Merry Christmas!

Photo by Anthony Cantin on Unsplash

Merry Christmas week to all who celebrate!

 I wish you all great reading and time to relax ~ and lots of good food and fun too!

 

Mystery in White

 

Mystery in White / J. Jefferson Farjeon
Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2016, c1937.
237 p.

This is my Christmas read this year! This was republished fairly recently, and I thought it looked like a good choice for some fun holiday reading. I was right - it had snowstorms, Christmas, mysterious strangers, murder, spirits and seemingly abandoned country houses with fires going and tea laid. And a ragtag group of characters thrown together when their train gets stuck in an enormous snowfall. 

There are a brother and sister, an old man who investigates hauntings, a pimply clerk going to visit his maiden aunt, a beautiful young woman, a pompous blowhard, and an unexpected add-on from another compartment - a bit of a shady character. They discuss leaving the train and hiking through the snow to the next station, not so far away, but are rather anxious about the idea, until the old man sees something and leaps out of the train. Then one by one they feel obliged to follow, to make sure the old man makes it. They all make it, but not to the station, rather to a large country house with an unlocked front door after they are lost in the storm. They enter to find fires going, tea laid out, and no-one there. But they are desperate so they pile in, and this becomes a kind of locked room mystery. 

I found the development of the plot to this point (a chapter or so in) quite quick and action-oriented. It slows down a fair bit once they are all in the house, with a bit too much guilty reflection on using the house going on, like seriously, who would be mad that you came in out of a blizzard and sought shelter? But otherwise, there is a great atmosphere developed in the house with a portrait that seems to glare down at them, and a foreboding sense of doom in one of the upper bedrooms, and a kitchen knife out of place on the floor... 

Add to this very realistic characters who are selfish, neurotic, guarded, anxious, and of course there's some good old sexism thrown in too. The plot eventually makes sense, with some extra information finally revealed, and it's interesting if a bit sensational. But the psychology of all the characters and how they watch each other and have private thoughts about one another is the delight of this book. The people are so very peopley. 

Christmas is a bit incidental, except that it happens on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, and Lydia (the sister) is determined to bring a bit of Christmas spirit into the dreary proceedings. I really enjoyed it and thought it was a well made mystery, definitely of its time, with a slightly corny edge but lots of fun nonetheless. It combines the snowed in train trope with some 'ghost story for Christmas' vibe and has a bit of sparkle too. I thought it was a fun seasonal read! 

The DallerGut Dream Department Store

Dallergut Dream Department Store / Mi-Ye Lee
trans. from the Korean by Sandy Joosun Lee
Toronto, ON : Hanover Square Press, 2024.
287 p.

Just finished this charming little read -- part one of a two part series. It's definitely in the vein of all the Japanese cat/coffeeshop/cozy reads lately, even though it's Korean. It's set in a small country that exists in our sleep, where sleepers can go and pick out the kind of dream they want at many dream shops. And they pay in the emotions they experience thanks to that dream. 

The story starts with the introduction of Penny, our main character who is getting ready for her interview at Dallergut Dream Department Store. Dallergut has a good reputation and she really wants to get a job there. Luckily for her, and for the reader, she does get hired, and as she learns her new job, we follow along with her. This gives us a sense of the story in a natural way; as it's all new to Penny, the author can be more descriptive and explicit about the strange and unusual things she encounters. 

Along with the quirky Dallergut himself there are many Dream Designers, superstars of this world. From the flamboyant to the reclusive, each is famous for a certain type of dream -- whether a flying dream, memories of lost loves, dreams of success or more, people can choose a designer dream to suit their needs. And, the employees of the dream department stores are thrilled when one of the designers appears. 

Penny becomes an assistant to Dallergut & gets to go with him as he visits many of these designers. Maxim specializes in nightmares, but  is also a young and handsome man, who finds Penny easy to talk to; it's a nice area for development in the story. But I found one entertaining moment in this book to be the big gathering of important dream designers, which is in a winter chalet, home of winter dream specialist Nicholas -- aka Santa. 

