Ms. Hen reviews The Thirteenth Tale

 

The Thirteenth Tale

Diane Setterfield

Washington Square Press

2006

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she found it in one of the Little Free Library boxes near where she lives. She doesn't remember which one it was, and she picked up the book because she liked the cover and read the back and it sounded intriguing to her. She had never heard of the book, but she understands it was a bestseller when it came out.

Margaret Lea is a young woman who works in a bookstore with her father. She has always lived in books, but prefers nineteenth century tales because they have a definite ending: people get married, or someone dies, or a tragedy occurs. She is summoned by a famous writer, Vida Winter, to write her biography, but she hesitates, because she has never read any of the author's books, but she devours some of them and decides to take on the task. She travels to Miss Winter's home in Yorkshire to meet her and write her story.

The novel becomes a story within a story, with Miss Winter's life story intertwined with Margaret's. She tells Margaret of her mother and uncle and her own life with her twin sister in the strange house. The novel takes twists and the way it turns out is not the way appeared to be. This is a ghost story, and a story about a family and siblings, and the horrible things people do to the ones they love.

Ms. Hen thought it was difficult to get into this novel at first. She thought the language was a little too wordy and flowery for her taste. But she became involved in the story about the twins and their dysfunctional lives, and she fell into the novel. Most of the novel takes place in the winter, near Christmas, and Ms. Hen enjoyed reading it during the holiday. On Christmas day, she sat on a chair and read this book and ate chocolates most of the day and enjoyed herself.

This novel is written in the Gothic style, and people don't write like this anymore. When Ms. Hen was in writing school, she was taught that the American style of writing should be clear and simple, not too flowery or poetic, even for poets. KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid was one of the things she learned somewhere in her academic career, but that might have been when she was an undergrad. Ms. Setterfield might be able to get away with writing like this, since she is not American. It's difficult to be an American when such high standards and expectations are held for us, but Ms. Hen does her best to attempt to write as clearly as she can.

Even though this book is loquacious, Ms. Hen enjoyed it. She likes a good scare now and then, especially in the winter, when it's dark, and she knows there are ghosts around watching her, and waiting until the time is right to bring fear or music back into her existence.

Ms. Hen reviews her Silent Saturdays

 

Ms. Hen created an event this past fall in which she watched silent films, mostly from the 1920s every Saturday. She calls this Silent Saturday. 

She did this because she wanted to learn about the history of these films by watching them. She thinks it's fascinating to see how people lived one hundred years ago, the hairstyles they had, the clothes they wore, and the way they moved, the visual aspects and even the attitudes of the people were so different from the way we are now.

The following is a list of most of the films Ms. Hen watched. She may have missed a couple.

INTOLERANCE 1916

THE LITTLE AMERICAN 1917

BIRTH OF A NATION 1915

TARZAN OF THE APES 1918

ARIZONA 1918

THE HOMESTEADER 1919

DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE 1920

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA 1925

NOSFERATU 1922

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME 1923

THE KID 1921

A WOMAN OF PARIS 1923

THE GOLD RUSH 1925

THE TRAMP 1915

THE FIREMAN 1916

WORK 1915

ASPHALT 1929

FAUST 1926

DIE PUPPE "THE DOLL" 1919

SHERLOCK JUNIOR 1929

ALICE IN WONDERLAND 1915

METROPOLIS 1927

Ms. Hen enjoyed watching all these films, and she studied them along the way. She initially watched them sequentially by year, but it became October and she watched Halloween movies such as THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, also THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and NOSFERATU, which she learned is the same story as DRACULA, but the name were changed. The people who made NOSFERATU were sued by the Bram Stoker estate and told to destroy all copies of the film, but they didn't.

The people who made these films didn't have a lot of special effects available, but Ms. Hen noticed while watching the horror movies that a lot of shadows are employed for dramatic effect, which Ms. Hen thinks are not used much anymore in film.

Ms. Hen watched a smattering of Charlie Chaplin films, which she thinks is necessary, since she believes he is the only person who worked in silent film whose name is still a household word. She enjoyed THE KID, and thought it was charming, but the short comedies are a little too punchy for her. The characters are always setting themselves on fire, falling into water buckets, and poking each other with pitchforks. Ms. Hen knows that this style of comedy is derived from vaudeville, and it reminds her of the cartoons she watched as a child, such as TOM AND JERRY and THE ROADRUNNER, which undoubtedly were inspired by these films.

Ms. Hen watched a handful of German films, which she enjoyed. She had seen THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI a few times before and didn't watch that. She liked FAUST and thought it was scary enough, and the special effects were advanced for the time. DIE PUPPE is like nothing she's ever seen, and though it's short, it pops out with its creativity and charm.

As for ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Ms. Hen thinks it's wonderful, but she was disappointed there is no Mad Hatter's tea party scene. She decided to end her Silent Saturdays with METROPOLIS. Ms. Hen had seen it before, but she thinks the first time she wasn't ready. It is one of the first science fiction films, and is exactly what Ms. Hen likes.

Ms. Hen enjoys watching silent films because to her, they are a window to the past. Ms. Hen is taking a break from Silent Saturdays for a while. She might start watching them again at the end of January. She's taking a type of winter break. 

All these films are available free on Youtube.

Ms. Hen reviews The Way of Love

 

The Way of Love

Nigel Watts

Thorsons

1999

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she was scrounging around for books, and her hen sister had this from when she was in college. This book is about Rumi, the Sufi mystic poet, and Ms, Hen had always wanted to learn more about him. She understands that people admire his poetry, even though she has not read a lot of it.

This novel centers around the friendship between Rumi, who is referred to as Jalal in this novel and his friend and teacher Shams. Jalal was already a respected imam who teaches college in his town. He is married and has two sons. Shams arrives one day and shatters Jalal's world. The two men spend time alone together in a small room, barely eating or drinking; they simply meditate and grow to understand each other in their silence.

Jalal's wife is upset that she is not part of their friendship. She thinks that since she is his wife, she should be more important than a man who is Jalal's mentor. Shams goes away for a while, but Jalal finds him. Jalal starts to whirl, and he goes out of time, able to understand things that are not clear to him at other times. The people in the town don't like how Jalal is unnaturally obsessed with Shams. Jalal's son deceives him, and it devastates him.

