Did He Crack the Code Again?

Dan Brown's follow-up to his phenonmenal bestseller The Da Vinci Code is more of the same, which is probably exactly what audiences wanted.   The author was, admittedly, in sticky situation.  Like it or loathe it, Code was a phenomenal bestseller.   How could Brown live up to all the hype that was inevitably associated with his follow-up?  His answer seems to be to whip up a sequel whose pace and tone feels very much like its predecessor.  

Symbologist Robert Langdon is drawn into a mystery - this time in Washington D.C. - and runs into what are becoming Brown's stock characters - the possessed, oddly transformed villian and the intelligent, female partner.  With a story firmly set on American soil, this adventure is steeped in American history, with well-known locales such as the Smithsonian and the Capitol serving as more than story backdrop.   Brown's flashbacks uncharacteristically jar the pace of the narrative, but his characters are well drawn particularly Inoue Sato, the CIA's security chief, and it's always fun to imagine Tom Hanks delivering Langdon's dialogue (the actor having portrayed the character in the film adaptations of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons).

The Lost Symbol is not a bad novel by any stretch, it just suffered under the weight of all the inevitable hype which accompanied its release.
-Michael

A Lion for Which You Can Roar with Approval

In so many ways, Andrew Jackson was the creator of the modern presidency, strengthing the executive branch and standing in defiance of the Congress on matters he thought weakened the Union. Jon Meacham's American Lion: Andrew Jackson in The White House creates the portrait of a strong-willed, principled man, who, through force of will, battled what he saw as corruption (The Bank of the United States) and the greatest threat to the nation - Southern secession. Meacham doesn't hesitate, however, to point out the legendary General's flaws - his attitudes toward slavery were those of a planter, not an emancipator, and his policies toward Native Americans led to Cherokee Trail of Tears.

This is a a great biography of Andrew Jackson, albeit a dense one and slow going. With the spectre of civil war looming for his nation, Jackson was, in many ways, forward thinking, but in others very much a creature of his own time.
-Michael

This Doesn't Represent the Lollipop Guild

Two things immediately came to mind and existed in the back of my head throughout this, ahem, wickedly fun satire. First, what would L. Frank Baum think of Gregory Maguire's Wicked, a sublime and textured take on the denizens of his land of Oz? Second, it was impossible for me not to picture Margaret Hamilton as the Witch, whom she iconically portrayed in 1939's The Wizard of Oz. Maguire takes Baum's characters and plot pieces, turning them on their head, interconnecting them, and creating a biting social commentary. No songs, no dance - lots of provocative ideas creating a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the Witch.   Ding dong, this Wicked Witch isn't dead!
-Michael

Something's Missing in "The Emperor's Tomb"

Steve Berry’s intrepid, former federal agent Cotton Malone returns for a fifth adventure in The Emperor's Tomb, this time teaming with old flame Cassiopeia Vitt to recover a third century B.C.E. Chinese lamp, which apparently holds the key to how the country will overcome its dependence on foreign oil.

If the description sounds a little stilted, it actually reflects the reader’s attitude toward Berry’s most recent effort.  Berry work typically is crisp, page turning adventure, filled with historical details, intrigue, and action set pieces.  All of those elements are present in The Emperor’s Tomb, but there’s something hard to pinpoint that drags down the momentum of this novel.  Berry’s Malone typically moves breathlessly from adventure to adventure in these novels, a sort of former federal agent turned bookselling Indiana Jones, but this time the character is more introspective and the pace doesn’t seem as pulse pounding.    The author fills the back story of the novel with interesting Chinese history, but maybe it’s just too much this time.  The action pieces are in place, but a little more implausible and go on a little too long.

I’m not sure what it is about The Emperor's Tomb that’s lacking for me.  I’ve enjoyed Berry’s work and will certainly follow his future releases, but something about this book just leaves me cold…
-Michael

Dee-lightful! A Trio of Biographies Big as the Life of Theodore Roosevelt

When you consider the research and writing of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, and Colonel Roosevelt took author Edmund Morris nearly 30 years to complete, you have to stand in awe of the sheer tenacity and determination it must have taken to bring Roosevelt’s epic life to paper in such a grand fashion.

But a larger than life personality such as Roosevelt deserved such treatment and it’s a credit to Morris that the three individual volumes crackle with energy and enthusiasm.    Over the course of the three volumes, the sheer scope of the work – totaling nearly 3000 pages – allows Morris to detail the many eras of Roosevelt’s life – from sickly child, to frontiersman, to soldier, to author, to New York Police Commissioner, to state assemblyman, to governor, to the vice presidency, then the  presidency, and finally to elder American statesman.

