Ms. Hen reviews M Train

Ms. Hen at her favorite local cafe, Jitters

M Train

Patti Smith

Vintage Books

2015, 2016

Ms. Hen decided to read this book because her hen-sister lent it to her, and Ms. Hen has always been curious about Patti Smith. She is not a fan of her music, but she understands a mystique surrounds Smith that not many public figures possess. She was one of the first women in punk rock, which Ms. Hen admires.

M Train is a memoir about different places Smith has been and her obsession with coffee and cafes. Ms. Hen can relate to this because she is also obsessed with coffee. She can’t go a day and not have at least two cups.

This book is also about loss: the loss of things, and the loss of people. Smith tends to lose things. When Ms. Hen read that Smith lost some beautiful pictures that Smith took of Sylvia Plath’s grave, it pained her. She could imagine such a thing happening and how devastating it would be to a person who was an admirer. Ms. Hen is also a Plath fan, so she can relate.

Ms. Hen liked reading about the different places Smith traveled to, and the adventures she experienced. She went to Mexico to speak at Frida Kahlo’s house; she flew to Japan to see where the tsunami hit, she also went to Tangiers to speak and play at a Beat festival. Smith’s journeys have a purpose, and they seem to be a part of her; they are necessary. She buys a house right before Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast, and the area in which it was located was devastated, and she had to have extensive renovations done. This book is also about trying to find a home.

There are some mentions of chickens in this book, which Ms. Hen enjoyed. One particular passage is, “He drove a beat-up tan Peugeot and insisted our bags stay with him in the front seat as chickens were normally transported in the trunk.” This is important because it was a lie. There was a man in the trunk and the people in the car were arrested for that, including Patti and her husband, Fred, even though they didn’t know. Ms. Hen doesn’t like when people lie about chickens, especially when people get in trouble.

When Ms. Hen first started reading this memoir, she wasn’t into it. The narrative follows Smith around her messy apartment with her cats to the café near her place and scribbling in a notebook and also on napkins. Ms. Hen thought that Smith might have had too much time on her hands, but after she got into the book, Ms. Hen decided that Smith is an obsessive artist and sees the world in a different way than other people. Ms. Hen wishes she had a lot of time on her hands, so she could wander the streets and write in notebooks and be strange. Ms. Hen used to be stranger than she is now, but these days she has to pretend she’s a normal person. It’s difficult for her, but she is capable of doing it.

This book is about dreams and has a lot of air and wispiness to it. Ms. Hen took pleasure reading this book, and she thinks it’s the right book to read at the end of the year: it’s quiet and peaceful, sad, but hopeful. It’s about some of one person’s life, and how she views things and feels, and meanders around the world.

Caffe Trieste, San Francisco

Ms. Hen reviews Household Saints

Ms. Hen, a Christmas hen

Household Saints

Francine Prose

G.K. Hall

1981

Ms. Hen happened to pick up this book a couple of weeks ago at the Little Free Library in front of the Walgreens in Downtown Boston. She usually is able to unearth one good book when she is there. Some people might be offended that the location of the former Borders Bookstore is now a Walgreens, but Ms. Hen is a forgiving hen. This particular Walgreens has a liquor department, which Ms. Hen finds convenient and inexpensive.

She picked this book for the simple reason that she had heard of the author. She didn’t remember anything about her, just her name. She is so glad she did! Ms. Hen adored this book.

This novel is about an Italian family in Little Italy in New York around the 1950s. Joseph Santangelo wins his wife Catherine in a card game that he plays with her father. Catherine is unaware for a long time that her father gambled her away for a breath of cold air from the walk-in refrigerator in the butcher shop on a hot summer’s day. When she finds out, it’s almost a joke. They marry and are happy, but have hard times.

In the beginning the couple live with his mother in their apartment above the butcher shop. Catherine loves the way Joseph smells like meat when he goes to bed with her when they first get married, which Ms. Hen thinks is visceral. Ms. Hen is not a meat eater, but she could understand why someone would love that smell.

Mrs. Santangelo is superstitions in the ways of the old country. She believes Catherine loses her baby because she saw a turkey being slaughtered while she was pregnant. Mrs. Santangelo dies and after that, the couple live alone. When Catherine becomes pregnant again, she wants science to rule her life, not superstition. She reads medical books and does not tell anyone in the neighborhood she is pregnant. She gives birth to a healthy girl, but the girl grows up to be a strangely religious as her grandmother had been, to the dismay of her parents.

This novel has a tinge of magical realism, even though it is based in real life, fantasy is thrown in, or the hint of fantasy. This novel reminded Ms. Hen of the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the way that magic can be hidden in ordinary life, and part of the mystery is whether it actually is magic.