Ms. Hen thinks this book might be considered a thirteen century bromance, if such a word existed back then. This novel was based on a real friendship of Rumi's with a mystic named Shams, and how people reacted to them. Ms. Hen does not know if it was unnatural for men to be so closely attached to each other in those days.

When Jalal first meets Shams he runs from him, "' I'm not ready, I'm not ready,' Jalal shouted over his shoulder, darting past children, setting chickens flapping and squawking." The chickens appear right at the moment when he meets Shams, which is an important moment in his life.

Ms. Hen liked this novel, but she found herself distracted by it. She thinks it's an important story, although it's a little weird. Ms. Hen is okay with weird most of the time, but bromance isn't really her things. Also, she thinks that two men alone in a room together for weeks on end would be unsanitary and odorous.

Ms. Hen reviews The King's Nun

 

The King's Nun

Catherine Monroe

New American Library

2007

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she picked it up a while ago at a Little Free Library near where she lives. She does not read a lot of historical fiction, but she does like it sometimes. She felt that she needed to read something light and breezy after working through DUNE.

This novel is about a young novice, Amelia, who lives in Munster-Biltzen Abbey in the year 793. She is on the verge of making her final vows, and she is studying farming and architecture in the abbey's library. King Charles comes to visit, and the Abbess offers Amelia to take him on a guided tour of the abbey. They are in dire need of assistance of books and lumber, and the abbess thinks Amelia could persuade the king to help them. Amelia and King Charles have a lively conversation, but she is eager to get back to studying. He is impressed with her, and sends for her to come to the palace for advice.

Amelia has no idea what the king would need to ask her advice on, but he thinks he needs a woman's ear on the subject of his son, who is trouble. She tells him that his son should be sent to an abbey to become a monk, and that would help him. Charles and Amelia talk and enjoy themselves. She does not think she should be attracted to him, since she is about to become a nun, but she can't help it. She discovers the next day that Charles' daughter is supposed to become to new abbess of Munster-Biltzen, which Amelia hope would be her position. She is upset, but tells Charles that she was sinful in coveting becoming the abbess.

Ms. Hen did not know what to expect from this novel at first. She thought it was a romance novel, or a fluffy women's fiction book, but it is not like that. She does not know how realistic it is, because she has not studied the history of this era in depth, and some of the female characters seem a little too progressive to have lived in that time, but Ms. Hen is not sure how they actually thought and behaved themselves. Ms. Hen was pleasantly surprised at how this turned out, because she was not ready to have it turned into a fairy tale. Life is not a fairy tale, and Ms. Hen knows this is true.

There are some decent example of the use of a "Chekov's gun" in this novel. That is, what is expected to happen does happen. The idea is, if you mention a gun in the first act, it has to go off by the fifth act. The Vikings are mentioned as dangerous men who should be feared, and Ms. Hen would have been disappointed if none had showed up, even though when they did, it was horrifying.

There are some hens mentioned in this novel, which Ms. Hen liked. Amelia stayed with some Jewish people while building a church in their village, and helping them with farming, and she would assist the wife, Judith, with housework, and they would talk while they worked. Judith said to her, "One cackling hen is tiresome, two can send a man to eternal rest." Ms. Hen thinks this is charming, if not quite true.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is a nice, sweet book about a nun in the Middle Ages who tried to find her own way in the world. It was based on a footnote in history, so there was some truth to Charlemagne seeking the advice of a nun. The author spun a story out of a small piece of history, and whether or not it was true is not important, it's the hints of truth that speak to the reader and let her uncover what could have been.

Ms. Hen reviews Dune

Dune

Frank Herbert

Penguin Random House

1965

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she knows it is in the cannon of great science fiction. She didn’t know anything about it before she started reading it, and didn’t realize until then that it is all science fiction. She doesn’t usually read dense, heavy sci-fi, she mostly reads speculative fiction that is more contemporary. This book took a long time to read.

This novel is about a young man, Paul, son of Duke Leto and his concubine, Jessica. Jessica has trained him in the Bene Gesserit ways of paying attention, and always being aware of what is going on, among other things. The family moves from Caladan, a temperate planet to Arrakis, a desert planet, with little water. Shortly after they arrive, a coup occurs and Paul and Jessica escape from their captors and end up with the Fremen, desert people who live in the dunes.

Paul becomes Muad’Dib, the leader of the group, and his mother becomes the Reverend Mother. They live in the dunes and learn to scrape water where they can, and doing their best to not waste water. When someone cried over the death of a person, it is said that person is wasting water. They survive in the dunes how they can.

Ms. Hen knows this book was published before STAR TREK came out, and also before STAR WARS, and there are similarities to both of those. The people are humans in space in the future, like in STAR TREK. The desert planet is reminiscent of Tatooine on STAR WARS, also the Bene Gesserits resemble Jedis, but they are all women. Ms. Hen thought it was interesting that the author based Jessica on his wife, and also Jungian psychology. Ms. Hen also thinks that the Bene Gesserits are similar to the spiritual leaders of the Bjorans, on STAR TREK DEEP SPACE NINE.

When she started reading this, Ms. Hen wondered what it is about men who write epic sagas. It seems to her that all the really large books and series are written by men. She did some research about some writers to find out about their personal lives, and she found that Tolstoy, Tolkien and Frank Herbert were all married and had women who took care of them, who most likely made dinner and kept the house clean. Tolstoy’s wife was his secretary, and made clean copies of his books. Frank Herbert’s wife worked in advertising full-time for a while, which enabled him to write undisturbed. Proust, however, was not married; he was gay, but he was wealthy, and that gave him freedom to write. Ms. Hen thinks that women tend to not write large books because they have too many things to do besides writing. Ms. Hen believes that the world exists to keep writers from writing.

