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200. The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Marianne Boeke

Author:   Douglas Adams

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Humor

193 pages, published June 23, 1997

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Right before the Earth is to be destroyed to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.  Together, Arthur and Ford journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed, ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphod’s girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he’s bought over the years.

 

Quotes 

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

 

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

 

“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

 

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”

 

“A towel, [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”

 

“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

 

“If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.”

 

“I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”

 

“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”

“Why, what did she tell you?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”

 

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”

 

“So this is it,” said Arthur, “We are going to die.”

“Yes,” said Ford, “except… no! Wait a minute!” He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur’s line of vision. “What’s this switch?” he cried.

“What? Where?” cried Arthur, twisting round.

“No, I was only fooling,” said Ford, “we are going to die after all.”

 

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

 

My Take

While preparing the summary for this book, I was reminded of the reasons that it didn’t really do it for me (it seemed better suited for the geeky teenage boy cohort).  However, while pulling out some quotes (which, more often than not, were very clever), I found myself liking the book a bit better.  What can I say, a mixed bag.

 

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194. The Silkworm

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)

Genre:  Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Thriller

455 pages, published June 24, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The second in J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike’s detective series (the first was The Cuckoo’s Calling which I really enjoyed), The Silkworm picks up where the first book left off.  We rejoin Strike and his talented assistant Robin Ellacott in a new mystery.  Strike is hired by Leonora Quine to find her missing husband, novelist Owen Quine.  As Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist had just completed a poisonous book portraying many of his friends and acquaintances in a harsh light which means that there are plenty of motives for murder and a web of deceit and avarice for Strike to untangle and solve.

 

Quotes 

“The whole world’s writing novels, but nobody’s reading them.”                       

 

“We don’t love each other; we love the idea we have of each other. Very few humans understand this or can bear to contemplate it. They have blind faith in their own powers of creation. All love, ultimately, is self-love.”

 

“Though they spent so much time trying to make themselves beautiful, you were not supposed to admit to women that beauty mattered.”

 

“…writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill.  If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.”

 

“Strike had always marvelled at the strange sanctity conferred upon celebrities by the public, even while the newspapers denigrated, hunted or hounded them. No matter how many famous people were convicted of rape or murder, still the belief persisted, almost pagan in its intensity: not him. It couldn’t be him. He’s famous.”

 

“In the depths of his tiredness, surrounded by these blank, sheep-like visages, he found himself pondering the accidents that had brought all of them into being. Every birth was, viewed properly, mere chance. With a hundred million sperm swimming blindly through the darkness, the odds against a person becoming themselves were staggering.”

 

“Keeping busy was the only answer: action had always been his drug of choice.”

 

“She emanated that aura of grandeur that replaces sexual allure in the successful older woman.”

 

“I said that the greatest female writers, with almost no exceptions, have been childless. A fact. And I have said that women generally, by virtue of their desire to mother, are incapable of the necessarily single-minded focus anyone must bring to the creation of literature, true literature. I don’t retract a word. That is a fact.”

 

My Take

The Silkworm provides a new murder mystery for Private Detective Cormoran Strike and his Assistant/Partner Robin Ellacott to solve.  After thoroughly enjoying the fantastically creative world created by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series, I was happy to see that her writing talent translates to Detective/Crime Thriller genre.  While the details of the mystery are not the most gripping, her two lead characters of Cormoran and Robin are so richly drawn, nuanced, and compelling that I loved spending time with them in the gritty world of modern day London.  The solution to the book’s central mystery was almost beside the point.

