Naomi

Residents at Framley Parsonage include the Parson, Mark Robarts, a young man on his way up; his loyal and sensible wife Fanny; and his younger sister Lucy who falls in love with Lord Ludovic Lufton, the local aristocracy. So, once again, we read of the difficulties posed when a high-born young man and a commoner fall in love. Once again, the marriage is opposed by the young man's mother. But Lady Lufton is a far more complex and sympathetic character than Lady Arabella Gresham of "Dr Thorne." She is indeed someone who wants to be in control, but she also acts out of love for her son and a very conventional sense of what is right in society. We watch as she thinks through the implications of her demands, changes her mind, forgives, and accepts. Trollope treats her with sensitivity and we watch and listen, as she develops and changes over time.

Another interesting and complex character is Mr Sowerby, an old reprobate, who manipulates Mark Robarts into financial embarassment. Minor plots re-introduce some of our old acquaintances from other novels in the Barchester series: the Grantlys, Miss Dunstable (who marries the man of her dreams), and Mrs Proudie, who is, I'm sure, far more fun to read about than to have known in person.

As in the previous installments of this series, Trollope shows himself to be a master of creating characters who come to life on the page (or in the ear), even if the plot is something of a rehash.

This is probably Dickens's greatest work -- devoid of the cloying sentimentality that gums up so many of his other novels. The many characters are individuated and the multiple plots, so skillfully intertwined, keep you listening until they resolve. There is not a false note in this book.

The story begins with the terrifying encounter between Pip, a frightened orphan boy, and Magwich, a desperate escaped convict. Without Pip realizing it, Magwich becomes the mechanism, by which Pip may be able to realize his dreams of escaping his lowly marshland village and becoming a gentleman. As we watch Pip mature, we see his relationship with Magwich develop and our sympathies toward Magwich change as do those of Pip,

The novel can be seen as a meditation on love -- something that Dickens was less than successful at in his real life. In the end we see that those who love, even though they may be deeply hurt, are far luckier than those who cannot, like the beautiful Estella, the bitter Miss Havisham, and the secretive lawyer, Jaggers.

As ever, Simon Vance brings this novel and its many characters to life. I wanted to find out what happened to the characters in this book, but I was sorry to have completed it. Listening to it was such a great source of pleasure.

This novel of the Vietnam War follows the marines of Bravo Company through a single monsoon season as they hump through the jungle to establish a landing zone that is never used and fight their way up to retake positions that they were commanded to abandon. The company forms a tribe who are fiercely loyal to one another. They fight more for the honor of the company than for the top brass, whose military objectives change and whose orders are motivated more by ambition and ego than by any overall strategy.

Marlantes's characters jump off the page and into your consciousness. Each brings with him a piece of his background -- Cortell's deeply felt Christianity, Cassidy's redneck bigotry, Goodwin's hunting instincts, Mellas's Princeton-trained analytical skills. Bronson Pichot's reading helps individualize the characters, from the Georgia cracker twang of Cassidy to Hawke's Boston accent, to the reserved iinflections of the urban blacks like Jackson and China. Most amazingly -- Marlantes is able to put us inside the mind of the marines when they are facing death -- their own or the prospect of killing the North Vietnamese soldiers, whom they hate but have come to respect as disciplined fighters.

This novel accurately captures the late 1960's, a period that is too often caricatured and oversimplified. Unlike the army, in which the enlisted men were largely draftees, the Marine Corps was made up of volunteers who wanted to become part of a disciplined fighting force. Men like Hawke and Mellas have faced the disapproval of friends who oppose the war and of girlfriends who left them for someone who stayed in the States and protested the war. The Blacks, like Cortell, Jackson, and China, are torn between the bonds of race and the shared experience with bigotry and their loyalty to the corps. The war-of-attrition strategy that made "body count," into a nightly news staple, is demystified.

Much of the book is told from the point of view of 2nd Lieutenant Mellas, the Princeton grad who hopes to go on to law school and use his USMC experience in politics, His reflections on life, and death and the meaning of each are worthy of Camus, but they don't slow down the action of the book.