Ms. Hen liked this book, but she thought it was a little long. She found that she grew impatient with it, and her mind would wander. However, she thinks it’s a beautiful book, and an important one because it points out the importance of ecology and water. She would like to become a Bene Gesserit, if that was possible. It’s also a pleasant book to read when the weather is cold, because it’s about a desert, and it made Ms. Hen warm when she was reading it.

 

 

Ms. Hen reviews A Journal of the Plague Year

 

A Journal of the Plague Year

Daniel Defoe

E. Nutt

1722

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she has been reading books about the plague recently. She decided to read this on her phone, because it was free, and easy to carry around. She doesn't like reading on her phone as much as she likes reading a book, but she does it once in a while.

Daniel Defoe is famous for writing ROBINSON CRUSOE. He came to write this book because it is based on a journal of his uncle's. Defoe never lived during the plague year in London in 1665. This book was originally presented as nonfiction, but has since been reclassified as fiction, since Defoe took some liberties with the details.

This book is about the last plague that struck London. Horrible things happened during this year: people would drop dead on the street, and the dead were taken away in dead carts. People who had the plague were nailed in their houses, and they would try to escape. Some people would offer to care for the sick in their homes, but then they would suffocate the patients, and steal all their valuables. Someone decided to exterminate all the cats and dogs because they were thought to have the plague, which made the rat population larger, since every house had a cat to keep out the rats. They tried to kill the rats, but they came back. Nobody had any idea of sanitation, but they did keep coins in the market in a jar of vinegar to keep the germs out.

Reading this novel made Ms. Hen appreciate that she did not live in the time. People had no education, and they were cruel to each other. They are cruel now, but she thinks the world was worse then.

This novel is upsetting, but it's important. It's necessary to know how people handled such a thing as the last plague outbreak in London, and how they managed that tells us a lot about how far we have come, and where we could be.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel fits in well with the other books about the Plague and the Spanish flu she has read recently. The world can be a demented, messy place, but we have to deal with it because it's the only one we have for right now.

Ms. Hen reviews Pale Horse, Pale Rider

 

Pale Horse, Pale Rider

Katherine Anne Porter

Houghton Mifflin

1939

Ms. Hen decided to read this book because she wanted to read some fiction about the Spanish flu epidemic. The title story is about the author's experience when she suffered from that illness. Ms. Hen bought the collection THE COLLECTED STORIES OF KATHERINE ANNE PORTER, but she decided only to write about this book within a book of three short novels, because she didn't want to write about the whole book.

The first short novel, "Old Mortality," is about a family and two young girls, Maria and Miranda, who grow up with stories about their cousin Amy who was beautiful, but died an early death. Their cousin Gabriel was in love with Amy, and they got married, though she was not happy. People have strong opinions about Amy, even after she was gone, including their cousin Eva who Miranda encounters on a train on the way home.

The story, "Noon Wine," is about a farm where a man goes to work as a farmhand. Mr. Thompson hires Mr. Helton, even though he does not like him at first. But Mr. Helton is an excellent worker, and he helps the farm prosper through his money saving techniques, and industriousness. He plays the harmonica, and he plays the same song all the time, "Noon Wine." Tragedy strikes, and the family suffers. This story reminds Ms. Hen a lot of stories by Flannery O'Connor in the way it's about a farm, and rural people, and also because it is dark.

"Pale Horse, Pale Rider," is about a woman who writes for a newspaper, and meets a man in the army who is about to go off to war. The influenza epidemic has struck and people are dying everywhere. The story gives an excellent description of what it's like to be sick from the patient's point of view. It's poetic and beautifully written. Ms. Hen thinks it might be the best description of illness she has read since she has been reading things about plagues and epidemics recently.

These stories, and the worlds they inhabit, remind Ms. Hen of the book she read, "One of Ours" by Willa Cather. Ms. Hen wanted to find out if these two authors knew each other, and they were contemporaries, but not necessarily friends. Porter wrote an essay about Cather called "Reflections on Willa Cather," which was well renowned. Porter considered herself on the outside of the modernist movement.

Since these stories are about rural life, of course there are lot of chickens. In "Noon Wine," some appear, "In spite of his situation in life, Mr. Thomspon had never been able to outgrow his deep conviction that running a dairy and chasing after chickens was women's work." Ms. Hen doesn't think women's work should be anything to scoff at, and running after chickens is as honorable work as any other.

Ms. Hen really liked these three short novels. They're different from each other, but show the world how it used to be in an honest way. Things were different then; there was less communication, and more prejudice. Ms. Hen is fascinated by this time period, as well as others throughout history. We are products of history, and we keep projecting forward, leaving more history behind.

Ms. Hen reviews Motherless Child

 Motherless Child

Marianne Langer Zeitlin

Zephyr Press

2012

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she received it as a door prize at the National Writers Union book party last January. The person who own the press is on the Steering Committee for that organization with Ms. Hen, and he decided to give away some of his books to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the press. It took Ms. Hen a while to read this; it had been on her to read shelf for almost a year, but she's happy she finally read it.

This novel is about a young woman named Elizabeth with a haunted past. Her father passed away recently, and she was told her mother committed suicide after she left her father to marry a man named Alfred Rossiter, a classical music manager. Elizabeth's father had been a musician, but he never achieved the success his family thought he deserved.

Elizabeth lives in New York, and she discovers that Alfred Rossiter was planning opening a new agency, and was hiring. She decides to apply for the job, by using a false name and forging her college transcripts, simply to get a glimpse of the man her mother abandoned her and her family for. This novel takes place in the 1970s, and this could be probable back then, but using a false name would not work in today's world, because a person would undoubtedly get found out, either from social media or some other source. Surprisingly, Elizabeth gets hired for the job, even though she knows she is not qualified. She meets a man writing a biography of Rossiter, George Wentworth, and they both get entangled with each other and the stories George is writing about the past.

Ms. Hen had a difficult time trying to get into this book, since it differed from the last book she read. This book has elongated sentences, and flowery language, and Ms. Hen's last book, THE PASSION by Jeanette Winterson, has short sentences, and sings like a piccolo. This novel reads like a symphony, with all the characters and their stories and troubles blending in together to make beautiful music. 

