Recent Reads {Arthur}

Arthur by Stephen R Lawhead - The third novel in the Pendgragon Cycle picks up the tale with a young Arthur pulling the legendary sword out of the stone and laying his claim to the High Kingship of Britain.  Many of the small kings refuse to accept his claim and he starts out as the war chief of Britain and the staunch support of a few powerful allies.  The story is told in three parts, with three different narrators.  Pelleas, the faithful steward to Merlin the magician, opens the story.  Pelleas and Merlin knew of Arthur's parentage and arranged to keep him safe until the time was right for him to come forward as the rightful heir to Aurelius.  Then Bedwyr, Arthur's loyal sword-brother and ally, takes up the story, telling of the wars against the barbarians trying to invade Britain and of the alliances forged and victories won that finally earn Arthur his title as High King.  The final part of the tale is told by Aneirin, who joins the retinue as an assistant to Merlin.  At this point, Arthur has had his kingmaking, and work has begun on the Round Table that is part of Gwenhwyvar's wedding gift.  During Aneirin's narration, the wicked Morgian finally meets her end, and we are introduced to the traitorous Medraut.  Throughout the story, Arthur keeps his focus on holding Britain in peace and as the Kingdom of Summer that the bard Taliesin had dreamed about.  Despite Arthur's great faith, the power of darkness and evil is great as well, and Arthur comes very near to losing his Queen and the Kingdom itself, and the book ends with Arthur's and Merlin's mysterious disappearance.

By the same author:  Patrick, The Skin Map.  Other books in the Pendragon Cycle are: Taliesin, Merlin, Pendragon, and Grail.   My comments from the previous time I read Arthur are here.

Recent Reads {Tchaikovsky}

Tchaikovsky by Roland John Wiley - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a colorful and tragic character in so many ways, so I thought that his biography would be very interesting. I was a bit surprised that my own library system didn't have much choice at all when it came to biographies of this great composer, however. This one by Wiley may have been the only one written for adults, if I remember correctly. It was held by the college branch of the library, which should have tipped me off that it was more textbook than anything. I hesitate to say that it was painfully boring, because if I had been a college student and had this work as assigned reading, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it compared to most textbooks. But compared to the enjoyable biographies of composers by Jeremy Siepmann that I'd recently read, this was much too dry and detailed to hold my interest. Wiley followed a similar format to the Siepmann books - a chapter describing his life, activities, and correspondence during a particular time period; then a chapter describing the music composed during that period. However, this book was so densely packed with minutiae and footnotes that I skimmed over large portions of the "everyday life" chapters, and actually skipped most of the "music" chapters. It was just too much detail. And without the compositions to listen to, I wasn't much interested in reading page upon page of description of the musical devices used in an opera or song cycle I wasn't even familiar with. I now know a lot more about the background and character of Tchaikovsky, and a great deal about what he and his correspondents thought and felt about his music and life circumstances. As a detailed and annotated biography and description of his compostions, this is a very thorough study, but it is not exactly an attention-grabber.

Recent Reads {Already Compromised}

Already Compromised by Ken Ham & Greg Hall with Britt Beemer - As a follow-up of sorts to the eye-opening book, Already Gone, this book examines what Christian colleges are really teaching, and it might surprise many Christian parents to find out!  A research team put together an extensive questionnaire and took it to the presidents, academic deans, vice presidents, and department heads of 200 Christian colleges and universities.  The results reveal some disconcerting news - while these schools overwhelmingly reported that they believe the Bible is true and that God created the earth, what they actually mean by these statements, and what might be taught in the classrooms, are not necessarily the same thing.  For example, more than 90% said they believe in the flood of Noah's Day, but less than 60% believed that the flood was worldwide.  Or how about this one - more Science Department heads believe the Genesis 1-2 account of creation is literally true than do Religion Department heads.  And almost 60% of Science Department heads consider themselves to be young-earth Christians, while less than 15% of Religion Department heads would say the same.  What does this mean?  Well, for parents and students searching for a college to attend may want to ask some harder questions and consider what is really believed and taught at these institutions of higher learning.  Just because they have reputations as Christian colleges or are associated with a particular denomination may not mean they respect the authority of Scripture in practice.  And it means that Christians, and the Church, need to sit up and take notice of the slippery slope we find ourselves on.  We need to speak up and we need to pray, and we need to stand firm on God's Word as the ultimate authority and source of truth.

