The Information Officer

The Information Officer

By Mark Mills

If you enjoy historical mysteries, then Mark Mills is a writer that you should definitely check out. The Information Officer manages to be both beautifully written and well plotted- it's always a pleasure when a novel turns out to be a literary page turner. Additionally, it manages to be both a spy thriller and a hunt for a serial killer in one.

The bulk of the novel takes place in Malta during World War II (1942, to be exact), though the narrative is framed by flash-forwards of 2 central characters meeting again in Italy in 1951. As the novel suggests, Malta was of critical importance in World War II. This setting ratchets up the suspense, and makes it hard to separate the political intrigue from the murder mystery.

Most of the novel is told from the perspective of Max, the information officer (basically, the guy in charge of the propaganda keeping Maltese spirits up). Max is certainly a flawed hero, as evidenced by him juggling two women and contemplating covering up the murders. Overall, though, he's a good guide through the story, since he seems to be as much in the dark about the plots going on around him as the reader is. We also see a fair amount of his best friend Freddie, a surgeon who first brings the murders to Max's attention and plays an important role in the plot. Finally, there's Elliot, the enigmatic (and pragmatic) American pulling strings behind the scenes.

Though I did enjoy this novel quite a bit, I have to admit feeling that the female characters seemed like a bit of an afterthought, at least compared to the men. They seemed more like character sketches than fully developed characters, though perhaps this is a function of seeing them primarily through Max's eyes. There's the socialite, the woman he's having an affair with, and the woman he ultimately ends up falling in love with. Though there's mention of their outside lives beyond Max, it's very cursory. I would have liked a stronger female presence in the novel. 

Finally, I'm not sure that the ending lived up to the rest of the book for me. It seemed rather abrupt, and we only hear about how things worked out second-hand in a flashback. There isn't a very satisfying denouement at the end- but maybe that's part of the point- while car chases, etc, are satisfying, I suppose a good spy does his or her job without us even knowing...

Let the Right One In, Indeed

Let the Right One In

By John Ajvide Lindqvist

This novel is not for everyone- just skip it if you can't stand reading about child molestation, gore, and all things dark and gritty. This is definitely one of the darkest novels I've read. That being said, if you can get past all the darkness, this novel goes beyond your average gore-fest and probes some deeper themes.

First off, the novel has an excellent sense of place- it's set in the fall of 1981 in Vallingby, a northwest Stockholm suburb. I readily admit I'm not all that familiar with Vallingby and what it stands for in Sweden, but I think the author chose this city for a reason. From what I've gleaned, Vallingby is a pretty new suburb that opened in 1954. The idea behind the city was to have all you'd need to work, live, and be a part of the community in one area. Perhaps Lindqvist chose this setting for this dark novel as a critique? Or perhaps I'm reading too much into things...

Additionally, I struggled with what to make of Eli. On the one hand, Eli is a brutalized child fighting for survival, but on the other hand, Eli is a manipulative and fierce killer. Here comes my moral relativism again, but I couldn't just condemn Eli- part of me feels sympathy for his/her desire to survive no matter the cost. To complicate things further, there are all the connections between Eli and religious figures in the book. For example, Hakan yells "Eli!" when he is caught, and according to Staffan, anyway, Eli means God. Additionally, at the end of the novel, witnesses describe Eli as an "angel" after he/she saves Oskar (not to mention Eli's apparent sexlessness, which evoked angels in a way for me). I'm not sure where these references fit in with Eli the character, but it's certainly food for thought.

Finally, I can't resist comparing the novel to the film. Overall, I enjoyed the film, though I did find the pacing strangely slow for a horror flick (maybe that's just my American desire for instantaneousness). The film did a great job with setting and characterization, even if they did need to simplify things some. Unsurprisingly, though, the film couldn't match the depth and richness of the novel.  While I enjoyed the film, it was the novel that really hooked me and got me thinking.

Charles Dickens... if his plots were even more outrageous.

The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins
Started December 18, 2007
Finished December 25, 2007

I should start by saying that I found this book to be compulsively readable, despite (or maybe because of) the ridiculousness of some of the plot twists. It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat just wanting to know what happens next, and there's something to be said for that in a novel. And really, the plot twists can be pretty fun. Part of the reason why I couldn't put the book down was the changing points of narrative view- the person most able to tell the "truth" of the story at any given moment is the narrator. I can see why it was a bestseller when it was first published and why it has remained fairly popular ever since, even though I wouldn't put it on the same level with Charles Dickens' stuff (a contemporary of Wilkie Collins).

It wasn't until after I'd finished, and started to think about things more, that certain aspects started to bother me. Probably the main problem that I had was with the character of Marian being awesome but consigned to the role of spinster. Why does Marian have to be ugly and only appreciated as a woman by the Count, who is probably the primary villain in the novel? To make that even more annoying, you then have Walter Hartright, who is in love with Marian's rich blonde sister, Laura, who is sweet but doesn't seem to have any real personality. She's just a cardboard cutout. I guess that's just a reflection of women at the time this was written? A strong independent woman was too scary to be desirable?