 

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193. The Last Tudor

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Philippa Gregory

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

528 pages, published August 8, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The Last Tudor tells the stories of three Grey sisters:  Jane, Katherine and Mary.  The great-granddaughter of Henry VII through his younger daughter Mary Tudor, Jane was a first cousin once removed of Edward VI, Henry VIII’s only male heir who was King of England and Ireland in 1547.  When Edward VI died at 15 years old, Jane served as queen of England for nine days after Edward VI wrote in his will that his successor should be Jane, partly because his half-sister Mary was Roman Catholic while Jane was Protestant and would support the religion whose foundation Edward claimed to have laid.  Edward’s will named his half-sisters Mary (daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon) and Elizabeth (daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boelyn) as illegitimate and removed them from succession.  When the country’s allegiance switched to Mary, Jane was tried for treason and beheaded.  Jane’s sister Katherine Grey was the beauty of the family who earned the lifelong hatred of her cousin Elizabeth I when she married Edward Seymour for love.  Under four feet tall, the third sister Mary Grey was an extraordinary little person known as a dwarf in Tudor times, who defied Elizabeth to marry the tallest man at court in her own secret love match.

 

Quotes 

“You don’t get to be a favorite at a tyrant’s court without beheading your principles every day.”

 

My Take

Philippa Gregory, master storyteller and premier writer of historical fiction, has once again woven a fascinating tale that continues the stories of Elizabeth and Mary, the two daughters of Henry VIII.  In The Last Tudor, we get a different view of Elizabeth I who is portrayed as a tyrant who was constantly worried about losing her throne, especially to Mary Queen of Scots, and who was vindictively jealous of her prettier and happier cousin Katherine Grey.  As with all Philippa Gregory novels that I have read during my quest (The Queen’s Fool, The Taming of the Queen, The Kingmakers Daughter) I thoroughly enjoyed the rich details of the period and the compelling character studies of historical figures.

 

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192. The House of Silk

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

294 pages, published November, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

For the first time in its 125 year history, the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate authorized the talented Anthony Horowitz to write a new Sherlock Holmes novel.  The result is The House of Silk which reads very much like the original Holmes’ mysteries.  Set in London of 1890, a fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help.  He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap – a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America. In the days that follow, his home is robbed, his family is threatened. And then the first murder takes place.

 

Quotes 

“Show Holmes a drop of water and he would deduce the existence of the Atlantic. Show it to me and I would look for a tap. That was the difference between us.”

 

“For all men are equal at the moment of death and who are we to judge them when a much greater judge awaits?”

 

“We’re all on the road to ruin but some are further ahead than others.”

 

“when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

 

“Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.”

 

My Take

If you are a fan of the Sherlock Holmes books, then you will likely enjoy The House of Silk.  While the original books are not of particular interest to me, I enjoyed, but did not love, this new take on the detective in the deerstalker cap.  I found Magpie Murders, a modern mystery penned by the inimitable Anthony Horowitz, far more enjoyable and engrossing.

 

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190. The Sparrow

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Mary Doria Russell

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Theology

431 pages, published September 8, 1997

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

In the year 2019, we find proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat.  While the UN debate and try to figure out what to do, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition.  The journey to and the discoveries on Rakhat lead the crew to ponder the meaning of life and God.

Quotes 

“There’s an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.”

So God just leaves?”

No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.”

Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.”

But the sparrow still falls.”

 

“The Jewish sages also tell us that God dances when His children defeat Him in argument, when they stand on their feet and use their minds. So questions like Anne’s are worth asking. To ask them is a very fine kind of human behavior. If we keep demanding that God yield up His answers, perhaps some day we will understand them. And then we will be something more than clever apes, and we shall dance with God.”

 

“I believe in God the way I believe in quarks. People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they’ve learned, I’d find quarks and God just like they did.”

 

“Faced with the Divine, people took refuge in the banal, as though answering a cosmic multiple-choice question: If you saw a burning bush, would you (a) call 911, (b) get the hot dogs, or (c) recognize God? A vanishingly small number of people would recognize God, Anne had decided years before, and most of them had simply missed a dose of Thorazine.”

 

“I do what I do without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require Heaven or Hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently.”