This novel is full of music, and was written by someone intimate with that world. Ms. Hen does not know that much about classical music and musicians, but it appears that they struggle the same way she knows rock musician do, with not enough money to eat on the road, and being at the mercy of managers and booking agents and everyone else.

Ms. Hen figured out the secret to this novel before she knew the truth, but she knew it was coming. She is not a fan of mysteries, but a clue appears that makes this novel part mystery; it's also about romance, work, and family complications. This novel is similar to a window to someone's life, a complete picture of personal tragedy, and a lonely young woman discovering herself.

Ms. Hen thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It's not an easy read; it's dense, but well worth the time. She believes in the power of music to heal and make people happy, like books and all art are able to do at times.

  

Ms. Hen reviews The Passion

 

The Passion

Jeanette Winterson

Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd

1987

Ms. Hen picked up this book at a Little Free Library near where she lives because she had read other books by this author and loved them. She saw Ms. Winterson at a conference once, and she thought she was a breathtaking speaker, and her presentation was almost like a revival meeting. She decided this novel was the perfect one to read during election week.

THE PASSION is about characters surrounding Napoleon; a young man, Henri, who is in the army and works as his waiter, and serves him chicken (which Ms. Hen was excited about) and Villanelle, a woman from Venice, whose father was a boatman, who has webbed feet that she never shows anyone. Originally Henri's passion is for Napoleon, but he falls in love with Villanelle when they leave Russia together and abandon the army, where she was indentured as a prostitute, as a vivendiere, one that travels with the army to service the men. At the time they left, she only served the officers. Villanelle's passion is for the woman she loved for nine nights, years ago, who stole her heart, literally, and keeps it in a jar in her house covered with a shift.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a beautiful novel, even though she thought it was a little too short. She likes short books because she can read them fast, and write about them fast, and this one seemed like it is meant to be brief, but she liked living in this world. This is a book strewn with fairy tales; it reminds Ms. Hen of Marquez, but with a Venetian, European flavor. This novel is about gambling, war, fighting, love, obsession, madness and redemption.

Ms. Hen was thrilled that this novel is full of chickens. She thinks that the last time she read a book so full of them was when she read ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE and reviewed it here. The first sentence of this novel mentions chickens, "It was Napoleon who had such a passion for chicken that he kept his chefs working around the clock." Apparently, Napoleon loved chicken and he ate it all the time. Napoleon was a dictator, and in the way of dictators, he always had to have his own way. These days some dictators are not generals, but instead, they are TV stars, but they act the same fashion. 

When Henri first meets Villanelle, she and Patrick, the former priest from Ireland, are eating chicken, "The pair of them were wolfing chicken legs and offered one to me." After that the three of them attempt to walk from Moscow to Venice. It's a long way to walk, and they did not know what to expect at first.

Ms. Hen was enraptured by this novel. It surprised her, and she likes to be surprised. She didn't know what it was about when she started reading it, but sometimes the right book comes along at the right time. She believes in fairy tales, and that they are important, because a fairy tale can be anything we want it to be, and it can tell us what we need to know in a way we don't expect.

Ms. Hen reviews To the Lake

 To the Lake

Directed by Peter Kostomarov

2019

Ms. Hen does not review that many series, but she does watch at lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime. She has to do something to rest her hen brain after she works and reads all day. She reads a lot in between her working time, on the train, before she starts work, on her lunch break, but nighttime is the time to relax and watch things, most of the time. 

This series is made in Russia, and has subtitles, which does not bother Ms. Hen. She likes listening to different languages, because she can learn some foreign words that way. This show is about a virus that hits Moscow, and as soon as people get it, they die. They get pulmonary problems, their eyes turn red and white and they die. Ms. Hen thinks this show is prophetic, but it is not an unusual concept to imagine.

When the virus hits, two families who are not close go on the road to escape the military chasing them, because they killed some people who attacked their homes outside of Moscow. Sergey's father, Boris tells the group he has a house that he built on a lake that nobody knows about, and they would be safe there. The groups heads to the lake.

This show is full of quirky characters, Leonid, a misogynistic rich man with a pregnant ex-stripper wife, Marina, and an unstable alcoholic daughter, Polina; Sergey, whose ex-wife Ira shows up with their son Anton, and his girlfriend Anya, and her son with Aspergers, Misha. Misha is obsessed with Polina. Ira is jealous of Anya because she and Sergey started dated while she was his psychologist. Later a doctor, Pavel shows up, and tries to help everyone, and falls in love with Ira.

Ms. Hen thinks this show would be different if it took place in the United States, or anywhere in the West. Russians have a deep seated culture or paranoia, combined with the fact that everyone is a jerk. However, they are fiercely loyal to the ones they love.

The older men on this show are all pigs, Leonid and the doctor's uncle, but Russian men from their time acted that way. The younger men, Sergey and Pavel, are intelligent, sensitive men, and are a sharp contrast to the older men. Ms. Hen thinks this is an interesting way to depict characters, and is not sure if it's true to life, because she is not acquainted with many Russian men, but believes it must be honest.

This show is a typical post-apocalyptic story about people going on the road to find safety from something evil. The road trip story makes great cinema. But we know in real life, for us, it hasn't been like this, most people dealing with the current virus are told to stay in their houses and not go anywhere.

There is a mention of a chicken in this show, when the doctor tells the group that he found a chicken in the freezer of the house they were staying in, and wanted to cook it, to cure people, as popular belief teaches. Ms. Hen thinks that means chicken soup will make a person healthier, but she is not sure if it's the same with viruses.

This show is important, because it's about a virus running rampant in Russia, and could be seen as something related to what is happening now. People who are sci-fi fans know that anything is possible, and to learn what could happen with any scenario could be helpful to our lives, while we're not watching Netflix or reading books and escaping the horrors of everyday life. 

Ms. Hen reviews Twilight

 

Ms. Hen reads Twilight and enjoys a Shipyard Pumpkin Ale

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she is studying vampire fiction, and it's Halloween season. She knows this is not considered high quality fiction, but she read it because it's a popular book about vampires. It's a young adult novel, and it's written simply for younger readers, but Ms. Hen doesn't think that means that the writing is subpar. The writing is excellent in this novel, and Ms. Hen found the story captivating.

