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447. A Discovery of Witches

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Joni Renee Zalk

Author:  Deborah Harkness

Genre:   Fiction, Fantasy, Romance

579 pages, published February 2011

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The protagonist of A Discovery of Witches is, no surprise, a witch named Diana Bishop.  Diana is a professor at Yale who specializes in the study of alchemy.  Descended from a prominent family of witches, Diana rejects her gift until she discovers a bewitched alchemical manuscript while conducting research at Oxford’s Bodleian Library.  There, she meets Matthew de Clermont, a brilliant geneticist who also happens to be a vampire.  When Matthew and Diana fall in love, they defy the rules set down by the council of witches, vampires and daemons which forbid interspecies fraternization.

Quotes 

“It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.”

“Just because something seems impossible doesn’t make it untrue,”

 

“As fast as I can tell there are only two emotions that keep the world spinning year after year…One is fear.  The other is desire.”

 

“Yes, I see that you are behaving like a prince but that doesn’t mean you won’t behave like a devil at the first opportunity.”

 

“It is a blessing as well as a burden to love so much that you can hurt so badly when love is gone.”

 

“All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land.”

 

“Somewhere in the center of my soul, a rusty chain began to unwind. It freed itself, link by link, from where it had rested, unobserved, waiting for him. My hands, which had been balled up and pressed against his chest, unfurled with it. The chain continued to drop, to an unfathomable depth where there was nothing but darkness and Matthew. At last it snapped to its full length, anchoring me to a vampire. Despite the manuscript, despite the fact that my hands contained enough voltage to run a microwave, and despite the photograph, as long as I was connected to him, I was safe.”

 

“If the butterfly wings its way to the sweet light that attracts it, it’s only because it doesn’t know that the fire can consume it.”

 

“there’s nothing more powerful than human fear—not magic, not vampire strength. Nothing.”

 

“Scholars do one of two things when they discover information that doesn’t fit what they already know. Either they sweep it aside so it doesn’t bring their cherished theories into question or they focus on it with laserlike intensity and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.”

 

My Take

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431. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:    J.K. Rowling

Genre:   Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

870 pages, published September 1, 2004

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is book number five in the classic Harry Potter series.  Harry is growing up and as an emerging young adult/wizard is facing greater and more fearsome challenges.  Other than the dark lord Voldemort who continues to gain power, Harry’s chief adversary is the head in the sand approach of the Ministry of Magic, personified by the new Hogwart’s Headmaster Dolores Umbridge.  However, Harry is not alone in his battle, but is joined by the Order of the Phoenix which includes Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, Mad Eye Moody and the Weasley’s.

Quotes 

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

 

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”

 

“Is it true that you shouted at Professor Umbridge?”

“Yes.”

“You called her a liar?”

“Yes.”

“You told her He Who Must Not Be Named is back?”

“Yes.”

“Have a biscuit, Potter.”

 

“You’re a prefect? Oh Ronnie! That’s everyone in the family!”

“What are Fred and I? Next door neighbors?”

 

“Why were you lurking under our window?”

“Yes – yes, good point, Petunia! What were you doing under our windows, boy?”

“Listening to the news,” said Harry in a resigned voice.

His aunt and uncle exchanged looks of outrage.

“Listening to the news! Again?”

“Well, it changes every day, you see,” said Harry.”

 

“From now on, I don’t care if my tea leaves spell ‘Die, Ron, Die,’ I’m chucking them in the bin where they belong.”

 

“The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.”

 

“You should write a book,” Ron told Hermione as he cut up his potatoes, “translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them.”

 

“Harry, don’t go picking a row with Malfoy, don’t forget, he’s a prefect now, he could make life difficult for you…”

“Wow, I wonder what it’d be like to have a difficult life?” said Harry sarcastically.”

 

“Well?” Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. “How was it?”

Harry considered it for a moment. “Wet,” he said truthfully.

Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell.

“Because she was crying,” Harry continued heavily.

“Oh,” said Ron, his smile faded slightly. “Are you that bad at kissing?”

“Dunno,” said Harry, who hadn’t considered this, and immediately felt rather worried. “Maybe I am.”

 

“By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.”

 

“Well, we were always going to fail that one,” said Ron gloomily as they ascended the marble staircase. He had just made Harry feel rather better by telling him how he told the examiner in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in the crystal ball, only to look up and realize he had been describing the examiner’s reflection.”