Ms. Hen loved this book because she thinks the characters are realistic; they could be anyone that she has known in her life. Ms, Hen is not an Italian hen, but she grew up in an area where there are lot of Italians, so the characters in the neighborhood in this novel could have been her neighbors or classmates.

Since the book is about a butcher’s family, there are enough mentions of chickens to satisfy Ms. Hen. One particular passage Ms. Hen enjoyed was, “Crying, he turned away, but not before the thought had crossed his mind that the infant resembled nothing so much as a plucked and freshly slaughtered baby chicken.” Ms. Hen thought this was depressing and morbid, because Mrs. Santangleo predicted that Catherine would give birth to a chicken and the baby would be born dead. Ms. Hen doesn’t like when chickens in novels and stories are a source of sadness, but sometimes it’s inevitable, because sadness is part of life.

This is one of two novels Ms. Hen has read recently where she found herself in tears at the end. She thinks the ending of this novel is so beautiful and profound that it makes her almost believe in magic and saints. Ms. Hen is not a superstitious hen, but she would like to believe in something other than what's on the surface. She would like to believe in saints, even everyday household saints, like Theresa. It’s comforting to know that there could be an unseen power, especially during the darkest days of the year, like right now, which is supposed to be a time of celebration.

Ms. Hen reviews Elena

Elena

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

2012

Ms. Hen likes quirky foreign films, but she does not review everything she watches. She decided to write this review because she was moved by ELENA and the characters and how messed up their lives are. Ms. Hen does not like desperate and hopeless books and films, but she likes learning about how truly demented humanity can be.

Elena is a retired nurse who lives with her new husband, Vladimir, in their spacious apartment in Moscow. He is a former businessman who has a lot of money. Their apartment is large and clean, but it seems as if it’s too clean. Elena goes to visit her son and his family; the son is unemployed, and he and his wife have two children. They live in a downtrodden area where thugs loiter outside the apartment. Elena gives her son money. When Elena cashes her pension check and takes it to her son, Ms. Hen was afraid for her walking around in a dangerous area, because she thought she would get mugged. Elena didn’t, though, because that is not the story. Ms. Hen thinks it is interesting to see how Russians handle money; it appears they mostly use cash, unlike in the United States.

Elena’s husband does not want to give her grandson money so he can get out of joining the army and go to college. Elena and he fight over his daughter, who she says is worthless and money-hungry. Vladimir wants to leave all his money to his daughter when he dies.

This film is artfully made. Ms. Hen has seen other Russian films and the lines do not appear as clean as they are in this one. The story shows the disparity between the classes in Russia today, there are some who prosper, and others who have little. And the ones who have a lot do not care about the people on the bottom. Vladimir is greedy, but Elena’s son and his family are either lazy or victims of circumstance. There are few opportunities in Russia today if a person does not have money or connections. Ms. Hen feels sorry for Elena’s son’s family.

The use of music in ELENA is done well. The scene where Vladimir is driving to the gym, then when he is at the gym is ominous with the soundtrack in the background; Ms. Hen knew something horrible would happen, and it did. Also, the music in the scene where the grandson, Sasha, is outside fighting with the young men is poignant and dramatic. Almost everything in ELENA is meaningful, which is the way movies are supposed to be made. Ms. Hen thinks this film could be considered Russian noir, and the music plays a part in that.

There are aspects to life in this film which are completely Russian, which Ms. Hen will not give away, because she does not want to ruin the surprise of the story. Ms. Hen couldn’t help but think, that would not happen in the United States, a few times when she watched this, or the character would behave differently if she were American. This film shows the chaos of Russian society.

This is a dark film, but Ms. Hen likes these kinds of things. Desperate people will do desperate things when faced with limited choices. Ms. Hen thinks that this film is centered on love and hate and indifference and power, which Ms. Hen thinks could be the basis for all art, and the reasons the world is still turning and disintegrating.

Ms. Hen reviews Vox

Vox

Christina Dalcher

Penguin Random House

2018

Ms. Hen decided to read this book because she had read it was similar to THE HANDMAID’S TALE, and she is interested in novels like that. She put it on reserve at the library, and did not receive it for about three months. It is a new release, and she thought that since it was in hot demand it would be brilliant. Was she ever so wrong.

The idea for this novel is fantastic: women in the United States are only allowed one hundred words per day by order of the government, and they wear counters on their wrists to keep track of how many words they say. They also cannot read or hold jobs. The protagonist fights for women to be free. The premise is great, but the writing in this novel is so bad, that Ms. Hen was horrified. This novel was written by someone who does not know how to write. There are a lot of impressive words in this novel, but the author does not use them to their full capacity. This is what’s called a plot-driven novel, which Ms. Hen does not enjoy. Ms. Hen prefers literary fiction because she has credentials, and she is a snob. There is no melody to this book, it’s not even prose; it’s just words on the page telling the story. Ms. Hen was so disgusted that she almost didn’t finish the book. But she did, because she waited for so long to get it from the library.