 

“See that’s where it falls apart for me!” Anne cried. “What sticks in my throat is that God gets the credit but never the blame. I just can’t swallow that kind of theological candy. Either God’s in charge or he’s not…”

 

“There are times…when we are in the midst of life-moments of confrontation with birth or death, or moments of beauty when nature or love is fully revealed, or moments of terrible loneliness-times when a holy and awesome awareness comes upon us. It may come as deep inner stillness or as a rush of overflowing emotion. It may seem to come from beyond us, without any provocation, or from within us, evoked by music or by a sleeping child. If we open our hearts at such moments, creation reveals itself to us in all it’s unity and fullness. And when we return from such a moment of awareness, our hearts long to find some way to capture it in words forever, so that we can remain faithful to it’s higher truth ….When my people search for a name to give to the truth we feel at those moments, we call it God, and when we capture that understanding in timeless poetry, we call it praying.”

 

“That is my dilemma. Because if I was led by God to love God, step by step, as it seemed, if I accept that the beauty and the rapture were real and true, the rest of it was God’s will too, and that, gentlemen, is cause for bitterness. But if I am simply a deluded ape who took a lot of old folktales far too seriously, then I brought all this on myself and my companions and the whole business becomes farcical, doesn’t it. The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances…is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God.”

 

“Watching him with one eye, she wondered if men ever figured out that they were more appealing when they were pursuing their own work than when they were pursuing a woman.”

 

“You know what’s the most terrifying thing about admitting that you’re in love? You are just naked. You put yourself in harm’s way and you lay down all your defenses. No clothes, no weapons. Nowhere to hide. Completely vulnerable. The only thing that makes it tolerable is to believe that the other person loves you back…”

 

“we all make vows, Jimmy. And there is something very beautiful and touching and noble about wanting good impulses to be permanent and true forever,” she said. “Most of us stand up and vow to love, honor and cherish someone. And we truly mean it, at the time. But two or twelve or twenty years down the road, the lawyers are negotiating the property settlement.”

“You and George didn’t go back on your promises.”

She laughed. “Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men.” She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, “They’ve all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole lot different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt. Oh, there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly and – well, the rest is none of your business.”

“But people change,” he said quietly.

“Precisely. People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall. Shit. Geology changes! Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we’ve had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people.” She flopped back against her chair. “Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever. Okay. Okay! I’m figuring something out now.” She sat up straight, eyes focused somewhere outside the room, and Jimmy realized that even Anne didn’t have all the answers and that was either the most comforting thing he’d learned in a long time or the most discouraging. “Maybe because so few of us would be able to give up something so fundamental for something so abstract, we protect ourselves from the nobility of a priest’s vows by jeering at him when he can’t live up to them, always and forever.” She shivered and slumped suddenly, “But, Jimmy! What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren’t human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever.”

 

“The poor you will always have with you,’ Jesus said. A warning, Emilio wondered, or an indictment?”

 

“It is the human condition to ask questions like Anne’s last night and to receive no plain answers,” he said. “Perhaps this is because we can’t understand the answers, because we are incapable of knowing God’s ways and God’s thoughts. We are, after all, only very clever tailless primates, doing the best we can, but limited. Perhaps we must all own up to being agnostic, unable to know the unknowable.”

 

“Consider the Star of David,” he said quietly. “Two triangles, one pointing down, one pointing up. I find this a powerful image—the Divine reaching down, humanity reaching upward. And in the center, an intersection, where the Divine and human meet. The Mass takes place in that space.” His eyes lifted and met hers: a look of lucid candor. “I understand it as a place where the Divine and the human are one. And as a promise, perhaps. That God will reach toward us if we reach toward Him, that we and our most ordinary human acts—like eating bread and drinking wine—can be transformed and made sacred.”

 

My Take

When I started The Sparrow, I was expecting a science fiction story, a genre I hadn’t read in awhile.  While there is plenty of science fiction to keep the reader interested, there is a lot more to this book.  Against the backdrop of a journey and investigation of another planet inhabited by intelligent life, Author Mary Doria Russell explores the eternal question of the meaning of God and how we, as “clever apes,” are meant to relate to Him.  A fascinating and thought provoking book.

