The Art Forger - B. A. Shapiro

Let me first say that this book struck a real chord with me, as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is the first place that my husband took me when he was trying to impress my romantic side. I have a soft spot in my heart for every small nook and cranny of that magnificent building and every piece of art that is perched, mounted, and hanging within its walls. That being said, when I happened on Shapiro's book, The Art Forger I was immediately intrigued.

The Prospering - Elizabeth George Speare

Google a search on Elizabeth George Speare and you will get a nice bio and a list of New bery Award winners and honor books that she wrote between 1957 and 1984. Her novels for young adult readers were the stuff of history that I grew up on - Calico Captive, The Bronze Bow, The Sign of the Beaver, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond were all classics of historical fiction. Yet, nowhere in that biography will you find note of her novel for adults called The Prospering.

 

 

The Prospering is a fictionalized (albeit incredibly well-researched) novel that revolves around the grand experiment undertaken by the Massachusetts settlers to convert the native peoples.

 

The Shoemaker's Wife - A Short Take

I share books with my sister, Mom, and friends. We lay stacks of books aside after we're done reading them, reserving them for certain people in our lives. I have a stack of what I call, 'chick lit' that I put aside for Mom. She reads and passes on to my sister and sisters-in-law. The books make the rounds and then we gush over them or pan them ... it's the family best seller list taken to the phone or family party. I'm sure you, dear readers, have some system to for recommending or bashing the books you read.

This is the latest book that I will be passing to Mom. She will love it - me, not as much as some of Ms. Trigiani's other books. I do really like Adriana T's world of Italian women. She wowed me throughout her entire 'Stone Gap' series. I loved her strong female characters set in real world settings. In this, her latest book, she has drawn on inspiration from her grandparent's emigration to America and their romance and family life to create the world of Ciro and Enza Lazzari. It's a story of strong connections to Catholic church, family, the family place in northern Italy, and the struggle to maintain close ties to family when emigration to America becomes a necessity. It's a story of faithful work for family, constancy in relationships, understanding the motives and circumstances of family members that seem cruel when one is young and understandable as one ages and faces the vicissitudes of life. It's a story of strength and character. All this is placed against the background of the early to mid-1900's. - and that is where Ms. T runs into trouble, as far as I'm concerned.

While her characters are rolled up in the world of NYC immigration and the adjustment of the minorites to American work, very little of the bias toward immigrants, working world upheaval, and politics of the era are even touched on. While Ciro is placed smack dab in the center of WWI as an American doughboy, the great pandemic of 1918 is not even mentioned. The Great Depression and how it effected American workers? Nowhere to be seen. The build-up to WWII ... nowhere. She writes closely to family day to day experiences and the relationships within the small town that Enza and Ciro move to in Minnesota, but never touches on the larger American fabric of change and politics. I found that a great weakness in the storyline, but perhaps I am stuck between genres ... this is an example of realistic fiction and not historical fiction, I guess. That line seems blurry here and it's a fine line to be walked by Trigiani.

That being said, I still liked the book! It fulfilled a need for a nice, undemanding story to follow a gutsy post-WWII novel of intrigue that made me really pay attention to details. I floated through The Shoemaker's Wife. I wondered how Ciro and Enza would finally get together and was pleased when they did. I was saddened by the fates of certain family members and happy at how others fared across time. I rooted for Enza and her dear friend, Laura to make it big in America. Predictably, they did - with all the joy, sorrow, luck, and fulfillment that one would wish for hard-working American immigrants. This is a story of the American dream fulfilled. Mom will love it.

I'll continue to snap up Adriana Trigiani's books. She writes excellent 'chick lit' - good solid stories of strong Italian women ... and if she ever is at an author event near me, I'll make the pilgrimage to listen to her speak about her writing, her inspiration, and her attitudes toward the publishing world. She's a keeper.
 

