Review: Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

 

• Genre: General Fiction
• Published: 1998
• Pages: 372

 

Sibyl Danforth is a lay midwife from Vermont who assists women to have home births. One night, she is with a birthing mother when everything goes wrong and the woman dies. Sibyl cuts her open to save the life of the child… But the question remains: had she really died and did Sibyl Danforth actually kill her?

I read this book for Crazy Book Swap and my partner is Wallace from Unputadownables who hosts it. She sent me Midwives by Chris Bohjalian and I must admit, though I thought it did look interesting, I didn’t expect to enjoy it quite so much as I did.

It is a book I’d have otherwise overlooked, judging it by the title to be some gooey story about babies. I guess this should teach me not to be so easily prejudiced about a book before really looking at it. When I read the description at the back it sounded more interesting, but I still felt quite reserved about reading it to start with. I have a firm idea about what books are ‘my type of books’ and what isn’t and sometimes this barrier can be hard to beat down. Do I jump into an unknown area without really knowing where I’ll land? I tend to start books thinking I’ll enjoy them then the other way around. This wouldn’t quite be the first time I have been surprised.

Bohjalian, rather then writing it from Sibyl’s perspective, told the story from the first person narrative of her daughter Connie, who was only a child at the time it took place. It is written in the style of a memoir and so the tone is generally reflective and slow paced. At first I thought that this wouldn’t work – it would lose the imperative of the story and make it too passive. Much of the information would have to be second hand because at the time Connie was a teenager and had not been with her mother at the time of the incident, among other things. Yet this wasn’t the case and I found myself gripped throughout, barely able to put the book down sometimes.

It is a story about the ties between a mother and her children. It is as much – if not more – Connie’s own story about growing up alongside her mother’s court case and the effects it has on her own family.

Sibyl has an almost spiritual calling to be a midwife and in the sixties she had been a hippy – no doubt an influence on her beliefs. She is a lay-midwife – something which we don’t have in the UK and I had to look it up. Lay midwives are represented as pretty much all being hippies, or ex-hippies wearing peasant skirts with an inate distrust of establishments and formal education when it comes to midwifery. This seems to me a bit of a negative stereotype. Yet, I didn’t feel as if Bohjalian wanted to criticise lay-midwives or natural births.

Sibyl prefers natural home births, rather then invasive medicalised hospital births ruled by male doctors and their instruments. I think Bohjalian treats the question of natural vs. medical quite fairly – including arguments for both sides.  It does make you question the ideals between having a home birth and a hospitalised one. I think since reading this, I am actually feeling that a natural, home birth would be more preferable to having a load of strangers poking and prodding certain parts of me and having to put up with horrible hospital food.

The story is set during the eighties and I wonder how much people’s attitudes have changed today? I get the feeling that the medical community are more open to the idea of natural births now and more options are available. I could be wrong of course.

Bohjalian is a very good writer. He is able to slowly and subtly unwrap the story in a way that kept me turning the pages to find out what happened. Despite this, it is a rather strange story. The pace is so slow and the characters feel very distant and I wasn’t able to really connect with any of them. There did not seem to be much of a story and yet there wasn’t really a boring page in the whole book. It kept me guessing right up to the very end.

It is certainly a book that will make you want to question and to think about what happens. I couldn’t help but feel completely involved in the story as if I was an outsider looking in and unable to turn my face away. I think that opinions might vary between people, perhaps depending on whether you have children or a strong desire to have one. On a personal level I feel more objective as I have no children and not entirely sure how I’d feel about having one.

I’d like to thank Wallace for sending me this book, and apologise for writing this review so late. I started it a long time ago, but for some reason I just got stuck on writing anything at all.

I really enjoyed the book swap, it’s great receiving a book knowing you’re going to read because you agreed to it before you even knew what book you’re going to read. It’s the thrill of the unknown and the fact that perhaps otherwise, you’d never have read it. As I said at the beginning, this is a book I’d have most definitely have passed by. Now I think I would really like to read Skeletons at the Feast, knowing how good an author he is.

Merry Christmas!

To all of you who celebrate Christmas… Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone receives plenty of books and book tokens and has a wonderful day wherever you are in the world.

Blog hugs! Love you all xxx

Literary Blog Hop 2-5 December

 

What is one of your literary pet peeves?  Is there something that writers do that really sets your teeth on edge?  Be specific, and give examples if you can.

