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saareman's reviews
2952 reviews
Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway
4.0
You have to keep a strong hold on your Freud-dar while reading this "absolutely true book" about Hemingway's late-1933/early 1934 African safari trek in Kenya with his then-wife Pauline Pfeiffer (called "P.O.M.", standing for "Poor Old Mama" in the book), his friend Charles Thompson (called "Karl" in the book) and hunter/guide Philip Percival (called "Pop", "Jackson Phillips", "Mr. J.", "Mr. J.P." "Colonel" etc. at various times in the book).
Hemingway spends the safari mostly unsuccessfully stalking lions, rhinos and kudu (a type of antelope) and even when he returns to camp with occasional trophy horn(s) to show them to "Mama" and "Pop", he also discovers that (surrogate brother) "Karl" has brought back something bigger, longer or thicker. You really do have to keep yourself in check and not let the imagination run too wild while reading this.
Meanwhile you do get very evocative pictures of the African landscape and EH's dealings with his various native trackers and bearers. Two called "M'Cola" and the "Old Man" he becomes especially close to. Another, nicknamed "Garrick", who over-dramatizes events, EH resents more and more and he becomes the only villain (minor really) of the piece for dramatic purposes. EH provides occasional commentary on his writing influences and also uses the opportunity to take an anonymous swipe at Gertrude Stein for her labelling him a coward in her then (1933) recently published "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas".
This is a feast for Hemingway lovers, but you should read between the lines to get the most out of it. It is also useful background to reading the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" which were also inspired by this same safari.
Hemingway spends the safari mostly unsuccessfully stalking lions, rhinos and kudu (a type of antelope) and even when he returns to camp with occasional trophy horn(s) to show them to "Mama" and "Pop", he also discovers that (surrogate brother) "Karl" has brought back something bigger, longer or thicker. You really do have to keep yourself in check and not let the imagination run too wild while reading this.
Meanwhile you do get very evocative pictures of the African landscape and EH's dealings with his various native trackers and bearers. Two called "M'Cola" and the "Old Man" he becomes especially close to. Another, nicknamed "Garrick", who over-dramatizes events, EH resents more and more and he becomes the only villain (minor really) of the piece for dramatic purposes. EH provides occasional commentary on his writing influences and also uses the opportunity to take an anonymous swipe at Gertrude Stein for her labelling him a coward in her then (1933) recently published "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas".
This is a feast for Hemingway lovers, but you should read between the lines to get the most out of it. It is also useful background to reading the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" which were also inspired by this same safari.
Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
5.0
A terrific Canadian Cozy.
This is the first Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novel by Louise Penny that I've read and I enjoyed it immensely. It is a very good example of cozy mystery fiction (as opposed to hard-boiled mystery fiction i.e. not so much violence driven) and since it is also Canadian-based that was also an asset for me.
There are actually five (!) mystery plot lines to this book and one of them is a continuation from the previous book in the series, "The Brutal Telling" (Chief Inspector Gamache #5) so if you are planning to read that one as well then you might want to read it first, as otherwise this 6th book in the series will be a spoiler for you. In fact, you better stop reading even this review now if that is the case.
Probably the most shocking thing in this book is that apparently the solution in "The Brutal Telling" was incomplete and Inspector Gamache sets out to redress that through his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir during this next book in the series. Maybe my reading is limited, but I don't remember this ever being used as a plotline by any other mystery author (i.e. where a later book is used to rewrite the ending of an earlier book). Fans of "The Brutal Telling" might be taken aback though.
Both Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir are on a combined administrative and medical leave from official duties as the result of a hostage-taking incident where they are now under review through an enquiry and where they were both injured. This part of the story is told in flashbacks by both of them while they are unofficially pursuing their current cases. Beauvoir is back at Three Pines Village re-looking at the murder of "The Hermit" while Gamache is drawn into a case involving the murder of an amateur archeologist who was fanatical about looking for the lost burial location of Québec-founder Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635). This part of the story is based on a true-life fact, building and document fires and a possible subsequent reburial have caused the Champlain burial location to be lost. During his leave, Gamache was also pursuing a private research enquiry into the events behind French General Montcalm's loss to English General James Wolfe in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 during the French and Indian War fought between the North American colonies of England and France. This is what places him at the location of the Literary and Historical Society Library in Québec City where the current murder takes place and how he gets drawn into a case even though he is supposedly not on active duty.