Ms. Hen decided to not write a full review of this novel because she does not want to waste your time. This novel proves that even a great concept can turn out to be an atrocious book.

Ms. Hen reviews A Map of the World

A Map of the World

Jane Hamilton

Anchor Books

1994

Ms. Hen bought this book a while ago at the branch of the library near where she works. Some people might think it’s strange to buy a book at a library, but they are considerably cheaper than at bookstores, and the money supports the library, so everybody wins. This book sat on Ms. Hen’s shelf for some time. She bought it because she had read another book by the author, WHEN MADELINE WAS YOUNG, which she enjoyed.

Ms. Hen thinks this book is long and winding. The print in the book is small, so it took her a long time to read. The problem Ms. Hen had with this book is that it’s extremely sad. She knows that most literary fiction is about people who are sad, but this is one of the saddest books she has read. It’s about how a woman’s life can turn one day and then spiral downward out-of-control into a pit out of which she can never return.

This novel is about Alice, a woman married to Howard, who live on a dairy farm with their two daughters, Claire and Emma. They are both college educated and it was Howard’s dream to own a dairy farm. After they were married they purchased a large piece of land with help from his mother.  Alice is babysitting her friend Theresa’s children when one girl, Lizzy, accidentally drowns in the pond on their land. Alice is riddled with guilt, and becomes depressed and immobile. Soon after that, she is accused of sexually molesting some boys where she works as a school nurse.

Alice ends up in jail, and Howard and her daughters are desperate. Her friend Theresa is heartbroken about Lizzy. Everyone’s life is terrible in this novel. One of the aspects that Ms. Hen didn’t like about this book is that all the characters seem to be pretentious. She does not usually like books about rural areas, because that is not the world that she understands. Ms. Hen prefers urban novels, but everything she read about this book was positive, so she decided she needed to stick to it. It was considered one of the best books of the year when it came out, but Ms. Hen thinks it’s too depressing to be one of her best books of this year.

One thing Ms. Hen did like about this novel was the sense of place. She felt she really knew what the farm looked like, and she felt that the characters loved the land and the house. Ms. Hen liked that the characters felt connected to the land, even thought they had not lived there that long. The entire surrounding area was turning into unattractive housing developments, and theirs was the last farm in that area of Wisconsin. There are enough chickens in the book to keep Ms. Hen’s radar on, even though the book brought her down.

One other piece of the novel Ms. Hen admires is the inner lives of the characters, especially Alice. She has a rich fantasy life about everyone around her; she has the capability to imagine people in their ordinary lives, what they do and how they spend their time, which most people do not, unless they are writers. Ms. Hen wonders if the author is projecting her propensity to imagination onto Alice, giving her insight that a regular person would not have. Alice might not be a regular person, but she is invented by a writer who thinks like most writers do.

Ms. Hen did not love this book. She understands that the world is sad, but when she reads something, she wants to be enlightened or invigorated in some way. She doesn’t like to just be brought down. She realizes, and knows it’s true, that life sucks and then you die, but she prefers to read books that distract her from that fact rather than remind her of it. 

Ms. Hen reviews Travelers

Travelers

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Counterpoint

1973

Ms. Hen picked up this book at a Little Free Library in Melrose, Massachusetts. She chose it because she had read other novels by this author. She couldn’t remember them in detail, so she poked through her blog and found the reviews she had written for them. She wrote that the other books tended to drag in places. When she read the past reviews, those novels came back to her.

Ms. Hen thinks that TRAVELERS is more to her taste than the others that she has read by Prawer Jhabvala. She thinks that it is paced better and is not as boring as the other two. She didn’t know why she picked up the book if she didn’t love the other two, but sometimes she can’t remember everything she reads. She tends to recall things that are visceral and strange, and the other two novels are not like that for the most part.

TRAVELERS is about four people who are traveling through India: Lee, Raymond, Asha, and Gopi. Lee is a young American woman. Raymond is a British man older than Lee. Asha is an older Indian woman. Gopi is a young Indian man. Different short chapters are told from each character’s perspective. Lee likes to travel around and not have an agenda; Raymond has an apartment that he furnishes with beautiful Indian handicrafts, Asha tries to recover from her husband’s loss with sensual living, and Gopi is a young man who attaches himself to Raymond, not knowing Raymond’s true feelings.

The characters move around each other and they try to discover what they want from India and also life. Raymond likes Gopi, then Gopi likes Lee, and after that Asha and Gopi have an affair, and then Lee situates herself in the midst of a cult and gets too involved with a cult leader.

