The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

This is a mystery with an 11 year old girl narrator who is a bit of a prodigy in Chemistry. She lives in a moldering old British estate with two older sisters and a distant stamp collecting father. A dead body shows up in the garden and she decides to investigate. It's quite enjoyable in a Nancy Drew sort of way. Although her voice is way older than her years she stills acts like a child whizzing along on her bike to sleuth. Her bike has a name which reminds me of when I was young and my bike was an extension of myself, a character in my stories. She is constantly plotting rather sophisticated chemical mischief against her sisters which I would never had been intellectually capable of (although I hasten to add I am sure I would have been morally capable!) which is fun to read and the mystery unfolds quite nicely with only a few characters to keep track of and suspect.

More Lucia

I read another M.C. Beaton Agatha Raisin mystery. Not sure why since, while I like the character, I do not like her writing, I think she pops out a couple of these a year and it shows. The writing is very sloppy. At the library the librarian -----dare I say it?----coo'ed when she saw them. It turns out she loves them and all her friends do too. I started protesting how poorly written they were but since I stood there checking out two more I felt the firm ground beneath my argument shifting. 'Perfect for when you're sick' I tried backtracking weakly. I coughed discreetly into the crook of my elbow as we have been instructed to do. The librarian looked away in distaste. I won't be invited to join her bookclub.
One good thing about Agatha Raisin is she's like a flu shot, over quickly and I moved back to my beloved Lucia. It is the last one and I think I am glad since although they are quite fun, as Georgie says so much arch dialogue can be a bit "tarsome". Like reading too much Woodehouse.

Mapp and Lucia

These books by E. F .Benson are hilariously funny. Like P.G. Woodehose only with middle aged women and without the painfully funny language. Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline Lucas (called Lucia) are social rivals in the small town of Tilling. Neither will concede the upper hand and the books Mapp and Lucia and Make Way for Lucia are all about their endless competition for supremacy. Mapp is a stubborn, narrow minded little woman while Lucia is, while more open minded, quite a snob and fake. There are about 6-7 other main characaters who are in their orbit.

One is Georgie, Lucia's best friend who is ridiculously vain with an auburn toupee, and lots of costumey little capes and outfits, but also rather touchingly devoted to Lucia and the excitement she brings to life. They speak a very affected and made-up 'Italian' to each other and are almost unmasked as fakes when an Italian countess comes to town. Lucia is always coming up with new schemes with Georgie in tow: " for the spark was lit now, and it went roaring through her fertile brain like a prairie fire in a high gale".

A vaguely aristocratic snobby couple the Wyses' spend most of the books driving up and down the narrow streets of Tilling in an enormous Rolls Royce. "when the party broke up Mrs. Wyse begged him to allow her to give him a lift in the Royce, but as this would entail a turning of that majestic car, which would take at least five minutes followed by a long drive for them round the church square and down into the High Street and up again to Porpoise Street, he adventured forth on foot for his walk of thirty yards and arrived with undue fatigue." One woman is always referred to as "quaint Irene", quaint apparently being code for "lesbian". Major Benjy is always sneaking a nip of alcohol and yelling "Quai Hi!!!!" (left over from his army days) when he wants the servants.

The BBC made a wonderful television series of the books with Prunella Scales as Mapp and Nigel Hawthorne as a very camp Georgie. Equally as enjoyable.

Flush the Twilit

I finally read Twilight after half of America had already clutched it sobbing to their collective heaving bosoms. Basically it's one long heaving flushed bosom of a novel...all 'ragged breaths' and 'muffled oaths' and 'smoldering glances'. It's as if Nicholson Baker's Mezzanine were re-written by a 17 year old girl who dozed off in Biology class. Mezzanine is that entire book written about Mr. Baker's trip to the lobby of his building to buy shoelaces. Twilight is one long uninterrupted passionate eye lock between Bella and her vampire boyfriend Edward. I'd rather go buy some more shoelaces.

I Don't Believe I Do

I was very excited to read this book. I loved her Notes From a Scandal and this got great reviews. But I didn't like it. It was not unreadable even though the characters were all insanely unlikable. I actually thought the characters were well drawn but the plot was awkward. It's the story of a family of radicals, the father is in a coma with a stroke and his family of a British wife and two daughters plus an adopted son come together around him. The mother Audrey is so supremely unlikable that any sort of friends Heller gave her or any familial relationship would be impossible, this is the type of woman who says to a British 'friend' she runs into on the street going to the British market "I've never understood why people go to shops like that. If you all miss your crappy English food so much, why don't you go back home?" This woman later takes in her son, sticking around for more abuse. Very improbable. I don't need to like the characters, in Notes From a Scandal the narrator was terrible, vain and selfish...but in a delicious sort of way. I guess I like a little charm in the badness, like Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost for example, this badness though was just....bad. The daughters are alright. One is supposed to be 'good' though Zoe makes her fat to punish her for that and the other one is bent on becoming an orthodox Jew for no discernible reason other than to be difficult. All in all a disappointment of a book.

A-ya Wish A Hadn't Bothered

A-ya forgot what this was about but it's a graphic novel set in Africa---which I thought was an interesting premise. It's not. I'm officially off Graphic Novels.

Seven Days in the Art World

This was quite interesting about the art world. Written by Sarah Thornton it represents seven different aspects in the art world: the auction house, the art fair, the art school,the art prize, the art magazine, the art studio and the art Biennale. Early on she presents the opinion that Art has become the religion of Atheists. It's a very exclusive and competetive religion then with everyone in the Art Market vying for the best seat in the temple and auctioneers so beset with offers that they can cull through them to make sure the art works go to "good homes" (i.e. people not obstensibly buying art for an investment). It is ugly to see the way people might transfer something beautiful or meaningful (although some of the "emerging art" she discusses seems to be hardly that) into power. One collector is heard toying on the phone with various curators at different museums who are all anxious to be the ones getting his collection when the time comes. He seems to be getting off on the power the objects give him over others in the 'religion'.
The 'Crit' at an Art School is an all day endless event where people talk in very inpenetrable language about whatever work is on display. Much of the book was about that language being used by everyone. Not many people seem to have a emotional response to Art any more, it's all intellectual. I thought the author did a nice job of maintaining a distance throughout so that you never felt she was either fawning or condemming. Good book.