A new record in sleep

40 hours over three nights...14 hours in one night...no wonder I feel like I haven't gotten anything done all weekend.

On the other hand, being sick also gives you lots of time to read! My latest finds:

Firedrake's Eye, by Patricia Finney. I really love the narrator of this book, a man from a noble family who went mad and was sent to the asylum at Bedlam (Bethlehem), later rescued from there by a friend. Now he wanders the streets, by turns sane and raving, tormented by hearing the song "Mad Tom O'Bedlam"--which he wrote, as a taunt to the brother who had him locked up in the first place--popularized in the streets with a chorus he didn't write. When "Tom" isn't wrestling with his angels or devils, the "Clever One" is helping his friend Becket and his employer Simon Ames foil a plot to assasinate Queen Elizabeth through more a series of coincidences than actual detective work...but how else would you discover it if you're looking for trouble in the wrong places?

I love the language of this book, chosen not to accurately represent Elizabethan English, but to give a hint of the color of its speech. I also really liked the various struggles in the book, between Tom's madness that brings visions of the truth and the Clever One struggling to articulate these to his friends, between the clash of religions and Simon's struggle between religion, politics, and morality. In the end, the sentiment that it does not matter what faith you believe in as long as you have faith in something comes across: “When all is ended it makes less than a fragment of a fragment of infinity, the length of our life on this earth.” I find this very comforting, especially given the situation in Afghanistan where a man who converted from Islam to Christianity is in danger of being killed according to Muslim law there. Somehow religion is becoming embroiled in politics these days…and I don’t know if that’s healthy, given that your religious identity does not automatically correspond with your political identity, despite what some politicians and/or religious leaders are saying.


Out, by Natsuo Kirino. A crime novel where the crime is never solved by the police, where the main character is not the woman who murders her husband, but her friend who helps her dispose of the body and who can never quite articulate her reasons for doing so. I can see why this book won awards, for I’ve never read anything quite like this. So often in crime fiction or TV shows, there is a definitive distinction between the “good” people and the “bad” people, between good and evil. But this novel doesn’t do that…it provides characters that you like or dislike because of their personalities, but does not condemn anyone. People themselves are not good or bad, it is only their actions that can be labeled as good or bad. And where is that line, when a woman kills her abusive husband who has just gambled away their savings? In some ways, the actions of all the women can be explained and understood by their desperate circumstances…except for Masako, the main character, who even when explained seems mysterious and untouchable.


The Master Butchers Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich. I got hooked on Erdrich ever since we read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse for our Native American Lit class…which was sort of like starting with the best one. However, this book was the best of hers I’ve read in a while. I love how Erdrich throws in all these unlikely things—Delphine being a human table in a balancing act, Roy thinking that the voices he was hearing was due to drink and not people trapped in his basement until they died—and makes them seem if not normal, perfectly acceptable. Identity plays a big part in this book, as in all her books. In this one, Delphine struggles with her identity as defined by those around her, her father, her husband. By her job. By raising the kids of another man. And so then end that reveals whose daughter she really is doesn’t change much of anything, since she doesn’t dwell on the ties of blood but those of relationship. I think Last Report is still my favorite, though.

Off to figure out if any other schools are giving me financial aid...and hopefully to read some more...

Total books read this month:10
Total books read this year:26