 

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189. The Girl with all the Gifts

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   M.R. Carey

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Horror

460 pages, published June 19, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The Girl with all the Gifts is set in a bleak future after most of humanity has succumbed to a pathogenic fungus that has turned most people into “hungries” who have an insatiable desire to eat what is left of the human race and pass along the disease.  Dr. Caldwell believes that a group of hungry children who are kept bound to their chairs at all times, especially the incredibly intelligent Melanie, hold the key to combating the deadly pandemic.  However, Melanie is much more than a test subject, especially in the view of Miss Justineau, her favorite teacher with whom she has bonded.

 

Quotes 

“The truth is the truth, the only prize worth having. If you deny it, you’re only showing that you’re unworthy of it.”

 

“No amount of expertly choreographed PR could prevail, in the end, against Armageddon. It strolled over the barricades and took its pleasure.”

 

“This gauntlet, flung down by a bullying, contemptuous universe that allowed human beings to grope their way to sentience just so it could put them in their place that bit more painfully.”

 

“And then like Pandora, opening the great big box of the world and not being afraid, not even caring whether what’s inside is good or bad. Because it’s both. Everything is always both. But you have to open it to find that out.”

 

“It’s not just Pandora who had that inescapable flaw. It seems like everyone has been built in a way that sometimes makes them do wrong and stupid things.”

 

“the horror of the unknown is more frightening than any horror you can understand”

 

“may we live as long as we want, and never want as long as we live,”

 

“And the sun comes out, like a kiss on the cheek from God.”

 

“It’s a little bit like a cow listening to a recipe for beef stew.”

 

“It’s like before the Breakdown people used to spend their whole lives making cocoons for themselves out of furniture and ornaments and books and toys and pictures and any kind of shit they could find. As though they hoped they’d be born out of the cocoon as something else.”

 

“It’s equinox, with the world balanced between winter and summer, life and death, like a spinning ball balanced on the tip of someone’s finger.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” she explains to Miss J. “I want to be where you are. And I don’t know the way back to wherever I was before, anyway. I don’t even remember it. All I remember is the block, and you. You’re…” Now it’s Melanie’s turn to hesitate. She doesn’t know the words for this. “You’re my bread,” she says at last. “When I’m hungry. I don’t mean that I want to eat you, Miss Justineau! I really don’t! I’d rather die than do that. I just mean… you fill me up the way the bread does to the man in the song. You make me feel like I don’t need anything else.”

 

My Take

It didn’t take long for me to be drawn into the bleak, post-Apocalyptic world created by M.R. Carey in The Girl with All the Gifts.  A big reason was the two main characters, Melanie (a young girl who is incredibly sympathetic despite who constant urge to eat human flesh) and Miss Justineau, Melanie’s teacher and protector who grapples with a world gone mad and her own past demons.  While the subject matter is a big-time downer, I was captivated by the storytelling and held in suspense until the climactic end.  If you like the dystopia genre, you should definitely check out this book.

 

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187. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Neil deGrasse Tyson

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Science

222 pages, published May 2, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is a series of essays written by well known Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Some of the fascinating topics covered are:  What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us?  What is the impact of the Big Bang?  How do black holes work?  What are anti-matter, quarks and quantum mechanics?  Will we find other planets with intelligent life in the universe? Are there multi-verses?

 

Quotes 

“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”

 

“Matter tells space how to curve; space tells matter how to move.”

 

“For reasons I have yet to understand, many people don’t like chemicals, which might explain the perennial movement to rid foods of them. <…> Personally, I am quite comfortable with chemicals, anywhere in the universe. My favorite stars, as well as my best friends, are all made of them.”

 

“We do not simply live in this universe. The universe lives within us.”

 

“Every cup that passes through a single person and eventually rejoins the world’s water supply holds enough molecules to mix 1,500 of them into every other cup of water in the world. No way around it: some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc.  How about air? Also vital. A single breathful draws in more air molecules than there are breathfuls of air in Earth’s entire atmosphere. That means some of the air you just breathed passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln, and Billy the Kid.”

 

““What we do know, and what we can assert without further hesitation, is that the universe had a beginning. The universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body’s atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnaces within high-mass stars that exploded more than five billion years ago.  We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and we have only just begun.”