It's weighty subject matter, but it's not a difficult read at all, and is explained well.  Along with Already Gone, I believe this book should be read by Christian parents, Christian educators, and pastors.  And I think this one should be read by college-bound teens as well, preferably before they choose their school.  There is a very encouraging and practical chapter towards the end of the book written specifically to students.

By the same author(s):  Already Gone, The New Answers Book 1

Recent Reads {A Darcy Christmas}

A Darcy Christmas - A Holiday Tribute to Jane Austen - by Amanda Grange, Sharon Lathan, and Carolyn Eberhart - This was a quick read, and although I don't think it would win any literary awards, I appreciate that it doesn't try to be something that it's not.   It is just a light, seasonal set of stories, not deep and without any mysteries to unravel.  It's a collection of three brief novellas based on Austen's beloved characters within a Christmas season setting.  The first places Darcy in a similar position to Scrooge - he meets with three spirits on the Christmas Eve after his first disastrous proposal to Elizabeth, and is encouraged to learn from her criticisms and try again to win her rather than give up.  An interesting premise, although I didn't necessarily agree with all the characterizations.  The second story in the collection is basically a narrative of a Christmas in which the Darcys are expecting their first child and spend the holiday with the Bingleys.  Not much in the way of a storyline, but I had no complaints either.  And the third is sort of a collection of their Christmas memories over the long years of their marriage.  None of the three vignettes were offensive, but none were particularly memorable or wonderful either.  But as it is clearly intended to be light seasonal reading, I wasn't entirely disappointed that it didn't contain anything that stood out as particularly valuable or worthy of comment.

Recent Reads {Merlin}

Merlin by Stephen R Lawhead - This is the second in Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle, and is the story of the son of the great bard Taliesin and the Atlantean princess Charis.  Merlin tells his own story, of growing up with the "Fair Folk" of Atlantis, spending time with his Celtic grandparents and the Christian druid priests.  As a young man, he is kidnapped by the Hill Folk, and lives with them for several seasons.  The central part of the tale is quite dark, as Merlin withdraws into the forest by himself to mourn the loss of his wife and many of his friends and sword-brothers in a Saxon raid.   Many of the characters refer to him as being mad during this time, and he doesn't deny it.  However, he is able to return to those of his family still living and take up his place as Briton's prophet and kingmaker.  We are introduced to young Arthur before the story's end, and events are set in motion for Arthur to return as Briton's High King who ushers in the "Kingdom of Summer" foretold by Taliesin.  Throughout the story, there is an underlying theme of the One True God and Merlin is among the characters that find their purpose in serving God and doing His will.

By the same author:  Patrick, The Skin Map.  Other books in the Pendragon Cycle are: Taliesin, Arthur, Pendragon, and Grail.   My comments from the previous time I read Merlin are here.

Recent Reads {Beethoven: His Life and Music}

Beethoven - His Life & Music by Jeremy Siepmann - Since I thoroughly enjoyed Siepmann's biography of Mozart, I was quick to grab his similar work on Beethoven.  Siepmann tells Beethoven's story in the same engaging, readable style with chapters about his life alternating with chapters describing his music.  Siepmann draws from letters and writings of Beethoven and his family members and associates to give a well-rounded view of this often troubled, but brilliant composer.  The chapters about the music were also very interesting, and accessible even to readers without an education in music.  The book captures the tragedy and the triumph of Beethoven's life well, without passing judgment.  The books comes with two CDs of the music referenced in the book, and sidebars throughout the book direct the reader to the track mentioned.  Unfortunately, the library copy I read had only one of the two CDs with it, so I missed out on some of the music.  I highly recommend these books, and wish there were more in this style about other composers.

