THE SNAKEWOMAN OF LITTLE EGYPT by Robert Hellenga

Robert Hellenga had me spellbound with his first novel, THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES. It is one of the most fascinating and sensuous books I’ve ever read. His most recent book, THE SNAKEWOMAN OF LITTLE EGYPT, does not quite come up to his first novel. However, he presents the reader with fascinating subject matter and some very erotic writing.

November 13, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Reading Guide, US Midwest

THE CONVENT by Panos Karnezis

n his latest book, THE CONVENT, Panos Karnezis hints at the ambiguity that underlies religious faith in the first sentence: Those who God wishes to destroy he first makes mad. (Does he mean mad as in furious? Or does God drive the damned crazy, first?) And so, when a baby boy appears in a suitcase on the doorstep of an isolated Spanish convent a few paragraphs later, I was ready to be led through an oscillating narrative (is he or isn’t he a miracle?), that explored the tensions between faith and reason, independence and obedience, progress and stasis inherent to organized religion. Unfortunately, that’s not the tale Karnezis delivers…

November 8, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Spain, World Lit

THE INVISIBLE MOUNTAIN by Carolina de Robertis

THE INVISIBLE MOUNTAIN is a gem of a novel, grounded in actual history, with a dollop of magical realism, a splash of Dickensian coincidence, with some forbidden romance and political intrigue added to the mix.

The novel opens at the turn of the 20th century in a remote Uruguayan village, when a baby is spirited away and then reappears, a year later, unharmed in the branches of a tree. The young one is named Pajarita – translated to little bird – and the narrative, divided into three sections, sequentially focuses on her, her daughter Eva, and her granddaughter Salome.

October 9, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Debut Novel, Facing History, Latin American/Caribbean, Reading Guide, South America

C by Tom McCarthy

Tom McCarthy’s latest novel, C, is a strange book that, without the draw of a gripping plot or the pathos of interesting, well-rounded characters, somehow manages to intrigue all the same. Perhaps the appeal lies in McCarthy’s haunting prose. Or, perhaps it’s the unshakeable feeling that underneath it all – underneath the layered ideas – there’s a message of sorts, a message as profound as it is ephemeral: just as you think you’ve figured it all out, it escapes you. Whatever the reason, C, while far from perfect, is a bizarrely captivating book.

September 26, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Literary, Reading Guide, United Kingdom

THE POST OFFICE GIRL by Stefan Zweig

Christine Hoflehner, the postmistress in a small village in Austria, seems an unlikely Cinderella. Coming of age in the crippling poverty prevalent in Austria after the First World War, she is now twenty-six, barely holding out on her meager salary as a state employee, without social life, without future. But then a fairy godmother appears in the form of an aunt who has married well in America, who invites her to stay with them at a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. Once there, she lends her fashionable clothes, buys her expensive accessories, and takes her to a beauty salon to complete the transformation. Drab no longer, Christine is now the belle of the ball, courted by the rich and titled of several nations. It takes a week or more before her personal clock strikes midnight, but when it does and she flees home in shame, she can no longer be content with the humdrum life she had left behind. This becomes the story of a Cinderella after the ball, with no prince to appear with the glass slipper.

September 20, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Austria, Classic, World Lit

HOMER & LANGLEY by E. L. Doctorow

As one reads HOMER & LANGLEY and is swept along on its strange tide, one tries to raise one’s head intermittently to admire the craft. But that craft is, like the shoes made by the elves in story, so seamless, so perfect, that it’s hard to grasp until one is deposited on the other shore and left to linger for a while.

The novel uses the theme of the real-life case of the Collyer brothers, Homer and Langley Collyer, who lived on 5th Avenue in New York from the 1880s to 1947. A case of great notoriety, the brothers (suffering from extreme compulsive hoarding disorder) effectively mewed themselves up within their house. Over the decades this filled with newspapers, collections of mainly non-functional items, and garbage. They disassociated themselves from the outside world to the extent that their electricity and water supplies were cut off – a situation they did not attempt to rectify. After their death (caused directly by the accumulated items within the house), over 100 tons of hoarded rubbish were removed from the house.

September 6, 2010 · Judi Clark · 2 Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Facing History, New York City, y Award Winning Author