Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

1996, 1997 Bantam edition
Stephanie Barron
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor
Bought new for $5.99
Worn paperback
B-

The first in the Jane Austen Mystery series, this pretends to be a heavily footnoted reproduction of recently discovered journals of Austen's.  The footnotes are easily the weakest aspect, although not the only flaw.  I found the classism annoying, and ironically much stronger than anything in Austen's writing.  I never quite bought "Jane" as Austen, but if you can get past that, and just see it as a very early 19th century mystery (set the winter of 1802-03), it's not bad.  The plot twists are fairly well done and there's a good mix of characters.  The settings, mostly the manor but also in London, add to the drama.

I liked the book enough to go on to read a few of the sequels, so Jane and the Man of the Cloth will be coming up in 1997....

Alias Grace: A Novel

1996, 1997 G.K. Hall large-print edition
Margaret Atwood
Alias Grace: A Novel
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover with wrinkled pages
B-

Even for Atwood, this is a strange novel.  Not so much because it's based on a real-life murder case, but because one, Atwood doesn't take sides (you'll have no more clue of Grace's guilt and/or innocence by the end than at the beginning), and two, the really disturbing thoughts and behavior belong to the men, in particular Dr. Simon Jordan.  I think Atwood is making a point about how men (some men? all? in the Victorian period? now?) view women, wanting them to be both virgins and whores, victims and villainesses.  But, as in her other books, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) in particular, women seem to collaborate in their own oppression, and exploit it for its own ends.

I would've given the book a C+, but I got a kick out of Simon's mother.  She's like a Thackeray character crossed with an Austen character, with maybe a dash of Wilde, all her letters harping on the same themes: the need for Simon to settle down with her friend's daughter, and the wisdom of investing in sewing machines.  (The book is mostly set in 1859.)  She's not only right, but she's funny.  I kept wanting to read a book about her instead.  Too bad Atwood seems to have mostly abandoned the farce of The Edible Woman (1969) and Lady Oracle (1976).  This is the last of her books I own, but none of her later works sound like they'd be that amusing.

The Highly Sensitive Person

1996, 1997 Broadway Books edition
Elaine N. Aron, Ph. D
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
Possibly bought newish for $14.00
Worn paperback
C+

In my review of The Path of Least Resistance (1989), I said, "I don't find self-help books helpful."  This book is a partial exception.  I appreciate Aron celebrating qualities that are often belittled, the various aspects of sensitivity.  However, on this my third or fourth reading, I found myself very tense by the end.  (The last time I read it, I posted on Facebook that the book made me cry.)  Instead of providing coping strategies to thrive, I felt like the book was instead bringing up painful memories, without ways to deal with them.  Her advice on dealing with loud noises, crowds, and the like is more useful, but I think she's blurring environmental sensitivity with emotional sensitivity.

Marginal recommendation, and make sure you read it in a soothing place, not partially on the bus, with a loud seatmate exclaiming, "A book!  I thought everyone had a Kindle these days!"

The Queening of America: Gay Culture in Straight Society

1995, possibly first edition, from Routledge
David Van Leer
The Queening of America: Gay Culture in Straight Society
Possibly bought newish for $12.99
Worn paperback
B

Van Leer looks at the ways that "gay culture" impacts "straight society," and vice versa.  His examples go from the low culture of Hollywood Squares, to middlebrow culture like Damn Yankees, to academic approaches to the topic of AIDS.  I'm not sure how well the book hangs together, or if Van Leer proves a thesis as such, but it's always an interesting read, looking at language and appearance in particular.  I think this is a good example of a nonfiction book that gets a B rather than a B+.  B+s make me go "Wow!", while B's make me go, "Hm."

It's a very '90s book in the way it looks back at the "post-war" era (roughly 1945 to '69), as well as the "liberated 1970s" and the "reactionary 1980s" (my terminology, he might disagree).  There's distance, but not as much as now of course.  For instance, he talks about the generational differences for middle-aged gay men who'd lost many friends to AIDS, as opposed to younger gay men who grew up with the threat of the disease as an aspect of their sexuality.  He doesn't ignore lesbians, and one of the most interesting sections is on Larsen's Passing.  He's very good at finding layers of meaning, even in something like a Paul Lynde quip, or the works of Patrick Dennis.  I of course enjoyed the pop-culture stuff most, but I could see how the "higher" culture relates to it.