The aspect of this novel that Ms. Hen enjoyed that did not come through in the other novels was the wry humor. Ms. Hen thought this novel was funny in the beginning; she thought the characters were ridiculous in their fascinations and obsessions. But the novel becomes violent, and after that depressing, and though Ms. Hen did laugh quietly in the beginning, toward the end, she felt sorry for the characters. She didn’t quite cry, but she felt pathos for them. This novel took her through the spectrum of feelings, and that rarely can happen while reading a book. Not for Ms. Hen anyway, and she imagines it does not happen for everyone often.

The characters talk about what India can do to people, and how it can change them. Ms. Hen understands that, because even though she has never been to India she knows how a place or an experience can help a person see the world in a different way.

A lot of this novel is about journeys that travelers can take, spiritual journeys, or journeys though love or pain. Prawer Jhabhala writes about gurus a lot and how phony ones can be detrimental. Ms. Hen liked this novel, because it took her through the gauntlet of emotions, and she enjoyed reading about the characters and how problematic their lives are, like everyone’s, because nobody is perfect, and nothing in this world ever will be.

Ms. Hen reviews Frog Music

Frog Music

Emma Donoghue

Back Bay Books

2014

Ms. Hen picked this book up at the Little Free Library in Harvard Square in front of the Science Center. She wandered to Cambridge one day, and she did not know why, but she found this book and realized that was the reason. She has read other books by Ms. Donoghue before, and she thoroughly enjoyed them.

Whenever Ms. Hen goes on a trip, she reads novels about her destination. This year, she read a crop of books about San Francisco for her vacation, but she did not love most of them. She didn’t know about FROG MUSIC then, a historical crime novel that takes place in San Francisco. The city shines through in these pages, Ms. Hen could see and smell what was happening in San Francisco while she read this book. The hills, and the immigrants, and the desperation of people with a thirst for gold and fear of smallpox come alive when she read this. Ms. Hen thinks this is a visceral novel.

FROG MUSIC is about Blanche Beunon, a French dance hall girl who becomes fast friends with a cross-dressing woman, Jenny Bonnet, when Jenny hits her with her high-wheeler bike. Jenny is a frog catcher for restaurants in San Francisco. Blanche does not usually become friends with women; she lives with her lover, Arthur, and their friend, Ernest. Jenny has just spend some time in jail for wearing men’s clothes. She goes home with Blanche who tells her about P’tit Arthur, her baby, who she believes is on a farm, but she soon discovers lives in squalid conditions in a home not too far from the House of Mirrors, the club where she dances.

At the beginning of the novel, Jenny is murdered. The storyline goes back and forth to the time right before the murder to the month before when Blanche meets Jenny. Blanche decides that Jenny turns her life upside down because she is the one who makes her think of looking for the baby, P’tit. A baby cramps Blanche’s style, she is a stripper and a prostitute, but an expensive one, and she makes a lot of money working.  She made so much that she was able to buy the building where she lives.

Arthur calls her his little bourgeois, since they met when he was a trapeze artist in the circus in France, and she joined to do the horse act. They started their affair, and they aspired to live la vie boheme, the bohemian life.

Ms. Hen thinks this book is fantastic, and a lot happens between the pages. It’s about San Francisco as a young city; it’s also about the United States as a burgeoning country; it’s about racism against Asian people in Chinatown, and it’s about love and the quest for love. It’s also about social taboos; Blanche is a prostitute who owns property, which at that time in history, might be an unthinkable venture in other parts of the world. She doesn’t care about anyone's opinion of her, she likes having a good time, but the love of her child gets the best of her. The murder of her friend terrifies her, and the world comes crashing down. Blanche is not a typical person.

This novel is based on true events. Ms. Hen thinks it’s astounding that Jenny and Blanche existed once, and the murder of Jenny remains a mystery. Ms. Hen thinks this novel is cinematic and she believes it could make a breathtaking movie. She doesn’t think this of every book she reads. There are certain parts that Ms. Hen would like to see on film, such as Blanche’s dancing. Ms. Hen recommends this novel to anyone who wants to get swept away.

Ms. Hen reviews In Country

In Country

Bobbie Ann Mason

Harper and Row

1985

Ms. Hen has read few books that she has loved so much that she had a difficult time reviewing them. This is one. She didn’t know anything about it before she read it. She picked it up at the Little Free Library in Downtown Crossing in Boston, in front of Walgreens, which does not usually have high quality books. She took this because she remembered the name of the author, since someone Ms. Hen knew mentioned her name once and it stuck in her head.

What Ms. Hen loved about this novel is that it seemed real to her. The novel takes place in the summer of 1984, and Ms. Hen remembers that year. She was several years younger than the protagonist, Sam, but the book is visceral to her. Sam just graduated from high school, and is trying to decide what she wants from life. She lives in a small town in Kentucky with her uncle who is an unemployed Vietnam vet. Her mother moved to Lexington to be with her new husband and their baby. Sam’s father died in Vietnam before she was born.

