Review | The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Flavia de Luce #6), Alan Bradley

Posted on 31 March 2014 by Jaclyn

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches takes the Flavia de Luce series in a completely different direction, and while the writing is still great and the mystery enjoyable, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this shift in the series.

The book begins with the return of Flavia’s long-lost mother Harriet, and what that means for the de Luce family. Waiting on the platform for her mother’s train, Flavia receives a hurried, whispered message from a mysterious man, who shortly after gets killed on the train tracks. Winston Churchill makes a cameo, there is a mysterious reference to pheasants, and Flavia returns to Buckshaw with her family. All of this happens in the first chapter of the grandest Flavia de Luce adventure yet.

Previous Flavia mysteries have had a cozy feel, Nancy Drew meets Miss Marple in a small village setting. There have always been hints in the background at a larger mystery involving the de Luce family (much of which I admit I chalked up to Flavia’s rich imagination) and Vaulted Arches finally tackles this mystery head on. Bradley takes Flavia de Luce into Maisie Dobbs territory. There is espionage, matters of national importance, secret codes, and Flavia is caught up right in the thick of it. We still get the classic Flavia elements — bickering older sisters, Dogger, Buckshaw — but the stakes are higher than ever before.

Vaulted Arches also introduces a more mature Flavia. Much more thoughtful than in previous instalments, Flavia appears very conscious of being twelve and on the verge of growing up. She still has her delightfully childish moments, most often when dealing with unlikeable cousin and new character Undine, but overall, this is Flavia growing up, and kudos to Bradley for keeping it real and allowing us to see the character develop. We also get to see a classic Flavia de Luce science experiment, Flavia’s darkest and most disturbing attempt in the whole series, yet also the most fraught with emotional heft. Also a nice counterpoint to Flavia’s growing up, the experiment reveals an almost desperate need to cling to childlike belief, because the potential payoff is so very high.

It’s difficult to keep such a long running series fresh, particularly when there is such a significant thread of a backstory tying everything together and preventing the series from being purely episodic. So in a way, I’m glad Bradley took the series in this direction — it’s a natural progression for Flavia as a sleuth and a way to take the mysteries to another level. Future Flavia mysteries will likely continue on in this vein, and the very next one (minor spoiler alert) will be set away from Buckshaw, a clear signal that this is a whole new type of Flavia de Luce mystery. Personally though, I’ll miss the cozy, small scale feel of the first few mysteries. I’ll certainly keep following the Flavia mysteries, and am excited to see how Bradley takes this series forward, yet I’ll always have a special place on my shelf for the beginning of the series, and the irrepressible turn of the century Nancy Drew racing around the dark passages of her family estate.

Thank you to Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | One More Thing, B.J. Novak

Posted on 28 March 2014 by Jaclyn

B.J. Novak’s short story collection One More Thing is uneven in quality. The stories are comedic, not necessarily all laugh out loud funny, but more the kind of comedy where you end up with a knowing, somewhat bemused, smile at the end. The punchlines in these stories are shared knowledge, insight from an experience that seems fantastical at first, yet is revealed to be familiar by the punchline. I like B.J. Novak in The Office, and from his bio, I know that he is a writer as well as an actor, so this isn’t just one of those ghost-written Hollywood celebrity titles. I love the cover of the book, the casual, confidential tone of the title echoed in the scribbled intimacy on the jacket. I also like the conceit of the first story — a rematch between the tortoise and the hare, this time with the hare determined to win. Despite the adage at the end, it is the hollowness of victory that resonates long after reading the tale. So when I began this book, I was very much predisposed to loving it.

At his best, Novak is very, very good. Particularly in some of his longer stories, he turns a lens towards an aspect of life that is right on point, though his approach is so sly that it takes a while to get the point, if indeed we ever do. In one of my favourite stories, a man seeks out his grandmother in heaven because of a childhood promise to meet up after death, except the grandmother keeps putting him off, and it turns out, she’s too busy partying with Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the like to hang out with him. The punchline is in the big reveal, and there’s the comedic moment of surprise and reversal. But like any good comedy, the power is in the emotion beneath the surprise. There’s something bittersweet about the ending — when the grandmother explains to the man that they’ve both changed since that childhood promise was made, it reminds us of how much we do change and lose our childhood selves. But there’s also something satisfying about it — both grandmother and grandson end up happy, living separate lives in heaven. I’m not quite sure what the story means, but there’s that sense at the end of it, as in all good stories, that there is something indefinable beyond the page.