All of this may sound complicated when summarized in a few paragraphs, but Penny very carefully lays out all of these combined plotlines and the flow is very comprehensible. There is lots of wintery old Québec City and Three Pines Village atmosphere inside cozy buildings with wood fires and libations to warm our investigators and a few dozen quirky characters to interview and investigate. Gamache has his trusty police dog Henri and his old mentor Émile Comeau to keep him company throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed this and my only regret is that I read this in the spring instead of in the depths of winter when it would have helped keep me warm through the chill. Count me in as a new Louise Penny fan and future regular reader.
This is the first Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novel by Louise Penny that I've read and I enjoyed it immensely. It is a very good example of cozy mystery fiction (as opposed to hard-boiled mystery fiction i.e. not so much violence driven) and since it is also Canadian-based that was also an asset for me.
There are actually five (!) mystery plot lines to this book and one of them is a continuation from the previous book in the series, "The Brutal Telling" (Chief Inspector Gamache #5) so if you are planning to read that one as well then you might want to read it first, as otherwise this 6th book in the series will be a spoiler for you. In fact, you better stop reading even this review now if that is the case.
Probably the most shocking thing in this book is that apparently the solution in "The Brutal Telling" was incomplete and Inspector Gamache sets out to redress that through his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir during this next book in the series. Maybe my reading is limited, but I don't remember this ever being used as a plotline by any other mystery author (i.e. where a later book is used to rewrite the ending of an earlier book). Fans of "The Brutal Telling" might be taken aback though.
Both Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir are on a combined administrative and medical leave from official duties as the result of a hostage-taking incident where they are now under review through an enquiry and where they were both injured. This part of the story is told in flashbacks by both of them while they are unofficially pursuing their current cases. Beauvoir is back at Three Pines Village re-looking at the murder of "The Hermit" while Gamache is drawn into a case involving the murder of an amateur archeologist who was fanatical about looking for the lost burial location of Québec-founder Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635). This part of the story is based on a true-life fact, building and document fires and a possible subsequent reburial have caused the Champlain burial location to be lost. During his leave, Gamache was also pursuing a private research enquiry into the events behind French General Montcalm's loss to English General James Wolfe in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 during the French and Indian War fought between the North American colonies of England and France. This is what places him at the location of the Literary and Historical Society Library in Québec City where the current murder takes place and how he gets drawn into a case even though he is supposedly not on active duty.
All of this may sound complicated when summarized in a few paragraphs, but Penny very carefully lays out all of these combined plotlines and the flow is very comprehensible. There is lots of wintery old Québec City and Three Pines Village atmosphere inside cozy buildings with wood fires and libations to warm our investigators and a few dozen quirky characters to interview and investigate. Gamache has his trusty police dog Henri and his old mentor Émile Comeau to keep him company throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed this and my only regret is that I read this in the spring instead of in the depths of winter when it would have helped keep me warm through the chill. Count me in as a new Louise Penny fan and future regular reader.
The Hangman by Louise Penny
4.0
Louise Penny's "The Hangman" is a short story/novella that was published between the 6th & 7th Chief Inspector Armand Gamache full-length novels "Bury Your Dead" and "A Trick of the Light". It is part of a series called "Good Reads" where about a dozen Canadian authors have provided a short work for adult literacy promotion. You can see more about the program at ABCLifeLiteracy.ca. Note that this has nothing to do with the goodreads.com website.