Sam is fascinated and somewhat obsessed with the Vietnam War and the father she never knew. She thinks her uncle might be suffering from Agent Orange, a poison that the American government used in Vietnam. She hangs around with the vets at McDonald’s and becomes infatuated with one of her uncle’s friends, Tom, and buys a Volkswagen bug from him. She is confused. She doesn’t want to move in with her mother in Lexington, because she doesn’t want to be around the baby and her mother’s husband, but she doesn’t want to stay in her town forever.

When Ms. Hen read this, she sympathized with Sam, because Sam doesn’t know what she wants, and is unsure of her prospects. This book reminded Ms. Hen a little of the movie GHOST WORLD, because it is about a young woman trying to find herself right after she graduates from high school. It also reminded Ms. Hen of what it was like to be young in the Eighties, and to be around older people talking about the Sixties, and how much better life was then. These days, a lot of Eighties nostalgia exists, and Ms. Hen thinks it’s peculiar how memories always seem to take a turn, and the people in charge of TV and movies always want to go back to when they were young, to the time they thought was better. That might be because society could seem to be disintegrating with the passing years, and each decade brings more problems and controversy. Ms. Hen wonders if in the future there will be nostalgia for the confusing times we are living in now.

Ms. Hen understands that when the Vietnam War was happening, it was on the news every night. These days, the war this country is having is not. Ms. Hen thinks people might not be angry enough about the war that is happening now, and it doesn’t seem real to people until a vet goes on a shooting spree and murders, similar to last week. That occurred while Ms. Hen was reading IN COUNTRY, so she had war on her mind. War screws everything up, and will continue to do so, until we decide to stop it. But nobody knows when that will happen.

A smattering of chickens lives in the pages of this book, but Ms. Hen will not recount them all. They made her happy, but the book itself moved Ms. Hen more than anything else she has read recently. It’s not often that she cries at the end of a book, but she did reading this one. She shed tears because sometimes life doesn’t make any sense, and there’s nothing we can do about it, we just have to keep going on.

Ms. Hen reviews The Stolen Child

The Stolen Child

Keith Donohue

Anchor Books

2006

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she thought it sounded like a scary Halloween novel. She read two other books the previous fall seasons by Keith Donohue, and he hasn’t disappointed her yet. His novels are about the other side of reality, and things that do not exist but in our imaginations. THE STOLEN CHILD was his first novel.

This book is about changelings, young hobgoblins or fairies that live in a forest near a town who steal children and trade places with them. A young boy, Henry Day, is stolen and a hobgoblin takes his place. Henry Day, in turn, becomes a spirit in the forest, running around with the other fairies, scavenging for food, trying to survive. The changelings christen him Aniday, because it sounds like Henry Day, and they don’t want him to remember his real name.

Henry Day, after the change, becomes a different seven-year old boy when he is found. He is good to his mother and has musical talent. The other Henry Day, the one who was stolen, did not like to help his mother with his baby twin sisters, and was selfish and didn’t like to share. The hobgoblin that takes his place wanted a better life than the one in the forest. The changelings take turns stealing children, and before the deed is done, the one who plans to make the change has all the others from his group spy on the child to learn that child's movements and personality.

When Ms. Hen read this, she felt sorry for the spirit who becomes Henry Day, and also for the changeling the boy becomes. She couldn’t figure out whose side she was on. The novel is written in alternating chapters, one from the voice of Henry Day, the fairy who became human, and the next from Aniday, the boy who became a changeling. At first Ms. Hen thought it sounded fun to live in the forest and forage for food and not live by society’s rules, but that did not last long for the fairies. Progress creeps into the forest, and soon the fairies do not have a home. This novel takes place from the late 1940s to the 1970s when expansion in the United States was growing faster.

The one thing that Ms. Hen does not like about this novel is the ending. She wanted more excitement, explosions, and razzle dazzle. She thinks the conclusion falls flat. She doesn’t think that is a reason not to read the book, but she thinks that since this was the author’s first novel, he was still learning how to write. She forgives him for this, because the other novels she has read by him have ended in dramatic and wonderful ways.

There are some chickens in this novel that Ms. Hen enjoyed. Henry and his mother decide to sell eggs to pay for his piano lessons, “Each morning, my hand went under the warm bellies of the chickens, collecting eggs, and each afternoon, my fingers upon the keyboard, perfecting my technique.” Henry and his mother eventually sell enough eggs to buy their own piano for him to practice. Before he had to practice at the school. The chickens help Henry’s dream of learning music come true. Ms. Hen thinks that chickens are useful for lots of things.

Ms. Hen thinks that this book is dark enough for the Halloween season. She read it at the end of October and the beginning of November, which are also All Saints Day and Day of the Dead. Ms. Hen thinks that sprits can be in touch this time of year, and this novel helped her imagine that there could be other sides of the world which we cannot see, hidden beneath it all.