In yet another favourite, a man purchases a made-to-order girlfriend, who is perfect in every way, until she starts becoming emotionally needy and he is ill-equipped to cope. A somewhat less restrained version of the movie Her, except unlike Scarlett Johansson’s character, the one in this story is stuck in a particular body and unable to explore the world beyond being the protagonist’s girlfriend. The story is thoughtful and smart, and while I wish Novak had added more complexity to his characterizations, the story still packed a punch.

Despite some strong works, many of the stories are simply okay. There’s the slightest touch of insight at the end, yet the impact fails to linger barely a page after. It’s possible to make a really short story (less than a page long) powerful, yet many of Novak’s shorter works are more likely to elicit a shrug and turn of the page than anything else. You’d think, “Uh huh, so what?” then realize Novak’s left you nothing to work with and you just need to move on to the next story. Worse are some stories that seem too self-consciously funny or clever. You can just hear the suspense building up and the comic letting loose with a punchline and waiting for the audience to laugh. It doesn’t work on the page — the buildup is too brief and the punchline not enough of a surprise to elicit the desired response. And the obviousness of what that desired response should be just makes it annoying.

One More Thing is worth checking out at a library for a few gems. It’s best read by dipping into a story at a time, in between other tasks in the day, rather than read cover to cover, particularly in one sitting. I’ve heard good things about the audio book, which was narrated by Novak himself and some other well known actors, and perhaps that’s a much better medium for this.

Thank you to Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour | Review and Giveaway: Empress of the Night, Eva Stachniak

Posted on 26 March 2014 by Jaclyn

I love historical fiction, particularly stories about the Tudors, and I was eager to read up on another powerful monarch, Russia’s Catherine the Great, in Eva Stachniak’s new novel Empress of the Night. Unlike Stachniak’s earlier novel The Winter Palace, which tells Catherine’s story from the perspective of a trusted servant, Empress of the Night is narrated by Catherine herself. Suffering from an illness and close to death, Catherine reflects on her life, from her marriage to Peter and ascent to power to the various challenges she faced as a woman running an empire and defending her country against its enemies. In one particularly striking scene, she complains that her male advisers seem to think all one has to do is raise their voice and Russia’s problems will be solved; they don’t understand the delicacy required in leadership. Catherine the Great was a powerful woman, and a heroine to cheer for.

There are many things I like about Empress of the Night. I like that Stachniak chose to focus on a powerful female monarch who hasn’t been given much attention in popular media. (Much as I love the Tudors, even I got tired of the endless stream of novels written about them.) I like that Stachniak’s descriptions put us right in Catherine’s head — at one point, Stachniak describes the sweat trickling down Catherine’s back during a significant occasion. Such details heighten the realism of the scene, and humanize Catherine. There are also a lot of interesting bits, particularly about the challenges of being a strong-willed woman with the power over an empire. Along with the scene I cited earlier, there are moments where Catherine is criticized for her intelligence and candour, and other times where she fights back, and cuts down another character with a sharp look and single witticism. I love these instances of Catherine taking a stand and revealing the strength that made her such an influential leader.

Despite some interesting moments, I found the book to be a very slow read. The narrative framing device detracted from the flow and the time shifts were confusing. Stachniak’s love for detail and description made Catherine’s world feel real at times, yet the writing overall felt uneven and the language at times ponderous. The story felt disjointed — the promise in the flashbacks is bogged down by the present day, and the flashback vignettes didn’t quite tie together as well as they could have.

Being completely unfamiliar with Russian history, I was eager to learn about Catherine’s reign, and about the powerful woman who’d made such an impact at a time when it was mostly men who held the power. This story however focused more on Catherine’s personal life and while that’s certainly a valid authorial choice, I wish I’d seen more of Catherine as a monarch. Even the depiction of Catherine’s personal life could have been explored better — we hear about some of her love affairs yet feel little of the passion behind them. For example, when one of her lovers reveals his true colours and breaks her heart, it hardens her resolve to be more of a leader, a woman dependent on no man. This was a pivotal moment and exciting in terms of the character development, yet we barely get a sense of the passion that drove the affair in the first place. So when the big reveal came, we knew it was significant because of Catherine’s response, but it was difficult to understand why.

That being said, Empress of the Night is a welcome glimpse into a fascinating historical figure. It has piqued my interest in the period and in Catherine herself. A bit of knowledge about the history may help when reading this book, though it isn’t strictly necessary. Catherine the Great is such a significant figure in Russian history, and Stachniak’s novel reveals the human being behind the legend.

GIVEAWAY

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BLOG TOUR

Curious what other bloggers thought of this book? Check out the other participants in the blog tour for their views!

March 24: Downshifting PRO

March 25: Retreat by Random House

March 27: Literary Hoarders

March 28: Lost in a Great Book

Thank you to Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and the invitation to be a part of this blog tour!