The plot of "The Hangman" involves an apparent suicide by a visitor to Three Pines Village who is there under the assumed name of Arthur Ellis. Some might recognize that name from the Arthur Ellis Awards presented by the Crime Writers of Canada. Louise Penny herself won it for Best First Novel in 2007 for "Still Life" and for Best Crime Novel in 2011 for "Bury Your Dead". The likely lesser known bit of Canadian trivia revealed in "The Hangman" is that the Arthur Ellis Awards aren't named after an early Canadian crime writer but are instead named for the pseudonym used by Canada's Chief Executioner from 1912-1935 and by some others afterwards. This forms a major clue in the solving of the mystery.
"The Hangman" is a stand-alone work that doesn't require any background knowledge about Chief Inspector Gamache and his assistant Inspector Beauvoir or the characters in Three Pines Village where the short murder mystery takes place. The story is kept very straightforward without the several plot-lines and flashbacks that have been otherwise used by author Penny. The language is also at an easy reading level and the font size is close to Large Print Size. There are still enough red-herrings and investigative discoveries to be made for this to be an enjoyable read for Louise Penny and Chief Inspector Gamache fans.
The plot of "The Hangman" involves an apparent suicide by a visitor to Three Pines Village who is there under the assumed name of Arthur Ellis. Some might recognize that name from the Arthur Ellis Awards presented by the Crime Writers of Canada. Louise Penny herself won it for Best First Novel in 2007 for "Still Life" and for Best Crime Novel in 2011 for "Bury Your Dead". The likely lesser known bit of Canadian trivia revealed in "The Hangman" is that the Arthur Ellis Awards aren't named after an early Canadian crime writer but are instead named for the pseudonym used by Canada's Chief Executioner from 1912-1935 and by some others afterwards. This forms a major clue in the solving of the mystery.
"The Hangman" is a stand-alone work that doesn't require any background knowledge about Chief Inspector Gamache and his assistant Inspector Beauvoir or the characters in Three Pines Village where the short murder mystery takes place. The story is kept very straightforward without the several plot-lines and flashbacks that have been otherwise used by author Penny. The language is also at an easy reading level and the font size is close to Large Print Size. There are still enough red-herrings and investigative discoveries to be made for this to be an enjoyable read for Louise Penny and Chief Inspector Gamache fans.
The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories by Ernest Hemingway
5.0
Ernest Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories" is an anthology collection of 10 short stories that was first issued by his publisher Scribners in 1961 which was also the year of Hemingway's death by suicide. There isn't any reference to these being selected by Hemingway himself so we're left to speculate on how the selection was made, although the stories are described on the blurb as "Hemingway's most acclaimed and popular works of short fiction." There are 3 stories from 1927's "Men Without Women" ("In Another Country", "The Killers", "Fifty Grand"), 5 stories from 1933's "Winner Take Nothing" ("A Clean, Well-Lighted Place", "A Day's Wait", "The Gambler, the Nun and the Radio", "Fathers and Sons", "A Way You'll Never Be") and the 2 African safari stories ("The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber") from 1936 that were first collected in 1938's "The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories".
Most Hemingway fans will likely have at least one or two other stories that they would expect to have seen included in a "most acclaimed" collection and I was surprised that the exquisite camping and fishing story "Big Two-Hearted River" from 1925's "In Our Time" was missing here. However, there is an overall air of melancholy and impending tragedy and death in the stories of this collection which probably didn't suit the inclusion of the sunlight and air and cold fresh waters of the famous outdoor tale.
Of the selected stories, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "A Day's Wait", at 4 or 5 pages each, appear pretty slight at first glance, and yet, James Joyce is reported to have described the former as "one of the best short stories ever written," so some further close attention to each of those may be repaid with renewed appreciation and insight. I especially enjoyed reading this collection after having also just read Donald Bouchard's "Hemingway: So Far From Simple" which causes you to view all of Hemingway's characters and stories as metaphors for the writer and the act of writing itself. Reading "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and thinking of the ineffectual Francis Macomber, the sometimes sensitive/sometimes cold Margaret Macomber and the mythologized great white hunter Robert Wilson as all facets of Hemingway himself and the hunt as the path of the career of writing added a whole different view to what can superficially just be read as a tale of cowardice and jealousy in the bush.