Ms. Hen reviews Dracula

Ms. Hen prepares for Halloween

Dracula

Bram Stoker

Archibald Constable and Company

1898

Ms. Hen has read DRACULA before, but she has not yet reviewed it on her blog. You may know if you are a regular reader that she loves Halloween and reading spooky books during this time of year, so it might not be a surprise that she loves DRACULA. Ms. Hen is running out of Halloween books to read, however; the list of scary books she has read is getting larger, but she likes to reread her favorites sometimes, such as the classics.

DRACULA is the story of Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, Professor Van Helsing, and a group of others who hunt down Count Dracula after their friend Lucy dies by his hand. The Count pops up in this novel unexpectedly; he is a frightful character. DRACULA begins with Jonathan Harker’s journal while he is staying in Dracula’s castle. He writes that he is terrified and he does not know what is happening. This experience scars him, and he develops an illness over it. He travels back to England with Mina, who joins him while he is in the hospital, and they find a team to deal with the vampire. This book is scary, and when Ms. Hen read it this time, she did not remember what happened at the end, and she was grateful for that.

The first time Ms. Hen read DRACULA, she was jarred by the structure of the novel. It is told in journals and letters and some telegrams from different characters’ points of view in the story. When she read this before, it was hard to follow who was narrating, but this time when she read it, this aspect didn’t bother her as much. She found that it didn’t matter if she knew who was talking, it only mattered that she knew what was going on. She found the novel very long this time. She didn’t remember it being so long before. Not that it was boring, but she found that she wasn’t doing much else other than reading it, working, eating, and going about the things she has to do as a hen in the world.

One aspect that Ms. Hen admired about the writing of DRACULA is the element of suspense. Mr. Stoker has an innate sense of timing, and he injects exciting parts into the storyline right when the reader needs them. Most of the novel is quiet, and there is a lot of hunting for the count, but the places where the count appears and when blood and death rear their heads are well written and perfectly spaced out. Ms. Hen applauds an author who knows the right moment to frighten the audience.

Ms. Hen loves DRACULA. She does not dream of being a vampire anymore; those days are done for her. She likes the daylight and does not like the sight of blood. But she knows that they are out there, lurking in the dark, under the moon during the Halloween season.

The Stinking Rose, San Francisco. Dracula would hate this place

Ms. Hen reviews Pride and Prometheus

Pride and Prometheus

John Kessel

Saga Press

2018

Ms. Hen read about this novel earlier in the year, and she was intrigued by the premise. It’s a mash-up between PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and FRANKENSTEIN, which happen to be two of Ms. Hen’s favorite books. Both were published in the same year, 1818, two hundred years ago, and were written by women, but are rarely talked about together, because they are worlds apart. Ms. Hen thought this book would be ideal to add to her Halloween reading this year, so she read it, and became engrossed in the story.

The first thing Ms. Hen noticed about PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS is that the writing style is similar to the styles of both Austen and Shelley. Ms. Hen was amazed that the author captures the voice of both authors. In some reviews Ms. Hen has read, people have written that the writing style could turn a lot of readers off, but it didn’t for Ms. Hen. She’s used to reading books like these, so she felt comfortable with the voice.

The novel centers on both Mary Bennett, the second youngest sister in the Bennett family, sister of Elizabeth, the protagonist of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, and Victor Frankenstein. This novel takes place about ten years after PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and during the timeframe of FRANKENSTEIN, when Victor spends time in England. Victor and Mary meet at a ball in London, and she is intrigued with his sadness over his brother’s death. He is interested in the fact that she has knowledge of natural history and fossils.

The two meet again when Mary is visiting Elizabeth and Darcy. Darcy invites Victor and his friend Henry to stay with them for a few nights. Victor tells Mary about the monster in the middle of the night in her room, which she thinks is inappropriate, but she listens with keen interest. Victor tells her that the monster wishes for him to make him a bride, but Victor does not want to do that because he does not want to bring more evil into the world. Mary is afraid, and she is not sure she should believe him, but afterwards, she meets the monster, and is afraid.

This novel took many twists and turns and it did not turn out the way Ms. Hen expected. Mary is the central character, and her thread runs throughout the whole novel. Even though Mary is the protagonist, it is mostly about FRANKENSTEIN, which Ms. Hen understands. This novel is about love and trying to find love, and failing at finding love in many different ways. When Ms. Hen reads FRANKENSTEIN, she feels sorry for the monster, because he is a tragic creature. She doesn’t understand why Victor doesn’t feel sorry for his creation in this tale. The monster is pathetic, and all he wants is someone to be with, who is like him, and will understand him. Victor tries to help, against his own inclinations, but things don’t end the way anyone would imagine.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a perfect Halloween novel. She would recommend it to anyone who loves Austen and Shelley, and would like to read a novel based on two of the most influential (women) writers of the nineteenth century.