This novel is about a teenage girl, Bella Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington to live with her father. At first, she is depressed because she misses the sun, and her father, who is the chief of police in the town, isn't good at communicating. She makes new friends, and she isn't sure why she's friends with these people. She meets Edward, who sits next to her in Biology, and at first he seems like he hates her, because he sits as far away from her as he can at the desk. She thinks he the most beautiful man she's ever seen. His entire adopted family is attractive, and they all sit together at lunch and do not eat anything.

Bella and Edward fall in love and she discovers his secret: that he and his family are vampires. He tells her that he acted like he didn't like her at first because he found her scent so attractive, and he was afraid she would tempt him to kill her. He and his family do not kill humans, they hunt in the woods and kill animals and eat them. They do not want to be discovered, and spend their time hiding their secret from everyone. They move to different areas from time to time, when the younger people in their group have to hide the fact they are not aging.

This novel is primarily a love story, and it is not as scary as some other vampire novels Ms. Hen has read. It's an innocent romantic story because Edward thinks that he and Bella cannot truly be together. She wants to become like him, but he does not want her to succumb to the darkness. He does not want her to suffer like he has, even though he loves her, he wants to be with her, but does not know what will happen.

Some excitement happens at the end of the novel, when Ms. Hen thinks is where the plot begins. The love story is charming, but it gets tiresome. Ms. Hen wants to read all the books eventually, but not right away. Ms. Hen is interested in vampire novels; years ago, she read Anne Rice's novels, but she does not want to read them again, because she has grown past that. However, she has no problem reading DRACULA every few years.

Ms. Hen thinks that TWILIGHT is important because it speaks to young people of its time. The era in which the novel took place was a type of twilight. Technology does not play a big part in this novel as it would if if had been written later. The young people barely have cell phones, and the Internet is turtle-paced.

Ms. Hen says Happy Halloween! The weather outside is frightful, and inside is scary as well. Halloween is Ms. Hen's favorite holiday, and the world is scary enough right now, why not scare yourself in a different way with vampires, ghosts, witches, jack-o-lanterns, and scary books.

Ms. Hen's Halloween manicure

Ms. Hen reviews The Haunting of Hill House

 

The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson

The Viking Press

1959

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she knew it was a ghost story, and she thought it would be a good book for Halloween. She watched the Netflix show a couple of years ago by the same name, and thought the story would be identical, but instead of a family going to the haunted house like in the show, a group of strangers go to the house. Another Netflix show appeared this year called THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR, which Ms. Hen learned was loosely based on THE TURN OF THE SCREW. Ms. Hen watched this show concurrently as she was reading THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. All these stories are related ghost stories about haunted houses, but are all different.

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is not as scary as Ms. Hen thought it would be. She thinks it's more sad than scary. It's about a woman named Eleanor who goes to stay at Hill House at the invitation of Dr. Montague, who is researching the phenomenon of the house. A young woman named Theodora, and the young man, Luke, who is going to inherit Hill House, are staying there as well. 

Eleanor took care of her mother when she was sick, and consequently, she never had a life of her own. She is thirty-four years old. She latches on to Theodora because she wants and needs a friend. Strange things happen in the house, writing appears on the wall with Eleanor's name, and blood appears on Theo's clothes. Eleanor becomes interested in Luke, only to discover he is dull.

The house is a character in the novel as well. Hill House does not make any sense architecturally. The rooms do not connect in the right way, and the people staying there tend to get lost on their way to the dining room or any room in the house. Ms. Hen was scared, but she wasn't too scared.

This novel was published in 1959, when the world was a different place for women. People had to grow up fast, and if a woman was thirty-four and she was not married, she was an anomaly. These days, this book could be a different story, so it seems old-fashioned to Ms. Hen. 

This novel reminds Ms. Hen slightly of THE BELL JAR by Sylvia Plath in the way that it is about a woman who is lonely, and how she suffers in the world. Life can be cruel if a person doesn't fit in with everyone else. This book is like THE BELL JAR and any ghost story combined together.

Even though Ms. Hen thinks this book is more sad than scary, she liked it. She thinks that being lonely can also be scary at times, and the haunted house element with the people who do not understand Eleanor makes the book unsettling and tragic. Ms. Hen says Happy Halloween season to you, and don't be too scared of the monsters lurking around. They are not stronger than you, because you have the power to get rid of them using your spells and your charms.

Ms. Hen reviews two Halloween books

The Ruby Tear

Suzy McKee Charnas writing as Rebecca Brand

Tor Books 

1997

Dandelion Wine 

Ray Bradbury

Corgi Books

1957

Ms. Hen has been on hiatus, and she hopes you haven't been worried. She's been having problems with her blogger, but she's trying to work with what she has. She always writes her post in a document, then pastes it into the blog, but she hasn't been able to do that. But she's still been reading her books. Don't fret, she's healthy and on pumpkin overload for the month!

THE RUBY TEAR is a vampire novel that was written by the same author that wrote Ms. Hen's favorite vampire novel this year, THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRIES. Ms. Hen had to hunt down to see if this author wrote any other vampire novels, and she has, but she published it under a nom de plum.

This novel is about an actress named Jessamyn, who got into a car accident with her boyfriend, and she was badly hurt, which occurred before the beginning of the novel. Her boyfriend, Nic, is a writer and a playwright and at the start of the novel, she auditions for the lead in his new play. Nic has not spoken to her, and has brushed her off since the accident. Nic thinks the play is cursed and he does not want Jessamyn to play the lead, but he does not tell her because his secret is his family is under a spell.

This novel is about the theater, and the eccentric people in this world. Vampires do appear, and Ms. Hen is intrigued by them. She does not think this is as good as THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRIES, because it's written like a pulp novel. So many adjectives and adverbs appear on these pages, that Ms. Hen wonders how the same person could write both novels. She thinks Ms. Charnas was trying to write a popular novel, which Ms. Hen thinks is a bad idea. One should always write the best one can.

Even though it is badly written, Ms. Hen thinks this novel is fun and diverting, good for a weekend in October while drinking pumpkin iced coffee.