Despite the simplicity of some of the characters, however, The Woman in White is worth the read as a page turning mystery thriller. You just have to accept it for what it is and not hope for it to challenge any conventional Victorian paradigms.

words are dangerous

The Raw Shark Texts

Steven Hall

Started September 25, 2007

Finished October 2, 2007

Well, when I saw a shark made out of text on the cover of this book, I knew that I had to check this book out. The protagonist, Eric Sanderson, apparently has chronic amnesia. The major question permeating in the novel is whether or not Eric is experiencing what he's experiencing in his head, or if it's really happening. Or, an even bigger question, if that even matters. I'm not sure... In any case, it's part Jaws part House of Leaves when the conceptual shark attacks.

The scenes with Eric and his girlfriend, Clio, kind of gave me heartache. I know that sounds corny, but I thought Hall portrayed intimacy between lovers quite effectively. I found my reaction especially interesting since a few other reader reviews that I read found the Eric/Clio stuff really lame. Sigh... I guess these things can be rather subjective. In any case, Hall makes a good point when he argues that once someone's gone, you can't capture their essence completely with words... things always get left out, and you just forget things over time. As Regina Spektor sings, "Thought I'd see your face in my mind for all time, But I don't even remember what your ears looked like." In my experience, that's a sad truth.

historical fiction- gothic style

The Terror
Dan Simmons
Started September 5, 2007
Finished September 25, 2007

This is a compelling historical novel, with a touch of psychological sci-fi intrigue. There are all the gritty details of a 19th Century arctic exploration gone terribly wrong, in addition to the "thing." Indeed, Simmons picked a compelling real life story to put his own twist on. The Terror uses the real-life failed expedition of Sir John Franklin. Many of the characters in the book were real people. However, since no one really knows what happened to the expedition, Simmons takes some artistic license and goes in unexpected directions with the story. I have a feeling historians may feel somewhat dismayed with his work, but it makes for some compelling fiction.

I spent a good deal of the novel wondering if the "thing" is actually real or not. I'm not saying, because I don't want to ruin it, but I will say that I wasn't expecting the ending. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the end, although I did enjoy the book overall. I suppose the ending is apt, in a way- the death of a period of time, anticipating more Western influence in the Arctic regions.

I liked that the chapters follow the perspective of one character at a time, showing the reader what some characters know that others don't. However, I did notice that the reader pretty much only gets the British explorer perspective- no chapters from the natives, or what would have been even more interesting- from the "thing." Overall though, the book was exceptionally well done, especially for its genre- whatever genre you might want to call this.

feminist dystopia.

The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood
Started August 23, 2007
Finished September 5, 2007

I can see why this novel is so often required reading in high school and college English classes. Margaret Atwood offers a richly contextual novel with no easy answers. While some of the major themes include feminism, misogyny, totalitarianism, religious extremism, and theocracy, the novel deals in ambivalence. In other words, there are no easy answers. While the futuristic dystopia that Offred, the narrator, describes is terrifying, the past that Offred reminisces about has plenty of its own flaws. In addition to forcing the reader to consider some difficult questions about feminism and religious extremism, I should also point out that I found this novel an incredibly compelling read. Offred, the narrator, is a "handmaid"- used basically as a breeder for the elite in the new totalitarian society. The novel jumps around in time from before the overthrow, to Offred's time being conditioned into a handmaid, to her present posting with Fred, her Commander. (Her name is Of-Fred because she belongs to Fred at her current posting...). I like to think that things have turned out somewhat better for women than Atwood imagines in this novel. I hope that's true. I like to believe that I'll be able to have a career that I'm good at and enjoy and also be able to have a meaningful relationship and a family. I guess it's important not to take the efforts for change from the past for granted. I can't imagine not being allowed to read like most of the women in The Handmaid's Tale!

Electra- Eurpides style

Electra
Euripides
Started August 20, 2007
Finished August 22, 2007

Euripides seems to have had a thing for writing about strong, violent women. While it could not displace Medea for me, Electra also featured strong women characters that produced feelings of ambivalence in me. Electra, the title character, is the daughter of Clytemenestra and Agamemnon. The brutal history of her parents is told in other plays. While Electra is put in a bad situation by Clytemnestra's actions, I couldn't help but feel that she was pretty whiny about things- she seems to enjoy her misery in a weird way. In contrast, Clytemnestra was considerably more sympathetic than I was expecting her to be. She seemed grief stricken about what she had done but resolved to make the best of a bad situation. Which makes it rather jarring when Electra demands that her brother kill their mother even after he has second thoughts about matricide.

In addition to gripping female characters, Electra offers yet another meditation on the theme of appearance versus reality. The poor farmer who Electra has been forced to marry is probably the most honorable, good character in the drama and he disappears shortly into it. While he is of a low stature within society, he is about the only character who doesn't do anything morally questionable within the play. So don't judge a book by its cover, basically. Additionally, I was struck by how much the play seemed to question the judgment of the gods, specifically Apollo in this case. The only reason Orestes, the brother, goes through with killing his mother is because Apollo told him to (and Electra urged him to). And the play ends with a couple of the other minor gods telling Electra and Orestes that this was an error on the part of Apollo. What does it mean for humans when the gods make mistakes or don't agree?