Ms. Hen reviews Rabbit Cake

Rabbit Cake

Annie Hartnett

Tin House Books

2017

Ms. Hen bought this book at the City Lights Bookstore while she was on vacation in San Francisco, because she thought she should buy a book to support it, and she had heard of this novel, and wanted to read it, but hadn’t gotten around to it. She happened to see it at the bookstore, so she grabbed it.

This novel is about an eleven-year old girl named Elvis, whose mother dies, and she has a hard time handling it. Her mother was a scientist, and highly intelligent, and she didn’t fit into the small Alabama town where the family lived. Elvis thinks her mother’s death might have been a suicide, or she may have had a brain tumor, but there is no evidence. Elvis’ sister, Lizzie, is a sleepwalker like their mother, and she ends up in a psychiatric hospital because Elvis and their father can’t handle her at night when she eats and walks around. Elvis talks to the school guidance councilor to help her with her grieving and her sister's illness.

One thing that Ms. Hen likes about this novel is that it’s full of animals, and animal facts. The mother studied biology. She was working on what the family called “The Book” which was about the sleeping habits of animals. Elvis tries to finish the book after her mother dies. The mother baked rabbit cakes for all occasions, birthdays, the new moon, the solstices. Lizzie becomes obsessed with baking rabbit cakes and wants to hold the Guinness World record for most rabbit cakes ever baked.

One reason Ms. Hen did not like this novel was that she did not think that Elvis is a realistic eleven-year old girl. She seems too mature and sophisticated to be a preteen. Ms. Hen knows there are some children who are intelligent and have a good head on their shoulders, but she knows that most don’t. Ms. Hen has never known a child like this one, and she was not like her. She also thinks that Elvis deals with her mother’s death too easily; if she were a child who lost her mother, she would have been more unstable and she would have lived in fantasies more.

Even though she didn’t think Elvis was realistic, Ms, Hen was happy that there were hens in this novel. Lizzie sleepwalks and ends up in the neighbor’s chicken coop, “I found Lizzie in their chicken coop, the hens huddled in the far corner, squawking in alarm.” Lizzie eats the eggs raw from the chicken coop, which Ms. Hen thinks is disgusting, but Lizzie is not in her right mind. Ms. Hen understands that sleepwalking can be a dangerous thing, and she glad that neither she nor anyone she knows well has that problem.

Ms. Hen thinks that this is not the worst novel she has read, but it’s not the best. If a reader can get past the fact that the protagonist is not quite realistic, then that person would like this novel. It can be charming and cute, but despondent at the same time. Not everything in life is perfect, and Ms. Hen knows this.

Ms. Hen reviews Now is the Time to Open Your Heart

Ms. Hen at Muir Woods

Now is the Time to Open Your Heart

Alice Walker

Ballentine Books

2005

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because Alice Walker is considered a Northern California writer, even though she is originally from the South. Ms. Hen wanted to read a woman writer from the area, so she chose this book. She didn’t get around to reading it until she returned from her vacation to San Francisco, however.

Ms. Hen wanted to like this novel. It’s about a woman, Kate Talkingtree, and her spiritual journey: she decides to go down the Colorado River with a group of women trying to find themselves, then she goes to Brazil deep in the Amazon to drink ayahuasca. She tries to find the meaning of her own life, but she gets involved in listening to other people’s problems. Her partner, Yolo, goes on vacation to Hawaii, and has his own transcendent experience.

Ms. Hen thought this story was bland. By the end of the novel, she was bored with the characters, and didn't think they know anything about the real world. They’re too involved with their issues and their own problems, and they have excess time to ponder their lives. Ms. Hen admires people who would attempt to go on spiritual journeys, but she thinks they should be realistic, because she doesn’t believe in magic or weird things. She would like it if there could be magic, but she has spend too much time in their real world, dealing with the tedium of everyday life, to know that there is little magic in the world. People who believe in fairies and the dream that there is a cure-all for everything need a wakeup call.

The one aspect that Ms. Hen liked about this novel was the description of the process of ayahuasca. She has heard of this, but it’s difficult to imagine if a person hasn’t experienced it. This is the only novel Ms. Hen has read that talks about the drug. Ayahuasca is a drink that makes a person have a spiritual experience; it’s a hallucinogenic, but it’s therapeutic at the same time. Ms. Hen has decided that she doesn’t need this, but she thinks it’s fascinating that people do, and pay a shaman in Brazil to take drugs to help them have a journey.

Ms. Hen didn’t like this book. She feels badly because she knows Alice Walker is one of the great American writers. But she still doesn’t recommend it. Some writers just write bad books, or books that not everyone enjoys.