DANDELION WINE isn't quite the Halloween book that Ms. Hen expected, even though there are some scary parts. She wanted to read SOMETHING WICKED COMES THIS WAY, but she found DANDELION WINE at a Little Free Library near where she lives, and decided to read that instead.

This novel is about the summertime in one boy's town. In the beginning of the novel Douglas looks out the window and pretends to wake up the town when he watches the lights turn on. He picks the dandelions to make dandelion wine with his grandfather, which they think is summer in a bottle, which can be opened in the winter and they are able to taste summer. This novel is told as stories within the novel about the town where Douglas lives, Green Town. There is a man who makes a happiness machine that does not quite work, a newspaper reporter who becomes friends with a ninety-year old woman who tells him about her travels, a witch that lives in a glass case, who Douglas frees in able to tell him his fortunes, and other tales that center around the people of the town.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is nostalgic. It's so nostalgic, that she thinks that she has read it before, but she's sure she hasn't. It's the type of book that someone might read when that person is twelve, and it would stay with her. Ms. Hen learned that this novel is not typical of Ray Bradbury's work, and his normal books are more fantastic.

Ms. Hen hopes you have a happy Halloween season, and she will be reading more books, and enjoying the changing leaves.

Ms. Hen reviews One of Ours

 

One of Ours

Willa Cather

Alfred A. Knopf

1922

 

Ms. Hen wanted to read about the Spanish flu in 1918, so she did some research, and discovered that there is not a lot of fiction written about this event. She thinks the reason is that writers were too busy contemplating the Great War, because nothing like that had happened before. Pandemics had happened previously throughout history. She found out that this novel mentions the Spanish flu briefly when the character is going over on a ship to fight in Europe in the war.

 

This novel is about a young man, Claude, who isn’t much to talk about at first. He goes to college to a school he doesn’t like, but he tries to make the best of it. His father decides to move to Colorado to take over his friend’s ranch, and leaves the farm in Nebraska in Claude’s charge, so he has to drop out of school. Claude is upset about this. He gets married to a woman who is not that interested in him. Everyone thinks Claude is a disappointment, and will never amount to anything.

 

Claude enlists in the army when America joins the war. He goes back to his town on leave before he ships off, and everyone is impressed by his uniform and new confidence. They think he has gotten taller since joining the army. When going over on the ship, a lot of men get sick and die, and Claude helps nurse them. He comes to the conclusion that this is the first time his life means something, In France, he leads the men in fighting and he meets the locals and grows to love the country. He fantasizes of owning a French farm after the war is over. Ms. Hen found the end of the novel moving.

 

This novel reminds Ms. Hen of another she has read, STONER. That novel is about a man who just isn’t good enough, and he continues that way his entire life. They’re similar in that way, and also the time period in which it takes places, but at the end of ONE OF OURS, Claude redeems himself, and finds his true purpose.

 

Ms. Hen wanted to read some criticism about this novel, so she looked it up, and found out that Ernest Hemingway was surprised at the sales of this, and was unimpressed by Cather’s description of war. He said that he thought that the last scene was straight out of BIRTH OF A NATION, which might be true, but one hundred years later practically nobody has seen this film. Ms. Hen thinks he was being snarky. (Ms. Hen watched BIRTH OF A NATION after she finished ONE OF OURS, and the film traumatized her, because it’s disturbing. It’s free on YouTube.) Of course Cather had never been to war. That doesn’t mean this novel doesn’t have merit.

 

There are too many chickens in this novel to mention. A lot of this novel takes place on a farm in Nebraska. Ms. Hen thinks this is a beautiful novel, and she recommends it to anyone who is feeling down about the world, because it will make you feel better. Sometimes life can take a curve, and you end up where you were supposed to be, and you can find meaning. Claude’s life is similar to the hero’s journey, he has ups and downs, but in the end he shines.

Ms. Hen reviews Brick Lane

Brick Lane

Monica Ali

Scribner

2003

 

 

Ms. Hen decided to read BRICK LANE because a rooster friend recommended it to her, and she is always fascinated by immigrant stories, especially Asian immigrant stories. Ms. Hen loves to read about people who are completely different than she is, possibly because she understands the world is bigger than what she knows.

 

This novel is about a young woman from Bangladesh, Nanzeen, who moves to London to be with the man her father chose for her. She doesn’t like leaving her sister and the village of their youth. When she is in London, she struggles to get by; her husband does not let her work at first, and she does not leave the flat that much. She makes friends with some of the neighboring women, but she is unhappy.

 

One thing that helps her get by is the letters from her sister. She misses her sister more than her country. Her sister gets into trouble when she runs off to marry a man and doesn’t tell anyone, and gets into further trouble when he leaves her. Nanzeen’s husband talks endlessly about returning home, he is a man who talks big, but his pontifications don’t always amount to much. Their two daughters are terrified of going to Bangladesh, and don’t want to go. Nanzeen has a younger lover who wants to marry her, but she does not know what she should do at first, but she decides eventually.

 

This novel reminds Ms. Hen of the last one she read, GIRL IN TRANSLATION, in the way that it’s about an immigrant, and even though they are different, they have a similar yearning for someone: Nanzeen for her sister, and Kimberly for her father who is gone. There’s a chance Nanzeen will never see her sister again. Even though her husband is a windbag, he has a good heart, and he wants Nanzeen to be happy, and he believes returning to Bangladesh and seeing her sister again would make her happy.

 

Chickens abound on these pages. There are so many! Ms. Hen was tickled. Nanzeen imagines the village where she grew up, “For a couple of beats, she closed her eyes and smelled the jasmine that grew close to the well, heard the chickens scratching the hot earth, felt the sunlight that warmed her cheeks and made dancing patterns on her eyelids.” Ms. Hen thinks this is a beautiful description that involves chickens. A lot of poetic flourishes are in this novel, and it contains many colorful descriptions. The author has a melodious voice that helps the reader imagine the places and situations she wants to convey.