Most Hemingway fans will likely have at least one or two other stories that they would expect to have seen included in a "most acclaimed" collection and I was surprised that the exquisite camping and fishing story "Big Two-Hearted River" from 1925's "In Our Time" was missing here. However, there is an overall air of melancholy and impending tragedy and death in the stories of this collection which probably didn't suit the inclusion of the sunlight and air and cold fresh waters of the famous outdoor tale.
Of the selected stories, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "A Day's Wait", at 4 or 5 pages each, appear pretty slight at first glance, and yet, James Joyce is reported to have described the former as "one of the best short stories ever written," so some further close attention to each of those may be repaid with renewed appreciation and insight. I especially enjoyed reading this collection after having also just read Donald Bouchard's "Hemingway: So Far From Simple" which causes you to view all of Hemingway's characters and stories as metaphors for the writer and the act of writing itself. Reading "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and thinking of the ineffectual Francis Macomber, the sometimes sensitive/sometimes cold Margaret Macomber and the mythologized great white hunter Robert Wilson as all facets of Hemingway himself and the hunt as the path of the career of writing added a whole different view to what can superficially just be read as a tale of cowardice and jealousy in the bush.
Stolen Prey by John Sandford
5.0
Summer is here. For movie-goers, it's the first blockbuster weekend. For cottagers, it's the first opening weekend. For thriller readers, it's the new Lucas Davenport novel.
John Sandford's "Stolen Prey" is the 22nd of the Prey series featuring the ongoing character of Lucas Davenport with his Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) associates and family. The main case this time involves a group of hackers who have found a way to divert funds from a money laundering account set up by a Mexican drug cartel in a Minneapolis-St. Paul bank. The cartel is on the trail of the hackers as well and have sent a merciless kill-team of trackers after them. Lucas and his team have to find the hackers before the cartel does because there isn't going to much of the evidence or of the people left behind if they don't. Various DEA investigators and Mexican federal authorities are interested as well to add further complications. Davenport's family have brief and strong cameo appearances, but if you aren't a fan of the occasional medical subplots with wife/surgeon Weather Karkinnen or kid-reporter subplots with daughter Letty you can relax about those, this is a straight-ahead Lucas story. The main subplot involves Davenport himself getting robbed at an ATM with an investigation that leads to the southern part of the state which allows Sandford to bring in his other recurring series character, the BCA country/fishing detective Virgil Flowers, into the storyline as well. That case takes a turn that involves horse farms and a running gag about horse manure that adds to the usual phone banter between Davenport and Flowers. This was a solid forward-rushing thriller read that I tried to pace out as much as possible but still ended up finishing in 2 days. Summer is definitely here!
John Sandford's "Stolen Prey" is the 22nd of the Prey series featuring the ongoing character of Lucas Davenport with his Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) associates and family. The main case this time involves a group of hackers who have found a way to divert funds from a money laundering account set up by a Mexican drug cartel in a Minneapolis-St. Paul bank. The cartel is on the trail of the hackers as well and have sent a merciless kill-team of trackers after them. Lucas and his team have to find the hackers before the cartel does because there isn't going to much of the evidence or of the people left behind if they don't. Various DEA investigators and Mexican federal authorities are interested as well to add further complications. Davenport's family have brief and strong cameo appearances, but if you aren't a fan of the occasional medical subplots with wife/surgeon Weather Karkinnen or kid-reporter subplots with daughter Letty you can relax about those, this is a straight-ahead Lucas story. The main subplot involves Davenport himself getting robbed at an ATM with an investigation that leads to the southern part of the state which allows Sandford to bring in his other recurring series character, the BCA country/fishing detective Virgil Flowers, into the storyline as well. That case takes a turn that involves horse farms and a running gag about horse manure that adds to the usual phone banter between Davenport and Flowers. This was a solid forward-rushing thriller read that I tried to pace out as much as possible but still ended up finishing in 2 days. Summer is definitely here!