Ladder of Years

1995, 7th edition from later that year, from Knopf
Anne Tyler
Ladder of Years
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good condition but with worn dust jacket
C+

Tyler's thirteenth novel (the twelfth I'm reviewing) is her weakest since Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, although not as bad as that.  The main character Delia runs away from her life as wife and mother to a new life in a new town, and then runs back to her old life.  This in itself isn't necessarily bad (for her or the narrative), except that I never got the sense of what she liked in her old life, other than she finally feels needed there.  The problem is, she's also needed in her new life.  The fact that she can have two sets of people, not to mention two cats, who forgive her almost without question doesn't sit right with me.

I also found the story anachronistic, and not just because a twelve-year-old boy says "golly."  It's a world with CDs and a few other items that seem to be from the late '80s or later, but the little town she moves to feels like it's out of the 1950s, or earlier, making her transition too easy.  (She walks right into a lawyer's office and gets a job.)  I also felt that, like Helen in Binchy's Glass Lake, only more so, Delia doesn't seem to miss her kids much, and she doesn't have Helen's excuse of running off with her lost love.

Still, I liked the book somewhat, especially things like Rick-Rack's (Tyler is good at imaginary restaurants and stores), and was set to give it a B-, but the ending felt arbitrary.  Unlike in Accidental Tourist, where either of Macon's choices is plausible, but he and Tyler make the right one, here neither of Delia's choices feels right, and the one she makes is possibly worse, since it's clear she'll feel restless and neglected again in the future.  She tells her husband, "All you had to do was ask," but the narrator admits, "Although, in fact, he still had not asked.  Not in so many words."  Even in Earthly Possessions, I bought the return to the husband more.

I'm missing the next few Tylers, and I think the next (and last) one I own is Digging to America, which is not till 2006....

The "Sense and Sensibility" Screenplay & Diaries

1995, first edition, from Newmarket Press
Emma Thompson
The "Sense and Sensibility" Screenplay & Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film
Bought new for $23.95
Hardcover in good condition
B

While not as enjoyable as the film, this is a good companion to it, offering behind-the-scenes glimpses from the screenwriter-star.  True, you won't find out absolutely everything-- Thompson is mum about her involvement with Greg Wise, who played Willoughby and whom she eventually married-- but she is generally refreshingly honest, and humble.  (She does mention Hugh Grant's arrest, and Gemma Jones's lewd and funny remark on the matter.)  My favorite irony is Ang Lee's vow to film "no more sheeps, never again sheeps," a decade before Brokeback Mountain.

I've read the book enough times that I don't enjoy it as much as I used to, although the snark about Morris dancing never gets old.  I was going to give it a B-, because there's too much screenplay and not enough diaries, but I think the photographs bump it up a notch.  It's probably best to read it after watching the movie, but before listening to the commentary by Thompson and producer Lindsay Doran, which adds details, like that the actor who played Robert Ferrars became Thompson's brother-in-law.

I'm using the "film criticism" tag since Thompson has observations about the making of this and other movies.

The Hundred Secret Senses

1995, 1996 Ivy Books edition
Amy Tan
The Hundred Secret Senses
Original price $6.99, purchase price 79 cents
Worn paperback with split spine
B-

Instead of focusing on mothers and daughters, Tan this time presents two half-sisters, both born in the Year of the Monkey (1944 and '56, while I was born in '68), the elder in China, the younger in the U.S.  Kwan tells stories (mostly of her past life in the 1860s) from the time Olivia is 6 to roughly the present ('94 I think, since Kwan turns 50).  She also tries to reconcile Olivia with her estranged husband, Simon, leading to the three of them going to China together.

I was less drawn in to this book than to the earlier Tan novels, although to balance that there wasn't anything as horrific as in either of those.  That's part of why I haven't read any of her later works, along with my just not reading many new novels this century.