 

My Take

I am thoroughly enjoying my re-read of the Harry Potter series, this time by listening to the excellent audio versions narrated by the incomparable Jim Dale.  He really brings the story to life with spot on voices for each character.  Although clocking in at a lengthy 870 pages, The Order of the Phoenix moves swiftly along.  It also benefits from Rowling’s clever analogy to the pre-World War II mindset in which most of the world underestimated the looming danger of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.  The execrable Dolores Umbridge is the perfect character to illustrate this concept.

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397. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:    J.K. Rowling

Genre:    Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

734 pages, published September 28, 2002

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire takes place during Harry’s fifth year at Hogwart’s.  The book begins with a trip to the International Quidditch Cup where Harry and the Weasly family cheer on favorite player Victor Krum.  Krum then shows up at Hogwarts as part of the Durmstrang school (from Northern Europe) who, along with Beauxbatons (from France) are there to compete in the Tri-Wizard Cup.   Harry is also mysteriously entered as a contestant in the cup which will challenge Harry and the other entrants as they have never before been challenged.

Quotes 

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

 

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”

 

“I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”

 

“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”

 

“Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.”

 

“Who’re you going with, then?” said Ron.

“Angelina,” said Fred promptly, without a trace of embarrassment.

“What?” said Ron, taken aback. “You’ve already asked her?”

“Good point,” said Fred. He turned his head and called across the common room, “Oi! Angelina!”

Angelina, who had been chatting with Alicia Spinnet near the fire, looked over at him.

“What?” She called back.

“Want to come to the ball with me?”

Angelina gave Fred a sort of appraising look.

“All right, then,” she said, and she turned back to Alicia and carried on chatting with a bit of a grin on her face.

“There you go,” said Fred to Harry and Ron, “piece of cake.”

 

“Anyone can speak Troll. All you have to do is point and grunt.”

 

“I’m never wearing them,” Ron was saying stubbornly. “Never.”  “Fine,” snapped Mrs. Weasley. “Go naked. And, Harry, make sure you get a picture of him. Goodness knows I could do with a laugh.”

 

My Take

Another creative and captivating Harry Potter book.  I was intrigued by the different schools (Durmstrang and Beauxbatons) that spend a year at Hogwarts participating in the Tri-Wizard tournament and their unique approach to magic.  I also appreciated the inclusion of the Cedric Diggory character (a real class act).  JK Rowling is a treasure.

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387. Quichotte

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Steve Atlee

Author:  Salman Rushdie

Genre:   Fiction, Fantasy

416 pages, published September 3, 2019

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Quichotte is a modern day take on Don Quixote.  In it, spy thriller writer Sam DuChamp creates the character of Quichotte, a befuddled salesman obsessed with television, who falls impossibly in love with a reality TV star.  Along with his imaginary son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a quest across America to prove worthy of her hand.  Interspersed with Quichotte’s story, DuChamp deals with issues all his own.

Quotes 

“BE A LAWYER in a lawless time was like being a clown among the humorless: which was to say, either completely redundant or absolutely essential.”

 

“Men on the road together have three choices. They separate, they kill one another, or they work things out.”

 

“AS I PLAN MY QUEST,” Quichotte said, drinking from a can of ginger ale, “I ponder the contemporary period as well as the classical. And by the contemporary I mean, of course, The Bachelorette.”

 

“Every quest takes places in both the sphere of the actual, which is what maps reveal to us, and in the sphere of the symbolic, for which the only maps are the unseen ones in our heads.”

 

“He devoured morning shows, daytime shows, late-night talk shows, soaps, situation comedies, Lifetime Movies, hospital dramas, police series, vampire and zombie serials, the dramas of housewives from Atlanta, New Jersey, Beverly Hills and New York, the romances and quarrels of hotel-fortune princesses and self-styled shahs, the cavortings of individuals made famous by happy nudities, the fifteen minutes of fame accorded to young persons with large social media followings on account of their plastic-surgery acquisition of a third breast or their post-rib-removal figures that mimicked the impossible shape of the Mattel company’s Barbie doll, or even, more simply, their ability to catch giant carp in picturesque settings while wearing only the tiniest of string bikinis; as well as singing competitions, cooking competitions, competitions for business propositions, competitions for business apprenticeships, competitions between remote-controlled monster vehicles, fashion competitions, competitions for the affections of both bachelors and bachelorettes, baseball games, basketball games, football games, wrestling bouts, kickboxing bouts, extreme sports programming and, of course, beauty contests.”

 

“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished,’ Czesław Miłosz once said.)”

