An Object of Beauty

 An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

Daniel Franks, art writer, narrates his story of Lacey Yeager, art lover, who begins her career with a job in the basement of Sotheby's auction house, then works her way up to dealer and gallery owner. 

Lacey is smart, beautiful, and ambitious. She wants to be one of the big players in the art world and will risk breaking the rules to achieve that end, no matter the possible consequences to herself or others. Not very likeable, she's...well...a lot.

Daniel is not in the story often, just enough to show us he's smitten with Lacey and doesn't stand a chance. We don't really get to know him as anything other than Lacey's rather sad friend who can't seem to win for losing. 

I found the narration odd. Daniel begins in the first person then veers into a third person viewpoint telling us about Lacey's life in detail. Things he couldn't possibly know - her thoughts, what she said on phone calls, and minute details of her sexual encounters with other men. Then he abruptly switches back to the first person making it feel creepy, as if he'd been standing in the corner watching.  

What drew me to the book was the artsy setting and Steve Martin's name. I knew him only as actor/comedian and was curious to see what kind of writer he is. I'd only been reading a few minutes when I knew I'd like it. He's smart and witty and great fun to read. These lines from the first page made me eager to read the rest.

"My goal, once I discovered that my artistic aspirations were not accompanied by artistic talent, was to learn to write about art with effortless clarity. This is not as easy as it sounds: whenever I attempted it, I found myself in a convoluted rhetorical tangle from which there was no exit."

What I liked best about this book was getting a glimpse at how the art business operates - the buying and selling, the wheeling and dealing as stock market ups and downs affected the trade. I love a book that takes me into a world I know nothing about and shows me how it works.

Writing...check, setting...check, characters.....no, they left me cold. It was like visiting a gallery. I viewed the art (literally - there are reproductions throughout the novel), listened to people discussing it, and met a few of those people. But they all stayed very much just passing acquaintances, glossy characters who didn't inspire any emotional investment on my part. Nevertheless, this was a fun dive into the art world with enjoyable writing, very much worth reading  

Clara and Mr. Tiffany

 Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

A fictional account of a true story. There was an actual Clara Driscoll who worked with Tiffany for years, designing the stained glass lamps that brought Louis Comfort Tiffany fame and for a time, fortune. Susan Vreeland highlights Clara's unrecognized contributions to the design and creation of Tiffany's iconic lamps and windows and her determined attempts to get women organized and fighting for fair treatment in the workplace. The existing union welcomed men only because women didn't need jobs, her proper place being in the home.

Clara worked at the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company for a while until she got married and, in compliance with company policy, had to leave. The story opens a few weeks later when, single again, she went back to see if they'd rehire her. They did, and put her in charge of a women's section they were looking to expand because Tiffany firmly believed "women have greater sensitivity to nuances of color than men do." He saw their talent, but took credit for their work himself; this book doesn't paint him in a flattering light at all.

Clara's personal life with friends at her boarding house together with her work life with other female artisans at the studio all made for a good story, but Clara herself wasn't an endearing character. She seemed a little too full of herself. and her need for recognition and special attention from her boss was mentioned often enough to become tedious. 

Still, I enjoyed the book for its setting in the stained-glass industry. Learning a little about the different types of glass, why they select certain colours for specific projects, and how it's assembled in the leaded setting made this a very satisfying read. For me the art itself is the main character, and it's what I'll take with me from this one. 

Yours, Jack and The Night Circus

  Yours, Jack by C.S. Lewis

A wonderful collection of readings taken from Lewis's letters. He is known to have answered personally every letter received from his readers which must have taken up a great deal of his time, yet his insightful replies show he considered each question and comment worthy of a thoughtful response.

 

I've long admired Lewis as an author and a teacher, but having read this book I think I understand him better now as a human being, one who struggled as the rest of us do to live up to our beliefs. He lived with health problems, family difficulties, frustrations and unanswered questions...in short, he was one of us. 

Full of practical observations and encouragement in Lewis's refreshingly clear, honest writing, this book is one to be absorbed a little at a time, then returned to again and again. A treasure.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Full of magic and mystery, the Night Circus appears in your neighbourhood suddenly and unannounced with acrobats, magicians, fortune-tellers and other wonders for the entertainment of all, but something else is going on behind the scenes. It's this insidious something else that ruined the magic for me. I can't see the circus - and thus the book - as fun and whimsical when the purpose behind it is to cold-bloodedly pit two young people against each other in a competition that must lead to death for one of them. Everyone loves this book, but the malevolence behind all the pretty things took the fun out of it for me.

The Last Equation of Isaac Severy

The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs

Three narrators tell this story:

1 - Hazel Severy, proprietor of a failing bookshop in Seattle, in L.A. for her adoptive grandfather Isaac's funeral. Isaac, a brilliant mathematician, had left behind a cryptic message for Hazel to unravel. It would lead to further clues and eventually to a secret project of Isaac's that he instructed Hazel to destroy, telling no one. 