 

I’ve seen the Literary Blog Hop in passing before, but seeing as I’m getting back onto the blogging bandwagon, I thought I’d join in and participate in something new.

I hope my blog is covered by the ‘literary’ blog hop as I have never done this one before… I read a wide range and so mine fits into both literary and non-literary, and rather depends on the mood I’m in at the time.

It’s a hard question actually as I tend to try and concentrate on the positives and if the book is good enough, little peeves sink into the background. If the book is full of peeves, I will throw the thing over my shoulder and move onto something new.

There are a few things that do press my buttons.

1. Pseudo Literary

Pseudo literary books are those whose author’s think they’re really good, beautifully written, significant works of art – when they are in fact a load of complete and utter tripe from the paint by numbers category. Example: The Lovely Bones. Sebold’s overuse of horrific similes and metaphors – such as buttering bread with tears and eyes popping out like olives. I like fiction to be honest – an author should do what they do best.

Which takes me onto…

2. Similes and Metaphors

In my opinion these should be left subtle, slipped in and natural. They should not stand out like a sore thumb. Not everything is like something else. Sometimes when you bleed, you just bleed. It does not exit your veins like a firework or a blossoming flower, or however Kate Mosse described it in Labyrinth. It doesn’t add anything to the imagery or my imagination.

It’s kind of a personal peeve – some authors seem to be able to do it a lot and do it well, some people just cannot. Once again, I think authors should stick to what they do best and stop trying too hard.

3. No Chapters

I like chapters. I like knowing when to take a break and if I’ll have time to read on. It’s more organised. Some books do just start on a new page but have no chapter heading – that is okay, but it is when they have nothing but perhaps your usual space between text. I also really don’t like fiction books that have long chapters split up into mini-chapters. I don’t get the point in that.

The above three are my main peeves about the writing or construction of the story itself, I have others like rambling passages and pointless character development that doesn’t develop anywhere… but I don’t want to go on for a year and a day boring you with every min-peeve of mine. (I am a grumpy old beak.)

The following peeves aren’t so much about the writing, but the construction of the book – because I need to get these off my chest.

4. The Printed Text Itself

a) I do not like when there are double spaces between each line, usually with fairly short books. Am I being tricked into thinking a short story is longer? I find it very hard to physically read anyway. It is like both my eyes go in opposite directions and the sentences just disappear off the page.

b) Blurry, bold print that makes me squint. I think that as a reader, I shouldn’t be spending half my concentration just trying to process the word visually.

c) Shoddily put together books that fall apart at the flick of a page. If I’m going to pay £7.99 for a new book, (and heaven knows how much more after the VAT goes up to 20%), I at least expect the book not to disintegrate onto my face in bed as I read it. Penguin Classics are the most expensive, with the flimsiest paper quality and they usually fall apart before anyone else.

d) Books that lack descriptions of what it is about, even a hint but consist of over-zealous praise of the author’s past work. I am not going to buy it, or read it or ever pick it up unless I know what it is about.

e) When so called ‘introductions’ do not warn of spoilers to people who are unaware that introductions shouldn’t be read until the end – and when the first sentence contains a clanger of a spoiler. This happened to me with Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, Vintage classic with Monica Ali writing the intro.

f) Books that are claimed by publishers to be ‘just like [insert name of really well known classic here]’ because most of the time they aren’t and even if they are – if someone told me that so-and-so book is good as Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.

So, those are my pet peeves. Authors and publishers, beware – I am not the forgiving type! What peeves you off when you read a book?

Has She Flown the Coop?

No, here I am.

I took a long and entirely unexpected break from blogging – well not just blogging specifically but basically the online social scene on a whole. I’m not going to go into it for personal reasons, but I think I just needed a break and to draw together the fragments of my brain. I haven’t been reading much in the last few months and I haven’t even been updating my spreadsheet either. Horror. I would call it a complete reading funk and in a way, a loss of confidence in my self. I didn’t feel like communicating in the written form for a long while.

However – I’ve decided that enough is enough – no more faffing around moaning all the time. Time to get back into books, back into blogging and just back to normality really. I have also been trying (and failing) to correct my ridiculous sleep pattern. For the past five years I’ve been trying to live in multiple time zones, which I can tell you – does not lead to a healthy lifestyle.

Anyway, enough of that… let’s just look back and see what I’ve read since I last updated this poor dusty blog in September…

Well, there was -

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian which I actually read for Unputdownables Book Swap and should have posted a review back in September which I feel to no end, quite guilty about.