This brings a bit of seasonal charm to the story and I loved the frosty themes in that section. I liked the book as a whole, although it was on the edge of twee for me. Lots of creativity in building that world though, and some really fun characters developed. I think I will most likely read the second one!  

 

Invisible Man at the Window

Invisible Man at the Window / Monique Proulx
trans. from the French by Matt Cohen
Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1995, c1993.
185 p.

I picked this book up at a secondhand shop, as soon as I saw it - I like Monique Proulx's writing but had never seen this one before. It was a fascinating read, a bit unusual and slow to get going, but definitely worth it. 

Max is an artist, living in a run-down apartment building in Montreal. He is inundated with artistic friends, young and old, all emotionally needy and seemingly dependent on Max, who serves as a kind of confessor, and his place is a bit of a flophouse too. People are coming and going, bringing Max news of their worlds as they navigate all sorts of ups and downs, mostly related to love and passion and jealousy and relationships of all kinds. 

Max uses a wheelchair, having experienced a car accident years before. And somehow this makes him into a saint that everyone depends on, although he is not mild or saintly at all. The story is told in a series of  "portraits" of the characters, narrated by Max. And they are all so messed up, so hapless, and Max so very cynical that it feels a bit heavy - where is this going? 

But it is going somewhere, and it's worth sticking with this story. About 3/4 of the way through, Max has a sudden epiphany, an experience that breaks his curmudgeonly self open, and it's beautiful. Then everything starts moving and all the characters come together, the ties between them become clear, and the mysteries of Max's past are revealed. 

The lives of bohemian Montrealers, the meaning of art, questions of belonging and family and love -- they all come together in a fascinating story. Many of the characters are a little unlikeable or prickly or so passive, but somehow this ensemble works and the flawed circle of friends ends up being engaging and memorable. If you have lived in Montreal you'll enjoy the references to places but this is really Max's story and he is the heart of everything - the rest of the details are just icing on the top. I'm glad I discovered this one! 

Harriet Hume

 

Harriet Hume / Rebecca West
London: Virago, 1980, c1929.
288 p.

My goodness, what an odd read this was! Harriet Hume and Arnold Condorex are young and beautiful, and they've just spent the night together. But Harriet is a dedicated pianist and performer, while Arnold has his sights set on political power and riches. And remarkably, after their night together, Harriet can suddenly read Arnold's mind. The opening pages, and this conceit, seem to set up a quirky love story - but this isn't that. 

It reminded me in feel of the strangeness of  Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, or Charles Williams' All Hallows Eve, even if there aren't exactly the same elements to be found here. It was just the tone, the political content encroaching on the narrative, the slightly paranormal effect of Harriet's gift and how it infiltrates everything, and the ending.

Arnold leaves Harriet after their night together and progresses through life, sometimes jumping a decade or more between chapters. As he rises, he encounters Harriet intermittently, happily at first, then remembering the horror of her gift. And each time, she can see his thoughts that he's hidden even from himself, warning him of the outcomes like some kind of Cassandra. 

Despite his awful behaviour and lack of integrity, Harriet and Arnold seem to be linked inextricably. In some moments, Arnold can almost see a different life, one in which he and Harriet had married and had children and lived a normal middle class life, in a kind of wavering 'sliding doors' effect. But as it is, he keeps digging himself deeper into political schemes and debt and envy of those politicians who come from family and wealth and don't have to struggle like he does. 

I wanted to like this, but there is so much political content when Arnold is arguing his decisions to himself. I think you'd have to be a little better versed in English politics of the turn of the 20th century to get all the references and satire here. I ended up skimming much of that to get to the action, but there wasn't an awful lot of action. And the ending was surprising, although after a couple of pages of the last chapter I could see where she was going. 

Unusual, odd read, one I can't say I really loved, but I did appreciate the idea behind it, and there were some strong moments to enjoy. Overall not a big hit for me, though! 

Quicksand

Quicksand / Nella Larsen
NY: Penguin, 2022, c1928.
192 p. 

I read Larsen's Passing a couple of years ago and thought it was very good; the ending was unexpected and the story has stuck with me. I finally picked up Quicksand, and found it quite a different book - a little more focused on the interior life of its main character, Helga Crane, and told quite straightforwardly in style. 