Just one suggestion -- it helps to download the pdf files of command structure and maps when you're starting out. Once you're into the books, the characters will live for you as individuals, and you will be so caught up in the action that the maps won't matter much.

Joan Didion and her husband, the writer Gregory Dunne, returned from the hospital where their adopted daughter, Quintana Roo was in a coma. Dunne suffered a fatal heart attack. Didion reviews what happened in excruciating detail and wonders if there is something that she could have done differently, noticed earlier, to save her husband's life. Didion's prose is, as usual, crystalline, but the self-absorption in her own pain and that of her family wore me out.

She's written another one about her daughter's death, but I think I can skip it.

The is a true story of a man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his experiences when he stayed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Eggers wants to outrage us, and he succeeds by telling it straight, piling detail upon detail, and treating his protagonists--Zeitoun, his wife Kathy, their friends and family, and the people they encountered during this period--with respect and caring.

The story is simple. Zeitoun, a Syrian Muslim who has immigrated to the US, settled in New Orleans, and built a successful and well-respected contracting business, chooses to stay in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina floods the city to watch over his property and do what he can to help other residents. His wife, Kathy, chooses to flee the city with their 4 children, but the 2 are able to keep in touch regularly until he suddenly disappears. The circumstances of his disappearance, the efforts of Kathy and Zeitoun's farflung but loving Syrian relatives to find out what happened to him, and the ultimate resolution are described in simple, unpretentious, but elegant prose -- and yes -- things like this are not supposed to happen in the USA.

The end of this story is predictable from the beginning of this book, but getting there is so much fun. Trollope's slightly jaundiced eye is turned on the small-town aristocracy in this volume of the Barsetshire novels, and just as he dissected the ins and outs of clerical politics in Barsetshire Towers, he dissects the expectations and pretensions of the landed gentry in this volume. Frank, the hero, struggles to maintain his integrity without compromising his responsibility to his family, and Mary struggles to be true to Frank without locking him into a commitment that will destroy his social standing. Dr Thorne, Mary's uncle and guardian, must step cautiously through an obstacle course of conflicting responsibilities. And there are the wonderful supporting cast--Miss Dunstable (my favorite), Louis Scatchard, Lady Arabella Gresham, Mr Moffitt, and the rest.

If you enjoy dense, complex novels which illuminate an entire society and have a broad range of unique characters with recognizable foibles, I highly recommend this delightful sequel to The Warden. Bishop Grantly has died and is succeeded by the Rev Proudie who brings with him his domineering wife and his ambitious and manipulative chaplain, Mr Slope. Mr Slope aspires to marry the wealthy and attractive Widow Bold, nee Eleanor Harding. Will he succeed in his courtship, or will the spirited Eleanor favor the feckless Bertie Stanhope or the scholarly Mr Arabin? Will Eleanor's father, the self-effacing Reverend Harding be re-appointed as warden of the hospital, or will the position go to the aptly named Reverend Quiverful, struggling to support a family of 14? And what of the fascinating, beautiful, and scandalous Signora Neroni, (nee Madelyn Stanhope), sister of the worthless Bertie, whom all men seem to desire? Minor characters, like the eccentric Miss Thorne and the combative Archdeacon Grantly, are delineated for our delight. Siimon Vance makes each character and incident come alive in this reading. Pay an extended visit to Barchester. You will enjoy the company.

Aristocrat, landholder, family man, libertine, scientist, Don Fabrizio the Prince of Salina is all of these. The risorgimento, that united the Italian peninsula into a single nation, is ongoing. His favorite nephew marries the beautiful and wealthy daughter of a former peasant. He sees the end of the world where he and his ancestors once were the lords of their proviincial manor. The action in this novel in this novel is largely offstage; by the time the Garibaldini reached Sicily, the unification of Italy was a foregone conclusion. Insteady we see the day to day life of the the Prince and his family: his devout wife, his 3 daughters, his sons, and his lively dog, Bentico. We feel the discomfort of riding in a hot carriage, as the family travels from Palermo to their estate at Donna Fugata, the boredom of the elegant society evening, the cynicism of the Prince as he looks to the future, knowing that the people of Sicily will resist any change, no matter how much it might improve their lot.

This marvelous translation is beautifully read by David Horovitch.