 

“Other hurdles were ideological. ‘I’m not fucking fighting to defend women’s right to wear the veil, the hijab, the niqab, whatever,’ she declaimed. ‘All these young women these days who describe the veil as a signifier of their identity. I tell them they are suffering from what that presently unfashionable philosopher Karl Marx would have called false consciousness. In most of the world the veil is not a free choice. Women are forced into invisibility by men. These girls in the West making their quote- unquote free choices are legitimising the oppression of their sisters in the parts of the world where the choice is not free. That’s what I tell them, and they are very shocked. They tell me they find my remarks offensive. I tell them I feel the same way about the veil. It’s exhausting. I’ve become embittered. I just needed to stop.”

 

My Take

This is the first Salman Rushdie book that I have read and it was a pretty good, not great, experience.  Rushdie writes from a deep vein of creativity and has some unique insights into the human condition.  I also liked his use of Don Quixote quest as the theme of his book.  I myself am on a quest to read 1000 books during my 50’s and can relate to Quichotte’s quest on a certain level.

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384. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

435 pages, published May 1, 2004

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter is a third year student at Hogwarts and faces a new round of danger.  Chief among his worries is the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban prison.  Black, who was convicted of murderering Harry’s parents, now seems to be after Harry.  To protect Hogwarts, the dementors, the Azkaban guards who are hunting Sirius, are called in and they seem to also be after Harry.  To combat the dementors, Harry learns how to summon his own patronus from Professor Lupin, the new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher, who was a childhood friend of his father.  With the help of the Mauraders Map and the invisibility cloak, Harry, Ron and Hermione set to make things right again at Hogwarts.

Quotes 

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

 

“Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business.

Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.

Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.”

 

“What’s that?” he snarled, staring at the envelope Harry was still clutching in his hand. “If it’s another form for me to sign, you’ve got another -“

“It’s not,” said Harry cheerfully. “It’s a letter from my godfather.”

“Godfather?” sputtered Uncle Vernon. “You haven’t got a godfather!”

“Yes, I have,” said Harry brightly. “He was my mum and dad’s best friend. He’s a convicted murderer, but he’s broken out of wizard prison and he’s on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though…keep up with my news…check if I’m happy….”

 

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

 

“You think the dead we loved truly ever leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly in times of great trouble?”

 

“I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for.”

 

“Why, dear boy, we don’t send wizards to Azkaban just for blowing up their aunts.”

 

“If you made a better rat than a human, it’s not much to boast about, Peter.”

 

“Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs.”

 

“I’ll fix it up with Mum and Dad, then I’ll call you. I know how to use a fellytone now—”

“A telephone, Ron,” said Hermione. “Honestly, you should take Muggle Studies next year…”

 

“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”

 

“Don’t let the muggles get you down.”

 

“How’re we getting to King’s Cross tomorrow, Dad?” asked Fred as they dug into a sumptuous pudding. “The Ministry’s providing a couple of cars,” said Mr. Weasley.  Everyone looked up at him.  “Why?” said Percy curiously.  “It’s because of you, Perce,” said George seriously. “And there’ll be little flags on the hoods, with HB on them-”  “-for Humongous Bighead,” said Fred.”

 

My Take

I am thoroughly enjoying my repeat romp through all of the Harry Potter books, especially the amazing voice work of narrator Jim Dale who seamlessly transitions between characters and brings The Prisoner of Azkaban to life.  J.K. Rowling again delivers a compelling, intricate, creative and fun tour de force in this book and it is a pleasure to re-read it.

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374. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

341 pages, published July 2, 1999

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is book two in the classic Harry Potter series.  Once again escaping his mean muggle relatives, Harry is delighted to be back at Hogwarts with besties Ron and Hermione.  However, his happiness is soon interrupted when students begin turning to stone and the school is ominously put on notice that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

Quotes 

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

 

“When in doubt, go to the library.”

 

“Honestly, if you were any slower, you’d be going backward.”

 

“Ginny!” said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. “Haven’t I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain?”

 

“Your aunt and uncle will be proud, though, won’t they?” said Hermione as they got off the train and joined the crowd thronging toward the enchanted barrier. “When they hear what you did this year?”  “Proud?” said Harry. “Are you crazy? All those times I could’ve died, and I didn’t manage it? They’ll be furious…”

 

“Do I look stupid?” snarled Uncle Vernon, a bit of fried egg dangling from his bushy mustache.”

 

“Hang on . . .” Harry muttered to Ron. “There’s an empty chair at the staff table. . . . Where’s Snape?”