 

“For reasons I have yet to understand, many people don’t like chemicals, which might explain the perennial movement to rid foods of them.  Personally, I am quite comfortable with chemicals, anywhere in the universe. My favorite stars, as well as my best friends, are all made of them.”

 

“The power and beauty of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. In other words, after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.”

 

“But what if the universe was always there, in a state or condition we have yet to identify—a multiverse, for instance, that continually births universes? Or what if the universe just popped into existence from nothing? Or what if everything we know and love were just a computer simulation rendered for entertainment by a superintelligent alien species? These philosophically fun ideas usually satisfy nobody. Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.”

 

“The cosmic perspective shows Earth to be a mote. But it’s a precious mote and, for the moment, it’s the only home we have.”

 

“Earth’s Moon is about 1/ 400th the diameter of the Sun, but it is also 1/ 400th as far from us, making the Sun and the Moon the same size on the sky—a coincidence not shared by any other planet–moon combination in the solar system, allowing for uniquely photogenic total solar eclipses.”

 

“At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth.  Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock.”

 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.   A collection of essays by famous Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, there are some very interesting ideas in the book, but it felt a little disjointed to read.  I preferred Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli, a short book that I read earlier this year.  I’m not sure what it is about astrophysicists, but they tend to write short books.

 

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184. The Remains of the Day

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Kazuo Ishiguro

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

258 pages, published September 12, 1990

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

The Remains of the Day is a compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect English butler and of the changing landscape in England after World War II.   After devoting more than 30 years of his life to service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a drive through the English countryside to reconnect with Miss Kenton, who served for a period as the Housekeeper at Darlington and who was the closest thing to a romantic relationship for Stevens during his life.  As Stevens’ story slowly unfolds, a life of blind dedication, missed opportunities and chances not taken is revealed and we are left with the portrait of a tragic man who missed out on a bigger life.

Quotes 

“What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.”

 

“If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.”

 

“The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.”

 

“But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of ‘turning points’, one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.”

 

“He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lorship’s wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?”

 

“What do you think dignity’s all about?’  The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. ‘It’s rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,’ I said. ‘But I suspect it comes down to not removing one’s clothing in public.”

 

“After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?”

 

“But that doesn’t mean to say, of course, there aren’t occasions now and then – extremely desolate occasions – when you think to yourself: ‘What a terrible mistake I’ve made with my life.’ And you get to thinking about a different life, a better life you might have had. For instance, I get to thinking about a life I may have had with you, Mr. Stevens. And I suppose that’s when I get angry about some trivial little thing and leave. But each time I do, I realize before long – my rightful place is with my husband. After all, there’s no turning back the clock now. One can’t be forever dwelling on what might have been. One should realize one has as good as most, perhaps better, and be grateful.”

 

“It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used, have only manservants. I tend to believe this is true. Continentals are unable to be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of. Continentals – and by and large the Celts, as you will no doubt agree – are as a rule unable to control themselves in moments of a strong emotion, and are thus unable to maintain a professional demeanour other than in the least challenging of situations. If I may return to my earlier metaphor – you will excuse my putting it so coarsely – they are like a man who will, at the slightest provocation, tear off his suit and his shirt and run about screaming. In a word, “dignity” is beyond such persons. We English have an important advantage over foreigners in this respect and it is for this reason that when you think of a great butler, he is bound, almost by definition, to be an Englishman.”

 

“The rest of my life stretches out as an emptiness before me.”

 

My Take

I saw the excellent film version of The Remains of the Day in 1993 when it was first released and was struck by how sad it was that the protagonist Stevens never dared to take even a small risk in the service of emotional connection with another human being.  The book version, which won the Man Booker Prize in 1989, is just as good and provides even greater insight into this emotionally stunted man.  It also provides a compelling portrait of post World War II England and how the class system is still alive and well, but changing fast.  The Remains of the Day is a powerful reminder that you need to live now and connect with your fellow human beings on a deep and personal level so that you don’t get to the end of your life and regret all the chances not taken.