The New Jackals by Simon Reeve – a Non-Fiction book about Ramzi Yousef and Osma Bin Laden, written before the 9/11 attacks and so kind of spooky.

Irresistible by Mary Balogh which was a historical romance of the entirely cheesey sort and I admit… I really enjoyed it!

Otherland: City of the Golden Shadow (Book 1) by Tad Williams – a sci-fi which took me a month to read but it was really very good. It had been on my TBR for over ten years so I’m glad to finally be able to say I’ve read it.

The Hidden Roads: A Memoir of Childhood by Kevin Crossley Holland who is one of my favourite YA authors.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks which I didn’t think was as good as Year of Wonders by the same author.

and finally…

The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor the book I have been wanting to read for ages and ages and finally managed to get through the library.

I have also acquired a horrific amount of books during this period, I have no idea what my TBR looks like now as I have not updated it. In fact, I can’t even remember what I have bought apart from the fact that I have no room for any of them whatsoever and they have been growing up in precarious piles all over the place. I don’t know what to do with them.

I shall try my best to review some of those books which I think are really worth reading. Also I would like to say – that I really want to change the way I review books, in relation to the rating. The more I think of it, the more inadequate giving a book a star rating seems to be. It just doesn’t cover it. Yet I still want to be able to give some indication as to how much I liked a book and how much I’d recommend it.

Aaaaaaaanyway… I decided I should do a… vlog. Yes. Unfortunately my webcam doesn’t have a mic so hah, I can’t talk. So instead I filmed myself reading my current book Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris by Ian Kershaw. Yes, yes, I know – very festive.

So, here is almost twenty minutes of looking at the top of my head, watching me read a book. It is very boring I admit, probably the most boring vlog out there, in fact I can hardly call it a vlog really because I only did it because I was curious what I looked like when I’m just doing normal things like reading. I keep looking up to see how long it’s been filming for, and to reply to messages on Facebook. Other then that it is the top of my head bobbing up and down.

I suspect none of you are going to sit around for twenty minutes looking at my crooked parting – but I guess this is the question – what do you do when you read? I am usually in front of my laptop because if I sit anywhere more comfortable I fall asleep.

I hope all of you are well, and for those celebrating Christmas that you’re having a good festive season and got all your presents together!

Review: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

 

• 
• Genre: Modern Classic
• Published: 1951
• Pages: 160

 

 

The love affair between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles ended two years ago, but a chance encounter with her husband and then herself ignites the bed of jealousy again. 

This is my third Greene and has I think, cemented my admiration for this author forever. It is his writing that I love first. It feels as if Greene rolls every word around in his mouth before carefully placing them down on the paper before him. He writes with all the delicate craft of a sculptor, chipping and polishing away so that there are no superfluous words or phrases. Each scene is carefully layered and there are so many parts I wish now I hate noted down. This book begs to be re-read just so I can appreciate it all again.

It is narrated by Maurice Bendrix who is an author and through the book he reflects  on the process of his writing and the difficulties with it that he has especially during and after the affair. The is a strange kind of consciousness in it – as if Greene himself is discussing writing the book whilst writing it himself.

The End of the Affair is one of the novels where Catholicism plays a main part. In the two other books I have read – Brighton Rock and The Quiet American religion has played an important or elemental part in the story. Rather then portraying characters of staunch faith however, they may be atheists, almost contemptuous of God’s existence. The struggle with doubt and the temptation of sin play important roles within his novels.

Another theme that runs through these three books is obsessive, almost destructive love. In Brighton Rock Pinkie marries Rose because he thinks she has seen something that might incriminate him. Rose shows him devotional love despite how unkind he is to her. Thomas Fowler from The Quiet American is rather pathetically in love with Phuong, perhaps as a means to cling onto youth and usefulness. In The End of the Affair it is Maurice Bendrix’s jealousy that infects his love.

An interesting parallel in The End of the Affair, is that Bendrix as an author is described to be like a God in his ability to create a world and characters, pushing them around the storyboard and being able to change them at his will. Sarah also refers to Bendrix throughout their affair as ‘You’ with the capitalisation. At the heart of this book is the struggle between faith and doubt – mortal and immortal love.

I am not a religious person and you don’t have to be to enjoy this book. Greene is simply a very good writer who is not pretentious and it doesn’t feel as if he tries to be literary. He has a strong voice and an independent style of writing – a confident writer who knows his craft well. That’s what I admire about Graham Greene. Some authors just have it, some authors have to try to have it. Greene has got it.