Helga has a white, Danish mother (now dead) and her father, a black man, left them when Helga was young. This sense of otherness, of not belonging in either white or black society, shapes Helga's life and the many choices she makes in her restless search for a place to belong. 

We first meet Helga as a teacher in a Black school in the South, as she's deciding to resign, feeling stifled by the school's focus on attaining white standards for their students. She can't stand the hypocrisy of the school so heads back to Chicago where she is from, but there her white uncle doesn't want her - his new wife doesn't want Helga associated with the family. Helga finds it next to impossible to find work as an educated black woman; she could work as a domestic if she had references though. Finding a role as a rich woman's assistant, she ends up going to New York, drawn in by the lure of Harlem's dazzling society. But even there she eventually finds that her white side creates issues of not belonging. She's given a potential change when she's invited to live with her Danish Aunt Karin, who says she's always wanted Helga. Denmark is a dream, for a while; she's feted, treated like a celebrity, attracts notable figures, even one who wants to marry her. But she realizes that she is an oddity, an outsider, in Denmark and will never really belong even if she can exist freely there. And she suddenly misses America a lot, and the man she left behind as well. 

But like most of Helga's decisions, it's the wrong one at the wrong time, and the man she left behind has quite happily taken up with a friend of hers - they are getting married. In Helga's distress, she wanders the streets and has a religious epiphany at a storefront church. I have to say I did not see this one coming. This leads to her final choice, one she can't escape.

I must say that this read was depressing. Helga can't seem to find happiness, in fact her attempts all seem to sour and turn out in the worst possible way. There is the fact of her being someone living between two worlds, not really fitting into either one fully, and all the difficulties that causes for her both practically and emotionally. And the fact that she's an educated woman, and there isn't much place for her in that role either. She can't seem to find a way to compromise and find a way to create a space for herself if things aren't perfect; one hint of hypocrisy or any less than ideal options and she's off again. 

I felt for Helga, and thought her circumstances in the end were sad, but made sense in light of her character and how she had reacted to everything previously. Although she had many opportunities she could have taken advantage of, she turned away from so much, and only got what was left over, in the end. I tried to like Helga, and to understand her, but she's quite a prickly character and we don't get a lot of introspection in the writing, mostly just her frustrations and feelings in one moment before she leaps on to the next. I thought this was an important read, and one with a lot of potential for a lively discussion. But, I found Passing a bit more memorable and thrilling to read. 

The Silence of Trees

The Silence of Trees / Valya Dudycz Lupescu
Chicago: Wolfsword Press, c2010.
334 p.

Another story of Ukrainians in America for today's post. This one is from 2010, and it is about the Ukrainian American experience, even though the older characters recall their WWII and post war experiences throughout, and the effects on them are still clear. 

But their children, born in America, and their grandchildren, now completely American, do not have the same connections to their Ukrainian past or the longstanding distrust of Germans and Russians that their grandparents do.

However, this story is centred around Nadya Lysenko, 70 and living in Chicago, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. And around her secrets, many dark ones that she has kept from her family, and even husband, for decades. 

At 16, Nadya snuck out of her house to visit a fortuneteller in the woods; when she returned home, her family was dead, and home destroyed, by soldiers. Overwhelmed with survivor guilt, she flees, and eventually ends up in a DP camp in Germany. These traumatic experiences are revisited throughout the book, along with her time at the DP camp, where she also met her husband. 

The story investigates family, history -- both personal and wartime history -- and the power of folklore and myth in retaining a culture as well. The narrative weaves between present-day Chicago and Nadya's past in Ukraine and Germany, and shows how the wounds she suffered leave her with strong reactions to present day events, like when her granddaughter brings a boyfriend to dinner, who is of German descent. This causes a family furor. 

This is a meditative and reflective story, though, looking at how the events in a life shape a person, how not all of these events can be chosen or avoided. And it looks at the presence of the past in the current day, a preoccupation that I am always drawn in by in my reading. I thought this book was a fascinating combination of the past - war, tradition, myth, superstition, family, and a woman's examination of her own life. And beautifully written. Really loved it.