all day, but we don't usually pick up. Examen is like checking voice mail."

"When I pray for salvation for people far from God, I imagine I'm bowing beside Jesus, and together we're presenting each precious name to the father."

"'I love God as much as the person I love the least.' This idea has really convicted me. I started holding my 'enemies' in the light, and now I love them."

"Fasting helps to express, to deepen, and to confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, to sacrifice ourselves, to attain what we seek for the Kingdom of God...Prayer is the reaching out after God and the unseen; fasting, the letting go of all that is seen and temporal."

A Year of Living Prayerfully is a lively story and an entertaining read, but more than that, it's a way of looking at prayer that has enriched my prayer life and deepened my relationship with God. 

Thank-you, Jared Brock. 

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

 The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Life is quiet at a women's boarding house in New York until Grace moves into the tiny room at the top of the house. She brings light and life that seeps into the very bones of the house and changes all - or almost all - those living there. 

One by one she invites them to join her for supper in her room until they are all gathering regularly, cooking for each other, sharing their stories and forming bonds. It sounds cozy, but this is not that kind of book. They all have pasts and secrets that will come to light in surprising scenes of intimacy and violence. It gave me several "Well, I was not expecting that." moments. 

The book is structured so that each character gets a chapter to tell their own story, but the overall story continues to advance through each one, flowing beautifully without gaps or repetition. Great writing, and character building; they are all believable and uniquely interesting, if not always likeable. I wished some of their stories were longer so I could know what happens to them later. A separate book could be written about each one.

At the end of the chapters is a recipe for one of the dishes served at Grace's suppers, with a suggestion of whom to eat it with and what song to listen to as you do. I tried a few of the recipes - the fried bananas in rum are great - and looked up all the music. The songs are from the 40s and 50s, sung by Tony Bennet, Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Rosemary Clooney, and other artists of the day. I recommend listening and reading at the same time because the music really sets the tone, and each song reflects a specific woman's situation in the book. If The Briar Club is ever made into a movie it's going to have a terrific soundtrack. 

 One more thing - the house itself narrates a short chapter here and there, which gives a different perspective on things. It's strange but it works. 

I like this house, and this story, and this writer. 

Seven Steeples

 Seven Steeples by Sarah Baume

A beautifully written story about...well, very little. Bell (Isabel) and Sigh (Simon) leave the city to live in a remote area of Ireland, cutting ties with family, friends and everything else connecting them to their old life. Their cottage looks out on a mountain they promise to climb, but time slips by and eight years pass before they finally get to it. 

In the meantime they go for walks with their dogs, taking note everyday of the changes in the natural world around them. They swim, go to town now and then for groceries, and occasionally tidy up the clutter resulting from their almost unbelievably laid-back lifestyle. They don't have jobs but live on welfare cheques, and as self-proclaimed misanthropes, they avoid human contact with anyone but each other. 

That's what there is of plot. As for character development, well...by the end of the book we know the dogs better than Bell and Sigh. There's something un-solid about them, like we're looking at faded pictures rather than real people. They seem indecisive and unconnected to reality as their home and surroundings fall into disrepair, and then ruin, around them. It's hard to relate to them, and we don't see any dialogue between the two so it's hard to see even how they relate to each other. The dogs, however, are disconcertingly real and described so thoroughly they are practically the main characters.  

But, the writing is lovely. Described elsewhere as a prose-poem, it does have the look and feel of poetry. End sentences of paragraphs leave words and phrases scattered about, giving individual words more impact and setting a mood - sometimes poignant, sometimes slightly sinister - that infuses the whole book 

As I came to the end, I thought it was quite brave to tell a story this way but that it only worked to a point. What it didn't do was tell much of a story, nothing very memorable anyway. We watch everything deteriorate around two people who could do something about it, but don't. I found it incredibly sad. 

Spoiler...

Then this happened: at the very end, from the top of the mountain they have finally climbed, they look back and see something so unexpected that you have to reconsider everything you've read up to now. You must decide for yourself what it means, but other reviews have suggested it might be a ghost story, or perhaps the two characters have merged into one. Since the latter is a lovely thought but impossible, I'm leaning toward the ghost theory. The more I think about it, the more that makes sense and the more I like a book that I didn't like much at all an hour ago. I think I have to read it again now from a whole new perspective. 

The Invisible Man

 The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

I'd never read H.G. Wells but had heard about the notorious radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, and seen movies made from that book and The Island of Dr. Moreau. I wanted to watch the Elizabeth Moss movie based on The Invisible Man but thought I should read the book first, only to find out the movie is only loosely based on the book and isn't the same story at all. 

The book being 128 years old I expect most people know how the story ends, but in case you don't, spoiler ahead...

A scientist, in an experiment gone horribly wrong, is shocked to find himself becoming invisible. But he soon realizes there are pros and cons to his condition - he can go anywhere unseen, but any clothes he wears are visible. And it's winter, so walking around naked can get uncomfortably chilly. Another unexpected hindrance to sneaking around is that any food he eats, or anything he picks up to carry, can be seen, revealing his location to anyone watching. Still, the pros outweigh the cons and he comes to like, and then need, the control invisibility gives him over others. Eventually his desire for power consumes him and leads to his demise.

I wasn't keen on the narration of the audio book I listened to. Edward James Beesley was very expressive, almost too much so, but then maybe it was suitable for the story and the time it was set in. I just like things a little more subtle; I might have liked it better had I read it.