 

Ms. Hen thinks this is a beautiful novel. It’s about a woman who does not have a lot of power in her life, but she works with what she has. Some people don’t have choices to make, they are victims of destiny, but they take a turn and do what they want to do, and try to take matters into their own hands. That’s what Nanzeen does. She wants to life live on her terms, and she tries to control what happens to her in the end.

 

Ms. Hen reviews Girl in Translation

Girl in Translation

Jean Kwok

Riverhead Books

2010

 

Ms. Hen picked up this book at a Little Free Library near where she lives. She didn’t know anything about the book or the author, but she read the back quickly, and thought it would be something she liked. This book was part of an event in the town where she lives called Malden Reads, which tries to have people read the same book so they can all discuss it. It is run by the Malden Cultural Council. Ms. Hen has never been to any of their events, but she has read some of the books the group has suggested.

 

This novel is about a young girl, Ah-Kim or Kimberly and her mother who are from Hong Kong, but emigrate to New York. Kimberly is twelve when she arrives, and she barely knows any English. She and her mother live in a dirty apartment with roaches and rodents that does not have heat. Her mother works in a sweatshop that is run by her sister. Her mother has to pay off her sister for her trip to America, and also helping her to recover from tuberculosis. Kimberly works with her mother in the factory because her mother gets paid by the piece, which is illegal.

 

Kimberly was always the smartest person in her school in Hong Kong, but she initially struggles in school in New York. She eventually gets into a prestigious high school, and works hard to get good grades so she can get a decent job in the future and support her mother. She suffers in school at first because she is the only Asian person, and she is poor and wears homemade clothes. She falls in love with one of the boys that works in the factory with his mother, and flirts with other boys in the school. She is industrious, and does not want to be distracted from her goals.

 

Ms. Hen found this novel gripping. There are parts which are like everyone’s life in school, how it’s embarrassing, and awkward, but for Kimberly everything seems much worse, because she’s so different. This is not a young adult novel, even though it’s written about a teenager. There are a lot of colorful descriptions, and unique ways of saying things, especially when the characters are speaking in Chinese. Ms. Hen is fascinated by the immigrant experience, most likely because she is not an immigrant, and does not know what it’s like to leave everything behind and start a new life.

 

Some chickens appear in this novel, which Ms Hen appreciates. A great scene is when Kimberly’s mother gives the teacher, Mr. Bogart, a Christmas gift, “He raised his eyebrows and then slowly flipped open the cover of the container to reveal a large soy sauce drumstick inside.” Kimberly was mortified, also because she and her mother could not afford such luxuries. Ms. Hen knows this does not mention a chicken, but she assumes the drumstick is chicken. Ms. Hen thinks this scene is sad, and she knows things like this happen to children all the time.

 

Ms. Hen loved this book. She thinks that the character is fascinating; she goes from rags to riches, a true American dream story. Ms. Hen admires people who can work hard, and achieve a lot, and though this is fiction, there are stories like this everywhere. Ms. Hen understands that this novel was partly based on the author’s life, which Ms. Hen is impressed with because even though the novel is not completely true, the author made the character's life into something different and fascinating in its own way. Ms. Hen adores books like this.

 

 

 

 

Ms. Hen reviews To the Lighthouse

 

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

Harcourt, Inc.

1927

 

Ms. Hen read this novel twice many years ago, and she didn’t like it either time. She had heard that a lot of writers love this book, and she didn’t understand why because she thought it was boring. She found it at a Little Free Library in her neighborhood recently, and she decided to give it another chance. She’s glad she did.

 

Ms. Hen believes the reason she didn’t like it before was because she was an uneducated reader, and didn’t understand that plot is not supposed to be the most important aspect of this novel. She was frustrated that the characters talk about going to the lighthouse, and then at the end of the book they go to the lighthouse. But that is not the whole story.

 

This novel is about a family, the Ramsays, and their summer house off the coast of Scotland. They have people stay with them, and they are on break from ordinary life. Mrs. Ramsay is a beautiful fifty-year old woman with eight children, and she likes to take care of people. Mr. Ramsay is a philosopher, and is cantankerous. One of their guests, Lily Briscoe, is an unmarried woman who Mrs. Ramsay hopes will marry soon. James, their son, is a young boy who wants to go to the lighthouse, and is crushed when his father says they cannot go in the first part of the novel.

 

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE consists of up the different points of view of the characters. The reader gets to go into each character’s head and find out what each is thinking. Everyone is pondering something different, and the thoughts are not linear, one thought bounces to the next in a realistic fashion, the way people think and not usually the way things are written. This is Modernist writing.

 

This novel is about the passing of time, and dealing with loss. Grief hurts, but as time goes by it gets easier for some people, for others, the ache never disappears. Ms. Hen could not understand that the first two times she read this novel, but she does now. Grief is something that stays with you, but you can hide it, or do things to help ease the feeling.

 

This is a subtle novel full of complexities and nuances. The characters suffer, especially the women. This novel is about how difficult life is, especially for women, either married or unmarried. Ms. Hen realized that this novel was published almost one hundred years ago, and it’s about situations that would have occurred about a hundred years ago. It makes her think of how much the world has changed since then, especially for women. Lily Briscoe was an unmarried woman, and she had to deal with that; these days, if she was not married at her age, her life would not be as marked, and not as ostracized. The world changes, and it does not, and time marches on, and people live and die, and in between we struggle to survive.

 

Ms. Woolf writes in elongated sentences that have multiple commas and semicolons. Ms. Hen has read several of her other books, and she always wonders if she writes such long thoughts because she was a person with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and she wasn’t on medication. She wonders if she was on medication that her ideas would be shorter. The world will never know. Ms. Woolf wrote an enormous amount for the period of time she was writing.

 

This might not be her favorite novel that Ms. Hen has read, but it is one that makes a person think a lot about life and the world and the passing of time. The writing is beautiful, and it is not a fast read, but it is a good book to read at the end of the summer, possibly by the ocean, but Ms. Hen did not do that. She did read some of it by a river on her lunch break, the water tossing at the edge, similar to the characters' trip to the lighthouse.