Ms. Hen reviews San Francisco

San Francisco, California

Ms. Hen and The Golden Gate Bridge

Ms. Hen recently went on a vacation to San Francisco. She doesn’t travel as often as she would like, but she tries to go on a trip once a year to a place she’s never been. She chose San Francisco this time because she’s heard it’s a beautiful city, and she had never been to California. She had the idea that it would be similar to Boston, but on the West coast.

Ms. Hen had some downtime at work before her trip, so she investigated the map of San Francisco to find cool things to visit. For her first day, she went on a meandering journey around Chinatown and North Beach, which were within walking distance of her hotel. She went on a mission to find the first Buddhist temple in the United States, the Tin How Temple. She found it, but got there a half hour before it opened, so she killed some time in a Chinese bakery and drank an iced tea and ate a bean roll. She thought being in that bakery was not that different from being at home, since the suburb where she lives has one of the highest Asian populations in Boston. She went to the temple, and it was charming; the morning light shone through and she observed bowls of fruit and incense sticks readying for the day of prayer. Photos are not allowed at this temple, which Ms. Hen understood. Red cards hang from the ceiling, which are prayers made during the New Year for the rest of the year.

After the temple Ms. Hen went on a hunt for the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, which was the first fortune cookie factory in the United States. Her map did not direct her in the right place, but she found it in a small alley. The factory was open and women were pressing cookies into machines. Someone handed her a sample of a fresh cookie that was flat like a quarter. It was delicious! There were cookies for sale, and T-shirts, but Ms. Hen didn’t buy any cookies because she thought she would have a hard time carrying them home.

A festival was happening in Chinatown the day Ms. Hen was there. She doesn’t like crowds, especially when she is traveling, because she feels like a target when she doesn’t know where she’s going. She found her way to the famous City Lights Bookstore, which was started by Lawrence Ferlingetti, the Beat poet. She wandered through the bookstore, and bought a book and a T-shirt.

After her visit to the bookstore, Ms. Hen went to the Beat Museum, which is a museum dedicated to the Beat writers of the 50s and 60s era. Ms. Hen liked the museum, and spent time watching the film inside, but you can read her review of BIG SUR to find out her conclusion about the Beat writers and their lack of female involvement.

Ms. Hen did a lot in one day. After her tourist adventures, she had lunch at The Stinking Rose, a restaurant that serves everything with garlic. She had barbecue chicken pizza, because as a hen, she loves chicken, and it was a big pizza, but she left some crust on the plate. Ms. Hen loved the restaurant and the food, but she ate a lot! But she was on vacation, so she allowed herself that.

Ms. Hen at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park

On the Tuesday Ms. Hen was there, she decided to go to two art museums, the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor. She decided to take the Muni light rail, and had a difficult time knowing her location on the train. There were no announcements, and no signs outside at the station. She discovered she could look at her phone, and it told her where she was. She got off the train and went to Golden Gate Park, where the de Young museum is located. She stepped into the Japanese Tea Garden first, which was lovely and peaceful. It contains a café, but Ms. Hen didn’t want any tea at that time, but she sat down and looked at the pond. The de Young Museum is beautiful and had an exhibit about war propaganda, and also a lot of Mayan and Incan artifacts. She walked a long way to get to the Legion of Honor. Ms. Hen thought that was beautiful, but by the time she got there, she was hungry and needed caffeine. She had a surprisingly delicious salad with chicken in the restaurant. The Legion of Honor has a large collection of Rodin. Ms. Hen didn’t feel like dealing with the public transportation going back to the hotel, so she took an Uber, which she does not usually do.

The Thinker by Rodin in front of the Legion of Honor Museum

There are a lot of homeless people in San Francisco. One of the tour guides on a tour she went on said there are 10,000 homeless in the city. To Ms. Hen, they seemed more unstable than the ones she sees in Boston. It made her sad to see so many people like that, but she knows she can’t help everyone. A person who knows about traveling told Ms. Hen that some homeless people move there because of the nice weather.

Ms. Hen rode the cable car from Powell Street to Fisherman’s Wharf to go to the tourist area to buy souvenirs and see the sea lions on Pier 39. She thought they were cute! She was not impressed with Pier 39, because she though it was just like Quincy Market in Boston, a big tourist trap. She had salmon for lunch at Ciopinno's that was scrumptious.

Ms. Hen with Alcatraz in the background at Fisherman's Wharf

Ms. Hen spent six nights in San Francisco. She felt safe in the city by herself, even though she stayed downtown, which is not the best area. She thinks it is similar to Boston in the way that it’s crowded and full of tourists, and there are lots of things to see. She’s happy she went because she thought the city was fantastic. She loves to see different parts of the world, and is not afraid to go by herself. Some people don’t understand why she does this, but she thinks she has to travel to prove that she can survive in the wide world, and come back safely.