“Maybe he’s ill!” said Ron hopefully.

“Maybe he’s left,” said Harry, “because he missed out on the Defense Against the Dark Arts job again!”

“Or he might have been sacked!” said Ron enthusiastically. “I mean, everyone hates him —”

“Or maybe,” said a very cold voice right behind them, “he’s waiting to hear why you two didn’t arrive on the school train.”

Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze, stood Severus Snape.”

 

“Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I’ve heard you’ve bin givin’ out signed photos. How come I haven’t got one?”

 

“Ron: Why spiders? Why couldn’t it be “follow the butterflies?”

 

“Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter. . . .”

He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT” 

My Take

I am having so much fun re-reading the Harry Potter series.  Or, rather, listening to them with the delightful audio version narrated by the incomparable Jim Dale who brings the story to life with his imaginative voice work.  J.K. Rowling is a marvel, crafting a richly drawn fantasy world replete with an incredible level of detail while still managing to create completely relatable characters.  A pleasure for readers of any age!

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367. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:  Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy

357 pages, published June 26, 1997

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first book in the classic Harry Potter series.  The book opens with orphaned Harry living a miserable life with his uncaring Aunt and Uncle.  Harry sleeps in a closet under the stairs while they spoil Dudley, their only child who is the same age as Harry.   Things soon change when Harry discovers that he is a Wizard and is sent off to the Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn about magic.  There he meets new friends, discovers his own magical powers, has many adventures and confronts the evil Voldemort.

Quotes 

“A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs. Dursley’s scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley…He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: “To Harry Potter – the boy who lived!”

 

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

 

“The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

 

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our

 

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves it’s own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.”

 

“Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

 

“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.”

 

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

 

“As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”

 

“Now, you two – this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you’ve – you’ve blown up a toilet or –”

“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.”

“Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”

 

“So light a fire!” Harry choked. “Yes…of course…but there’s no wood!” …

“HAVE YOU GONE MAD!” Ron bellowed. “ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT!”

 

“Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.” 

My Take

When my oldest child Nick was in grade school, we started reading the Harry Potter series together and I was completely enchanted.  While recently checking out Lethal White (Book 4 in J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike Detective series), I asked the Librarian for a good audio book recommendation.  She suggested the Harry Potter series.  Well, as Gretchen Rubin says, “the best reading is re-reading” and she was never more right.  Although this time around, I am going to listen to the audio version.  The voice work of actor Jim Dale is an impressive delight and brings these creative and ingenious stories to magical life.

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313. Elevation

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Stephen King

Genre:  Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Fantasy, Novella

146 pages, published October 30, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In Elevation, Stephen King tells a supernatural story about Scott Carey, an ordinary man who has steadily been losing weight but whose appearance hasn’t changed.  Scott weighs the same in his clothes and out of them, no matter how heavy they are.  Scott is engaged in a battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly poops on Scott’s lawn.  Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face–including his own—he tries to help.  They become friends and are with Scott as he approaches zero weight and all that entails.

Quotes 

“Everyone should have this, he thought, and perhaps, at the end, everyone does. Perhaps in their time of dying, everyone rises.”

 

“Everything leads to this, he thought. To this elevation. If it’s how dying feels, everyone should be glad to go.”

“He thought he had discovered one of life’s great truths (and one he could have done without): the only thing harder than saying goodbye to yourself, a pound at a time, was saying goodbye to your friends.”

 

“life is what we make it and acceptance is the key to all our affairs.”

 

“Why feel bad about what you couldn’t change? Why not embrace it?”

 

“He used to say what you deserve has nothing to do with where you finish.”

 

“Gravity is the anchor that pulls us down into our graves.”

 

“Then his lungs seemed to open up again, each breath going deeper than the one before. His sneakers (not blinding white Adidas, just ratty old Pumas) seemed to shed the lead coating they had gained. His previous lightness of body came rushing back. It was what Milly had called the following wind, and what pros like McComb no doubt called the runner’s high. Scott preferred that. He remembered that day in his yard, flexing his knees, leaping, and catching the branch of the tree. He remembered running up and down the bandstand steps. He remembered dancing across the kitchen floor as Stevie Wonder sang “Superstition.” This was the same. Not a wind, not even a high, exactly, but an elevation. A sense that you had gone beyond yourself and could go farther still.” 

My Take

My Take:   While Elevation is lesser Steven King, it is still an engaging, page turning story.