A Small Triumph for Truth and Restitution

I will freely admit that I have a real interest (my husband and kids call it an obsession) in the plight of Jews throughout the various diasporas and the Holocaust. I am intrigued with the evil that men do and how it is rationalized politically, socially, religiously. Jewish history gives a host of examples of just this thing that man does to man over and over again.

I also admit that I am an art junkie. I don't know a lot, but I have a great interest in seeing the beauty that man creates and the cultural clues that paintings and sculpture and theater and poetry and literature give the person who will only look and think and delve into the lives of the creators. That is why I have fallen hard for this book. It melds the story of a Jewish family at the height of the cultural heyday in Vienna and the rise of the artistic star of Gustav Klimt with the subsequent fall from grace of Austria after the first World War. Enter the Nazis in the 30's and we all know it ended very badly for Jewish culture  - once again.

I heard about this book while making dinner one evening. I was listening to an interview on National Public Radio's 'All Things Considered' in which Anne-Marie O'Connor was talking about her exercise in following the convoluted path that Gustav Klimt's gold leafed masterpiece portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer has taken over time. Adele became enthralled by Klimt and sat for pencil studies and this portrait in turn of the century Vienna. She and other wealthy Viennese intellectuals were at the center of the artistic whirlwind of early Modernism. Her salons attracted great men like Richard Strauss, Gustav Klimt, Carl Moll, Egon Schiele - musicians, architects, artists and the cream of the Austrian intelligentsia and socially connected. It was an era that embraced a new and unconventional attitude toward art and culture that lasted through the 1920's and into the 30's.

When the Germans invaded Austria, the Nazi Party policies changed the lives of Vienna's cultured bourgeoisie. Jewish citizens scrambled to escape the harsh treatment of Nazi sympathizers. Some hid their assets and hunkered down in Vienna and the outskirts, some read the writing on the wall and fled with what they could carry or tranfer into Swiss banks. Artists and artwork became the target of Hitler and his lackeys. As the tragedy of the Holocaust unfolded, Adele's portrait and thousands of other pieces of artwork were snatched by opportunists and German officials, hastily sold by desperate Jews looking to finance their escape from German held countries, and looted for personal collections by the greedy. The reader follows Adele's portrait as it makes its way from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's personal collection into German Nazi Party possession and after a time to an art repository in the Austrian countryside, as the fall of the Nazi Reich becomes imminent. It made its way back to the Belvedere Museum in Vienna after the war  ... and there it was displayed as a treasure of Austrian culture. Adele's name was removed from the title and the painting was renamed 'Lady in Gold'  to hide the fact that this beautiful rich woman was a Jewess. Nowhere was the history of the painting discussed - it was a Klimt and was revered because of that fact. Its beauty made it an icon of Austrian Secession modernism.

At the time that O'Connor became interested in the story behind this painting, the story of the Viennese pre-war culture, the Bloch-Bauers, and the career of Gustav Klimt,  the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was embroiled in one of the most important legal cases that involved restitution and return of property confiscated by Austrian and German Nazis before and during World War II. She has told the full story dispassionately and in great detail, unraveled the many personalities, historical events, and the legal story of Adele Bloch-Bauer's legacy with aplomb, and left the reader with a disturbing picture of the state of artworks that still sit in private collections and museums just waiting to be investigated. It's a tangled web of deceit and greed, cold-blooded cruelty, and underhandedness - most of all, though, this book is a tale of triumph over the creeps that would hide the dirty little secret of the Austrian government and its attempt to sweep the crimes of war under the carpet at the Belvedere and other state sponsored museums.

An excellent read ... I highly recommend it ... and when you're done reading the book, you can make the trip to NYC to see Adele's Klimt portrait at the Neue Galerie where it has found a permanent home after being sold and placed there with the blessings of the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer.
 

The Song of Achilles - A Short Review

Whose story is this ? The title may tell us it is a tribute to Achilles, the great Greek hero of legend, but it is really the story of Patroclus, the finest of Greek men. It is a story of lost parental love, exile, humiliation, resignation, found love, honor, devotion, compassion, loyalty, tenderness, cruelty, grief, retribution, and redemption. It is a story of war and peace and love and loss and life.