 

2 - Isaac's son, Philip, a physics professor whose work showed promise at one time but hasn't impressed anyone since. He's weighed down by his father's disappointment in him, and now his own in himself. 

3 - Gregory, Hazel's brother, a police detective carrying a lot of anger from childhood abuse. What he's been doing with that anger is a secret that seems almost out of place in this story.

I love books set in academia with lots of math and literature references. You don't have to understand them all (and I don't) to get the gist but it's fun to come across one you recognize now and then.  Many of the clues here that Hazel must solve to find her grandfather's work are mathematical. 

The Severy family are brainy types other than Hazel and Gregory who are more like the rest of us lesser mortals. They are Isaac's adopted children, taken in after their foster father, Isaac's son, Tom, was found to be criminally abusive to the children and sent to jail. Tom has just completed his sentence and been released, and now Gregory is watching his every move.

I enjoyed the mystery around Isaac's secret work and the clues Hazel followed to find it, but the story lacked the tension needed to make it a real page-turner. I wish it had gone into more depth about the equation (the one in the title, the end result of his secret project), about the people who wanted it and the unsettling plans they had for it. I have so many questions. Gregory's part of the story, too, was unsettling. It's too much, too big to be thrown in as a sub-plot. I'd love to read a second book that goes deeper into his story as well as expanding upon the purpose and impact of the equation.

I don't think it quite lives up to its potential, but I liked it and would probably read it again to look for things I'm sure I missed the first time.    

The Calamity Club

 The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Meg, 11, lives in an orphanage run by the miserable, sanctimonious Garnett Wylie. Meg's mother, Charlie, had gone to the store one day and never returned, leaving Meg alone for days until the local doctor, Everett Wylie, found her and took her to the orphanage where he believed she would be better off, or at any rate fed and watched over. The Dr. doesn't know that his wife, Garnett, hates Meg - for reasons that will be revealed later - and deliberately mistreats her every chance she gets. 

When Meg is adopted by a well-to-do family, Garnett is furious and works to get her sent back so she can continue her abuse. Meg's adoptive parents are Lucille, a spoiled brat of a mother, and Robert, a kind, affectionate man Meg comes to love. Robert's parents are supporting them financially while he's finishing the novel he's writing, hopeful that it will get published and earn him an income. But Lucille doesn't like the waiting; she wants more - clothes, entertainment, everything - right now and isn't opposed to lying and cheating to get them. Having adopted Meg under false pretenses, their already rocky marriage unravels until it looks like Meg may have to be returned to the orphanage after all.

 In another story line, Birdie, a young woman who has left her impoverished family for a few days to visit her married sister, Francine, is hoping to secure a loan from her well-to-do brother-in-law. Francine works at the orphanage and gets Birdie to help out in the office there, where Birdie and Meg become friends. She ends up staying much longer than first anticipated when it's revealed that Francine's husband has been hiding financial and personal problems for some time. As the pressure on him becomes overwhelming he runs away, taking most of their valuables with him and leaving them destitute. 

 When Francine and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Tartt, in whose home they live, realize the extent of their debts and face losing the house, they decide to earn money by opening a dance club, offering lessons to local college boys. By this point Charlie - Meg's mother - has returned with a tragic story of why she left so suddenly. It was through no choice of her own and her one goal now is to earn enough to find Meg and take her away. Charlie stays at the Tartt's home with Birdie, both of them taking care of Mrs. Tartt and Francine who are unaccustomed to looking after - or waiting on - themselves. 

 At this point the story takes an unlikely turn. The dance club is to be a cover for something much seedier, not to mention illegal. Let's just say Mrs. Tartt's name becomes appropriate to the enterprise. It was hard to take quite seriously the new rather outlandish characters and dialogue, even the fact that they would come up with such a plan at all. But then who knows what a person would do given such extreme circumstances. Desperate times, as they say, require desperate measures. 

The plot is full of twists and turns, a definite page-turner. It's a tome at over 600 pages, but an easy read and those pages flipped by much quicker than anticipated. 

 A good story as long as you don't question too much.  

A Likely Story

 A Likely Story by Leigh McMullan Abramson

A story of a woman who wrote a novel, had it rejected by publishers, and then fell into a lengthy writing slump. Not an uncommon scenario for hopeful writers, but in this case it all plays out in front of a keenly interested public because her father is a successful, world famous author. The press keeps her failure alive as a matter of gossip. 

When her mother dies and she's sorting through her belongings, she comes across a half-finished manuscript. It's good, in fact very good. Should she dare to finish it and pass it off as her own? If it got published maybe it would change the public's  perception of her, and she might finally live up to her father's expectations. 

What she doesn't know is that her father has been keeping a secret, something utterly selfish and cruel he did years ago that changed the course of her life. When that comes to light, it will change everything.

A good story, with a father you'll be happy to hate.