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307. Undermajordomo Minor

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Kathy Hewitt

Author:   Patrick deWitt

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Humor

224 pages, published September 8, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Lucy (aka Lucien) Minor has been hired to work under the Major Domo in the dilapidated Castle Van Aux which is inhabited by a mysterious Baron who spends his time pining for his Baroness who abandoned him long ago.  While trying to figure out life in the castle and life in general, Lucy meets the beautiful Klara, a poor local girl with whom he falls deeply in love.  Things turn problematic when Adolphus, a brutish soldier, returns to the village and tries to claim Klara.

Quotes 

“I find the constant upkeep of the body woefully fatiguing, don’t you?”

 

“She wasn’t precisely sure what she was walking toward but she wouldn’t have turned around for the world.”

 

“As it happens, I’m chasing after a girl, Father. For it has come to pass that I’ve fallen in love.” Father Raymond leaned in. “In love, you say?” “Just so.” “And what is that like? I’ve often wondered about it.” Lucy said, “It is a glory and a torment.” “Really? Would you not recommend it, then?” “I would recommend it highly. Just to say it’s not for the faint of heart.”

 

“Easier asked than answered,” said Mr. Olderglough. “For our days here are varied, and so our needs are also varied. On the whole, I think you’ll find the workload to be light in that you will surely have ample free time. But then there comes the question of what one does with his free time. I have occasionally felt that this was the most difficult part of the job; indeed, the most difficult part of being alive, wouldn’t you say, boy?”

 

“Let us look within ourselves and search out the dormant warrior.” “Mine is dormant to the point of non-existence, sir.”

 

“We must try again,” said Lucy. “Must we?” Tomas asked. “Of course we must. Otherwise we’ll die here.” Here Tomas spoke gently, and with tranquil understanding. “That’s not how we see it, Lucy.” “How do you see it?” “We’ll live here.”

 

“You always bring God into arguments you know you’re losing, for the liar is lonely, and welcomes all manner of company.”

 

“A man accepts an inferior cup of tea, telling himself it is only a small thing. But what comes next? Do you see?”

 

“Walking away on the springy legs of a foal he thought, How remarkable a thing a lie is. He wondered if it wasn’t man’s finest achievement, and after some consideration, he decided it was.”

 

“And yet he held his tongue, wanting his farewell with Marina to be peaceable, not out of any magnanimity, but so that after Tor ruined her—he felt confident Tor would ruin her—and she was once more alone, she would think of Lucy’s graciousness and feel the long-lingering sting of bitter regret.”

 

“He wandered here and there over rolling hills.

He never saw the ocean but

dreamed of it often enough.” 

My Take

Much like his previous book The Sisters Brothers, Undermajordomo Minor is a peculiar, but fascinating book.  In his twisting of the fable format, Patrick deWitt explores such universal themes as the agony and ecstasy of love, man’s search for meaning, the futility of war, standing up for what you believe, and even sexual perversion (from an extremely bizarre section that came out of nowhere).  While it’s a strange brew of a book that mixes all of this together amidst the backdrop of a small village in 19th Century Europe, I found it to be a quick and compelling read.

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287. The Crystal Cave

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Scot Reader

Author:   Mary Stewart

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Mythology

494 pages, published 1970

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Crystal Cave takes place in fifth century Britain, a country torn by chaos and division after the Roman withdrawal.  The book tells the story of a young Merlin, the illegitimate child of a South Wales princess who will not reveal to the identity of Merlin’s father, and how he discovers that he possesses incredible psychic gifts which he will use to play a dramatic role in the coming of King Arthur.

Quotes 

“The gods only go with you if you put yourself in their path. And that takes courage.”

 

“Thinking and planning is one side of life; doing is another.  A man cannot be doing all the time.”

 

“I think there is only one. Oh, there are gods everywhere, in the hollow hills, in the wind and the sea, in the very grass we walk on and the air we breathe, and in the bloodstained shadows where men like Belasius wait for them. But I believe there must be one who is God Himself, like the great sea, and all the rest of us, small gods and men and all, like rivers, we all come to Him in the end.”

 

“the god does not speak to those who have no time to listen.” 

My Take

While I have an interest in the Arthurian legend, The Crystal Cave was too long and too focused on Merlin for me to give it a recommendation.  My husband Scot read it as a teenager and in his opinion it is the weakest of Mary Stuart’s trilogy on King Arthur.  There were some interesting parts, but I have to say I much preferred The Mists of Avalon and its take on Arthur.

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