Also, as a classic I think that it will still resonate with people today – Greene is able to tap into the human heart and in the end – society may have changed a lot but as people, we are all the same and so the range of emotions, the kinds of characters that you meet in this book will still be entirely relevant today and tomorrow and hopefully in the next hundred years.

A word of warning to those who read the Vintage edition of this book with the introduction by Monica Ali. I know you are not supposed to read Introductions first so I consciously avoided reading it but I couldn’t help but glance past the giant clanger of a spoiler that is the very first sentence. I wouldn’t say it ruined the book for me at all because it is not a book with a massive plot and so there is not much really to spoil. You read it for the writing and the deeply human characters. it however took away from me the experience of discovery, mystery and hope that I would have liked for myself. 

Thank you Monica Ali, from the bottom of my heart. Just watch me throw Brick Lane to the very bottom of my TBR pile. That is a rather lame revenge but there you go. I’m sure I’ll forgive her.

I’d like to thank a Mr Forder, who gave me Brighton Rock at my old school’s summer fair not long before I left for university. He said I should read it, that it was very good and I did'n’t do so until a good few years later. The book had a mummified fly in one of the pages but it was my first introduction to Graham Greene and I don’t think I’d have read him without the recommendation.

Andrew Taylor: Author Review (Crime/Mystery)

The Anatomy of Ghosts is Andrew Taylor’s newest book, out in the UK on the 2nd September and I won’t be getting it because of this flaming ban I’m on. I will however, I promise you, be getting it in October without fail. It is a historical mystery/ghost story, set in 1786, in Jerusalem College, Cambridge. You can read more about it at the author’s website here.

Now, I haven’t reviewed a book by him yet for this blog, but let me assure you he is one of my favourite authors on the planet. I love him. Yes, yes – I do. There are some authors who I just click with. I know that when I open one of their books, I' can pretty much be guaranteed to have a fantastic time reading it. Andrew Taylor is the author for me.

He writes mostly historical mysteries and psychological thrillers set in England. Andrew Taylor has won many awards, several of which are from the Crime Writer’s Association including the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in crime writing. Despite this, he still has yet to achieve the kind of popularity that other crime writers such as Ian Rankin or P. D James have acquired. He might be underrated, but at least he is recognised.

One of the things I love about Andrew Taylor is that he is able to meld an almost literary style of writing with a sharp, page turning mystery which in my short experience of crime fiction, doesn’t always occur together. His speciality is creating an atmosphere that just sets you on edge. Taylor is able to create a balance that looks so easy when you read it, but must be incredibly hard to maintain whilst writing it.

He is able to eek out the story at just the right pace. They are neither slow or heart-racingly fast paced. He keeps you turning the pages again and again and again, because you want to, not because you need to. His characters are always well developed and they have a real sense of Being.  He does this through small things so their development is imperceptible. He is able to get so much about a character across, in just a few words – a movement, or an expression, a way of doing something – that you feel them instantly.

Andrew Taylor has the perfect balance between good writing, good plotting and good characterisation down to an absolute tee. I feel like I can trust him completely to give me a book that I’ll love. At least, he hasn’t failed me yet and I just know he won’t ever.

Here are some of my favourite books – these aren’t just my favourite books by Andrew Taylor – but are all part of my ‘favourite books’ list. Click on the covers to be taken to the Goodreads page for a description of each of hem.

The Roth trilogy, which tells the story of a serial killer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Four Last Things begins in the present day when the young daughter of a vicar is kidnapped. This one feels more like your conventional police mystery however it is not. The following two books go back in time, exploring and digging through a family’s history to find the answers behind what could make such a person do what they grew up to do.

The American Boy, or The Unpardonable Crime as it is known in the US is a standalone historical mystery.

 

The American Boy features Edgar Allen Poe as a minor character. Nothing much is known about the famous poet’s childhood and the conditions in which he died are mysterious. All that is known is that as a boy he spent a little time in an English boarding school. Andrew Taylor imagined what happened to Poe in school and what lead to his inspirations as a famous writer later in life. It is narrated by a new master in the boarding school – Thomas Shield. He becomes teacher to the young Poe and his friend, the shy Charles Frant. Shield finds him self embroiled in the Frant family after a mysterious murder ties them all together.

The Lydmouth series is Andrew Taylor’s long running series set in a fictional town during the 1950’s.