Madeline Miller has dissected the story of Achilles and his role in the Trojan War. In doing so, she has brought Patroclus to the center of the story and told us a tale of his relationship with Achilles, the son of Thetis, the demi-goddess sea-nymph and Peleus, the mortal king of Phthia. While Achilles' fate is tied to a prophecy that promises great physical prowess and glory in battle, it also promises a short life. Patroclus knows this and still loves Achilles. He devotes his life to helping Achilles be all that is possible - and here's the rub. Achilles, while a heroic figure with god-like strength, is only human. He suffers great pride and hubris, faults that will be his undoing because they lead to cruelty, vanity, stubborness, and ultimately to recklessness and betrayal of those who love and honor him. And it is then that Patroclus steps forward to save Achilles' honor and pays the ultimate mortal price, putting into action the fulfillment of the prophesy of Achilles' fate. It is left to those who see Patroclus as 'the best of men' to help him rest with the results of the prophesy fulfilled, the Trojan War over, and the ashes of Achilles and Patroclus mingled in the ground outside a crumbled Troy.

I loved this book. I loved the pace of the story. I loved the humanity that Miller gave her characters. I loved the sensitivity with which she handles the complex relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. I love the knowledge of Greek culture and mythology that she brings to the novel. I love the level of research and knowledge of Homer and Vergil that she uses to weave this unique take on the tale of Patroclus and Achilles.

Most of all, I loved the depth of character that she gave to Patroclus. His is a character that I will not soon forget. I cannot wait to see what Madeline Miller brings to the reading world the next time she is published. If she can approach her next book with the same level of research and writing, it will surely be another page-turner. Well done, Ms. Miller!

 

Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy

I've always heard that the Irish are great storytellers and Maeve Binchy has proven the stereotype. I've also heard that the Irish are full of blarney ... and again, Ms. Binchy proves the cliche.  I picked up a copy of her 2011 offering at the library last week, needing a light read after having read a dark mystery. Minding Frankie seemed just the ticket - a light-hearted story about a young man with little life direction and a huge addiction to alcohol is redeemed by the revelation that he has fathered a child. The child's mother is on her deathbed and pleads with him to care for the little girl after her death. Miraculous changes are brought about by a tight-knit neighborhood of folks who pull the small struggling pair through the first year of the child's life and the first year of the young man's struggle to ditch the booze and prove his meddlesome social worker wrong. Meanwhile, the neighbors all have their dramas and crises ... sounds like a really cast of characters, yes?

Agincourt - Fighting Dirty in the French Countryside

I don't mean to be sexist, but this really was a 'guy read' ... and I wouldn't have stuck with it were I not a geek for history.  This was no romantic 'chick lit' take on the chivalrous Medieval period when kings fought over thrones and crowns during the summer months and wooed their ladies fair during the winter months. This take on Henry V's seige of Harfleur and subsequent retreat toward Calais with the decisive battle at Agincourt is all class warfare, spewing guts, religious decadence face-to-face with extreme piety, blood spatters and battle atrocities, and poor simple folk being caught up in the ranks of kings and nobles and fighting to make it home to their simple lives.

Reckless - A Novel by Cornelia Funke

"The sheet of paper slipped out of a book on airplane propulsion. Jacob only picked it up because he thought he recognized his father's handwriting on it, though he quickly realized his error. Symbols and equations, a sketch of a peacock, a sun, two moons. None of it made sense. Except one sentence he spotted on the reverse side: THE MIRROR WILL OPEN ONLY FOR HE WHO CANNOT SEE HIMSELF. Jacob turned around - and his glance was met by his own reflection."

                                                                        - Cornelia Funke in Reckless

Would you dare walk through the mirror and enter a mysterious world, foreign to all your experience and knowledge? Well, would you ?