By the same author:  Mozart: His Life & Music

Recent Reads - Disappointing JAFF

I'm going to combine three books in one post, because I'm not prepared to endorse any of them.  There is an overabundance of Jane Austen Fan Fiction out there, and the quality varies widely.  Most are what I call "fluffy" novels and while I've read several that are quite entertaining and well done, it seems that a large percentage of this genre are cheap attempts by mediocre authors to capitalize on the popularity of Austen's characters and are a waste of time.  I do read reviews by readers in order to choose which of these novels are what I would consider trash and avoid those.  Of the following three books, I rather wish I'd completely avoided one of them, and I could have lived a full and happy life without having read the other two.

Darcy and Fitzwilliam by Karen V. Wasylowski - This book completely failed to live up to the reviews I saw, and honestly I wonder if the editor that wrote the blurb for the book jacket even read the book.  The premise is supposed to be the friendship between Mr Darcy and his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and the events follow those of Pride and Prejudice. The book cover indicates that Fitzwilliam assists Darcy in his 'botched marriage proposals' but there is only one proposal that is botched and Fitzwilliam didn't help with it.  Furthermore, that happened in P&P and is only referred to briefly in the past tense in this novel.  Fail.  None of the P&P characters in Wasylowski's story act in keeping with the characters given them by Austen, with the possible exceptions of Col Fitzwilliam and Caroline Bingley.  Elizabeth has been turned into an irrational, screaming battle-axe without any of the wit or intelligence for which she is known, and this was most disappointing.  The dialogue is flat and childishly vulgar, often laced with what I call potty-mouth.  Little attention was paid to the customs and manners of the period, which indicates that the author did not bother to research.  For example, throughout the story she has characters referring to each other using only first names.  While this may be acceptable between husband and wife alone, or between the two cousins, proper manners would never have allowed Darcy or Fitzwilliam to refer to Lady Catherine deBourgh as simply "Catherine", or for Elizabeth to call her husband anything but "Mr Darcy" in company.  Wasylowski had a few good ideas for moving her plots, but with such poor characterization, sketchy timelines, and far-fetched nonsense, she would have been much better off, in my opinion, in creating her own characters for the story rather than cheapening those that Austen gave us.  Of course, the book probably wouldn't have found an audience then...

Bottom line: don't bother with this book.  I sincerely wish I hadn't.

Mr Darcy Takes A Wife and Nights and Days at Pemberley by Linda Berdoll - I did know what I was getting into when I decided to read these P&P 'sequels' because the reviews were clear that Berdoll treats Darcy and Elizabeth to an extremely passionate marriage life, but those reviews also extol Berdoll's top-notch storytelling and sweeping plot.  Berdoll does tell a good story, and her plots were complex and covered a lot of ground in the narratives.  My complaint about the plots themselves would be that there were really just too many of them.  Each of the two books run 400+ pages, and have multiple complex subplots with many additional characters.  All the characters are quite well-developed, and for the most part the characters from the original P&P are true to their form.  I was not happy with the way Darcy was portrayed in the first, however, because in about half the story he is reduced to little more than a lecher, and the reader is given the impression that he is a most honorable man by virtue of his abilities in bed and his unusual decision to give his lustful attention only to his wife.  Of course it's honorable to be faithful to marriage, but the author seemed to be saying that Darcy was to be admired because he stopped sowing his wild oats once he fell in love with Elizabeth, and that it was wonderful that he had all that past experience because it made his marriage so much better.  I didn't really buy it.  But, as Berdoll's goal seemed also to combine a tawdry bodice-ripper with a plenty of intrigue and drama, she needed plenty of bedroom scenes in order to show off her ability to be graphic without using modern or medical terms. (Imagine me rolling my eyes for effect here.)  I need to be fair in saying that the plots and characterizations are very good, but I could have done with a little less detail in all those subplots, and a lot less drollery and detail in the scenes meant to convey just how 'satisfying' a relationship Darcy and Elizabeth have.

Bottom line: Pretty good books, but for adults only, and if you're prepared to skim and skip stuff along the way.