Ms. Hen reviews Opium and Absinthe

 

Opium and Absinthe

Lydia Kang

Lake Union Publishing

2020

 

Ms. Hen read this because she leaned that it was about vampires, and she is into vampires right now. She knew nothing about the author at first, but Ms. Hen found out that she is a physician. She thinks the cover of the book is beautiful, and was intrigued by the story.

 

This novel is about a young woman in 1899 New York, Tillie Pembroke, whose sister dies, and right before that she is in a horse accident and she breaks her clavicle. Tillie is in a lot of pain, so she goes to the doctor, and is prescribed laudanum, which is type of opium, and she becomes addicted to it, and it affects her senses. Her sister Lucy is found murdered, with two puncture marks at her throat and a bottle of absinthe next to her.

 

Tillie, determined to find out who killed her sister, goes on a quest to find the murderer. She lives in the house with her mother and her grandmother, and they decide to keep a tight reign on her after her sister’s death. Tillie’s family has a lot of money, and they live in the stylish section of New York. Tillie manages to sneak out of the house and find assistance from Ian, a young man who sells newspapers, or as they are called, a newsie.

 

Tillie is adventurous and is not afraid to try to uncover the circumstances surround Lucy’s death. She has always been a person who is interested in learning, she reads the dictionary, and she likes to find out information about the world around her. Living in that era, it would be difficult for a young woman to be like that because women weren’t supposed to be curious, the point of their lives was to find a husband, get married and have children.

 

When Ms. Hen started reading this, she thought it would actually be about vampires. There is a lot of mention of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, because the novel takes place in the year that came out, and the murders that occur look like vampire killings. But no vampires actually appear, and Ms. Hen was disappointed. This is more of a historical gothic mystery than a vampire novel, which Ms. Hen is fine with when she realized that was the case. It’s a nice novel about a young woman finding herself and trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s death. It’s also a female empowerment novel, because Tillie does not take any garbage from anyone, she wants to do what she wants in life, and Ms. Hen doesn’t think there is anything that will stop her.

 

There is some talk in this novel about the coming new millennium, which Ms. Hen was confused about, but then she realized that was considered 1900 or the twentieth century. Ms. Hen thinks it’s interesting that people now think this century is the new millennium, but it was actually in 1900. Ms. Hen did some research about this, and found this article:

 https://abcnews.go.com/US/1900s-century-hype-millennial/story?id=89978#:~:text=%201900%27s%20New%20Century%20Hype%20Was%20Millennial%20,but%20the%20drumbeat%20started%20as%20early...%20More%20

Sometimes things aren’t what you expect them to be. This article talks about the technological advances in the nineteenth century, but just in the past thirty years there have been so many changes in the world, that Ms. Hen can’t keep up.

 

Ms. Hen liked this book, even though it wasn’t what she expected it to be. She kept waiting for the vampires and they never showed up. But that happens with lots of things in life, you want something to come, and it never does, but we deal with things anyways, and keep going on.

 

 

Ms. Hen reviews I am Madame X

 

I am Madame X

Gioia Diliberto

Scribner

2003

 

Ms. Hen picked up this book at a Little Free Library near where she lives, which she stumbled across one day walking around her neighborhood. She had heard about the book years ago when it first came out, and she was intrigued, because she likes art, and is also a fan of John Singer Sargent.

 

I AM MADAME X is a novel about a painting called Portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent. The painting caused a scandal when it was shows in the Paris Salon in 1884, because the French saw it as obscene. It didn’t help that both the artist and the model were Americans, because Paris society was always looking for a reason to make Americans the scapegoats.

 

The novel is an imagined life of Virginie Gautreau, the model of the portrait. When she is young, she lives in Louisiana on a plantation near New Orleans named Parlange. She lives with her grandmother and mother, uncle, and sister. Her parents separated, but her father dies in the Civil War. When the war hit, her mother takes Virginie and her sister Valentine to Paris and are supported by her aunt’s former fiancé, who her aunt did not marry because she jumped out the window on her wedding day.

 

Virginie and her mother and sister move back to Louisiana after the war, but the plantation does not make that much money. They move back to Paris when her mother gets an inheritance from her husband's estate. Her mother is materialistic and wants to launch herself into Paris society. She buys a house and has parties, and hopes to marry Virginie to a duke or an aristocrat.

 

Virginie is beautiful, exceptionally so. She has an affair with a doctor named Dr. Pozzi and gets pregnant. Her mother is furious, but Viginie gets married to a family friend Pierre, a marriage blanc, which means a marriage of convenience in which the couple can do what they wish. Pierre has a married lover, and he would carry on as usual. His family wanted him to be married because it was the right thing to do.

 

Virginie has love affairs and she eventually meets Sargent. She is vain and has always wanted her portrait painted. The Paris Salon is a scandal, and at first she is gossiped about as a harlot and Sargent has to leave Paris because he is ostracized and could never work there again.

 

Ms. Hen thinks it’s interesting how the world has changed. The painting now looks so innocent and elegant, compared to what is shown today. She would have thought that the French would love something like that, but she thinks they weren’t ready for it when it came out.

 

This novel reminded Ms. Hen of a couple of things she has read. The setting reminded her of Proust, of Paris society in the late nineteenth century. When she read the author’s notes, she learned that Dr. Pozzi was a real person who Proust based one of his characters on in IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME.

 

This also reminded Ms. Hen of a memoir she read called THE BASTARD or LA BATARDE in French by Violette Leduc, a book about her life as an illegitimate child and the problems being ugly. I AM MADAME X reminded her of this because the two characters were the case of extremes: one was the height of beauty and the other the height of ugliness. The also lived in Paris, and they lived through different wars.

 

Lots of chickens live in these pages, as they do in books about France. When Virginie lives on the plantation, she talks about her pets, “Or we’d spend hours playing with our pets at the barn. I had two chickens, which I had named Sanspareil and Papillon.” Ms. Hen likes that Virginie had pet chickens when she was young.

 

Ms. Hen enjoyed this book, even though the central character was vain, and the world she lived in was a superficial world, where everyone was obsessed with looks and trivialities. Ms. Hen is interested in art, and things that are beautiful, but she knows the fruit beneath the flower is what is more important.