 

The series title ‘Lydmouth’ is surprisingly not after the name of a character but after the town it is set in. Lydmouth is set somewhere on the border between Wales and England. In this way, it is not the conventional police crime series as it might first appear to be. I have only read the first two (of eight) and they are clearly not whodunits. The books are written from multiple perspectives in short chapters that keep the story moving very steadily. Two of the main re-occurring characters are Inspector Thornton and Jill Francis, a journalist. They are both introduced as newcomers to the town in the first book and I get the feeling that this is a series that slowly grows in strength from book to book – slowly building character relationships across the series.

These are good introductions to Andrew Taylor – they will show you what he is capable of. All three are quite different – which is another thing I really love about him is that they are all quite different from each other and he seems to be quite a strong, independent and imaginative author.

Let me know if you’ve read Andrew Taylor as I’d love to read your reviews – good or bad. I hope that I’ve been able to introduce at least one person to this fantastic author. I think if you enjoy mysteries, especially those set in a different time to ours – ones that can sometimes be a little dark – though not very violent, ones that will keep you good company that you will enjoy from beginning to end – then you’ll like Andrew Taylor.

The Ban Begins

The September book ban, hosted by Bella starts today. Right this moment. Now.

I haven’t actually bought a book in possibly over a week. Did I buy any books last week? I can’t remember, anyway the important thing is that my ban holds now and I need to keep to this ban until I have read a sizeable hole in my bookshelf. As I am a slow, slow, slow reader this might take me much more then a month, but any decrease I can only see as a good thing.

So for the short term I am banned completely for the month of September. This will not result in another splurge of 15 books (I found that for 75 years an independent bookseller is still very much alive about half an hour’s walk from me that I have never known about until a couple of months ago.) I looked pretty much like the poor fellow in the picture here, walking around with books piled up under my chin.

Anyway, my TBR is officially 435 books long now and you can see a list of them all here.

I did receive a book from Wallace for the Crazy Book Swap she is hosting on her blog, but I have not included that on my TBR because I’m going to read it next and it isn’t the average book that gets stuck in the pile waiting to be read.

Wallace sent me Midwives, by Chris Bohjalian.

Midwives, Chris Bohjalian's fifth novel, is the story of two women: Sibyl Danforth, a lay midwife in rural Vermont, and her daughter, Connie. The nexus of this cautionary tale is an emergency Caesarean section Sibyl performs during a home birth that goes disastrously wrong. Believing the mother is already dead from a stroke, Sibyl operates and later finds herself on trial for killing the woman. The compelling story of her trial and its aftermath comes to us from Connie, who believes "this is my story, too." In fact, Connie's reaction to her mother's ordeal is to go to medical school and become an obstetrician. The book raises provocative issues about medical ethics and the limits of risk. - Description from Goodreads.

 

Other then this, I have no real plans what books I’ll be reading in September. I do have a couple of piles sprouting up downstairs that I can’t move upstairs still. I don’t know whether I should work on the piles or the bookcase. Maybe I’ll read a Sebastian Barry – or a Yoko Ogawa. I’ve been in the mood for Japanese literature lately. Maybe I’ll read a crime, or maybe a romance by Eva Ibbotson. I’ve been feeling like a YA romance for a while now. Who knows what I’ll read. Your guess is as good as mine.

After September there are some books I do desperately want. I want to replace my Jane Austen omnibus edition with the Modern Library editions because I love the feel of those books. So they won’t really alter my TBR, although all together will be slightly bigger then my bricky omnibus edition. It will be easier to read them as separate volumes and I do want to be able to say that “I have read Jane Austen”. As it is, I have only read Pride and Prejudice, somewhat inspired by Colin Firth.

 

 

Secondly, I want Andrew Taylor’s (a favourite author of mine) new book The Anatomy of Ghosts which is published on the 2nd September and Carin has already hit me over the head with her truncheon for trying to pre-order it. Now I’ll be waiting very impatiently until October when I can get my greedy hands on this book. Taylor writes mysteries – most of them historical and he excels at creating a killer atmosphere that you could use to sharpen a knife. I have been looking forward to this book since last year! See what I sacrifice for this ban? To think that others will be reading this whilst I won’t be able to even crack open a page.

However after these, there will be no little, white beautiful packages gracing my doorstep. Alas, the Book Depository and I will have to part ways. It has been a long, committed relationship but it has turned slightly abusive and so we must move on.