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183. The Railwayman’s Wife

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Ashley Hay

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

288 pages, published April 5, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Set in post World War II 1948 in the small Australian town of Thirroul, The Railwayman’s Wife follows the intersecting lives of three individuals.  Anikka Lachlan is a widow who is left to raise her daughter alone when her husband Mac is killed in a railway accident.  Roy McKinnon is a poet who has lost hope after the war, but finds poetry again when he falls for Anikka.  Frank Draper is a doctor who is weighed down by guilt of those he couldn’t save.

 

Quotes 

“There’s some comfort in seeing things go on; birds keep singing, buses keep running. But if you want those things to continue, perhaps you have to accept that the other kinds of things, unhappier, even horrific ones, will continue too. And that’s harder.”

 

“The oceans and the skies…and the sun coming up each new day. That’s all there is, I think. That’s all that matters to think on.”

 

“That is marriage, he thought, remaking yourself in someone else’s image. And who knew where the truth of it began or would end?”

 

“Such fascinating things, libraries.  She closes her eyes.  She could walk inside and step into a murder, a love story, a complete account of somebody else’s life, or mutiny on the high seas. Such potential; such adventure—there’s a shimmer of malfeasance in trying other ways of being.”

 

“How would you start to write a poem? How would you put together a series of words for its first line—how would you know which words to choose? When you read a poem, every word seemed so perfect that it had to have been predestined—well, a good poem.”

 

My Take

The Railwayman’s Wife is a beautifully written, poetic novel about loss, grief, and trying to move on with your life by Australian writer Ashley Hay.  The part of the novel that I enjoyed the most was a lovely and enchanting poem entitled “Lost World” which was specifically written for this book by Australian poet Stephen Edgar.  I’ve tried in vain to find it on-line so that I could post it with this review.  If you want to check it out, you will just have to read this recommended book.

 

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180. Brooklyn

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Colm Tóibín

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance

288 pages, published September 8, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Brooklyn tells the story of Eilis (pronounced eye-liss) Lacey, a young woman who travels from a small town in Ireland to Brooklyn, New York in the years following World War II.  Eilis leaves behind her mother and her beloved sister Rose (her brothers had already left for England after their father died) when she is sponsored by an Irish priest from Brooklyn to live in the United States.  We follow Eilis as she makes her way in a transatlantic crossing on a ocean liner, lives in a boarding house with other young women, gets a job in a department store, takes accounting classes and falls in love with Tony, a sweet boy from a big Italian family.  When Eilis must return to Ireland in response to a family crisis, she is forced to choose between her comfortable life over there and her new, challenging life in America.

 

Quotes 

“What she would need to do in the days before she left and on the morning of her departure was smile, so that they would remember her smiling.”

 

“She thought it was strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that is must be the prospect of home.”

 

“Carefully, she went back up the stairs and found that if she moved along the first landing she would be able to see him from above. Somehow, she thought, if she could look at him, take him in clearly when he was not trying to amuse her or impress her, something would come to her, some knowledge, or some ability to make a decision.”

 

“She felt almost guilty that she had handed some of her grief to him, and then she felt close to him for his willingness to take it and hold it, in all its rawness, all its dark confusion.”

 

“Some people are nice and if you talk to them properly, they can be even nicer.”

 

“We keep our prices low and our manners high.”

 

“What she loved most about America, Eilis thought on these mornings, was how the heating was kept on all night.”

 

“She has gone back to Brooklyn,’ her mother would say. And, as the train rolled past Macmire Bridge on its way towards Wexford, Eilis imagined the years already when these words would come to mean less and less to the man who heard them and would come to mean more and more to herself. She almost smiled at the thought of it, then closed her eyes and tried to imagine nothing more.”

 

My Take

At the beginning of 2016, I saw the movie version of Brooklyn and was enchanted by the simple, sweet tale of a young Irish woman who must choose between a new, challenging life in the United States and her life in Ireland which was comfortable, but with less opportunity and adventure.  After finishing the book, I can report that it is just as good as the movie.  Sometimes, a simple story that is well told can be the satisfying read.  That was the case here and I recommend you check out both the book and movie.

 

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