Roosevelt emerges from the pages animatedly, with Morris’s description of the broadly-grinning, fist thumping, handshake pumping Roosevelt seemingly, using a favorite phrase of Roosevelt himself, “dee-lighted” to be having his story retold.   It’s hard to find amongst the larger than life story vignettes deserving particular attention, but Morris is particularly adept at painting Roosevelt’s moods and emotions, particularly his many years of silence regarding the death of his first wife.    His treatment of Roosevelt’s dogged determination to be appointed to a military command and his subsequent leadership of “the Rough Riders” in the short-lived Spanish-American war demonstrates Roosevelt’s remarkable ability as a leader of men.  His devoted attention to his second wife and their children, followed with great detail over the course of the later two volumes, brings a very human dimension to Roosevelt.  His passion for conservation of the environment is palpable and leaps from the page.

People tend to forget that much of the modern presidency can be credited to Roosevelt's leadership.  Were it not for Roosevelt, the president's residence - drastically renovated in his first term - might still simply be "the executive mansion," as it was known until Roosevelt embossed the residence's stationery with the title "The White House."   Roosevelt was the first president to mediate conflicts between labor and industry, narrowly averting a potentially catastrophic coal strike in his first term.   American interests were thrust upon a bigger stage as well, with Roosevelt working to see that a canal was cut across not Nicaragua, but Panama, for the expediency of transportation.  It's fun too to watch a certain fifth cousin, a young man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to appear on the periphery here and there, as a harbinger of another Roosevelt presidency later in the 20th Century.

Morris’s treatment of Roosevelt isn’t for the faint of heart; voluminous in effort, yet amazingly addictive, readers will be challenged and compelled to learn the story of Theodore Roosevelt from start to finish.
-Michael

By George, A New Look at Washington

Frontiersman, surveyor, Revolutionary war hero, Founding Father, first President of the United States…some of the many roles that George Washington played in life.   Lauded as the “Father of our country” and upheld as a mythic figure, Washington has, over time, become a god-like figure, an image burnished in statues, portraits, monuments and history books.

So when it comes to a new Washington biography, there cannot be much new to tell, can there?   Readers will be presently surprised by Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life,  a 900 page opus that peels back the layers of legend that have been built over the last two centuries.  Seeking to bring focus back to the man, not the legend, Chernow brings freshness to the familiar and the resulting portrait is of a shrewd, hard worker, who, through both coincidence and tenacity, rose from rather modest beginnings to become the pinnacle figure in American independence and the shaping of the presidency.  

Chernow doesn’t dodge the unseemly and less than saintly episodes in Washington’s life, such as the long vexing issue of slavery –which Washington handled more as a matter of business than morality.  Land rich, but cash poor, Washington struggled throughout life with financial issues and strained to maintain an amicable relationship with his mother.   Renowned today as a war hero, he lost more campaigns than he won.   All of these elements are explored with remarkable clarity, helping restore humanity to a figure who has been elevated to mythic status.

Obsessed with appearance, Washington carefully and skillfully managed his image, whether it be staging his entry into towns on horseback (when he frequently traveled by coach only to assume a mount upon approach to the settlement), convincing a cash-strapped Continental Congress to pay for a staff of secretaries to carefully and copiously record all of his wartime correspondence, or ensuring he was always meticulously dressed.

Washington’s strengths are fully on display in this book.  Whether it be his remarkable ability to inspire his unpaid, poorly equipped soldiers, his political acumen at forging alliances and relationships in the early days of the presidency, or being a patriarch of an extended family that included no actual offspring, it are these well known facts, colored with vivid detail and placed in counterpoint to his foibles, that make this a treat to read.

While Washington the legend will remain a fixture in American life, those seeking Washington the man are highly encouraged to seek out this fresh and remarkable portrait of a man who, despite incalculable odds, led a generation and helped set the course for so many of the freedoms and library that we as Americans enjoy today.
-Michael

The Lake of Dreams

As a fan of Kim Edwards’ debut novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, I was looking forward to reading her recent work, The Lake of Dreams.  Unfortunately for me, it was not worth the five year wait.

After her father dies in a lake accident, Lucy Jarrett spends the following years keeping as much distance as possible between her and the town where she grew up.  She is living in Japan with her boyfriend, Yoshi, when she learns that her mother has been in a car accident and so decides to return home for a visit.  She finds her hometown not quite how she left it.  The depot which once employed most of the town is closed and there’s a big debate whether the marshes should be protected wetland or under development. There are changes happening at home, too, where she finds that not only is her brother, Blake, working for her hated uncle, Art, in the family’s business, but her mother is considering selling the ancestral home thus helping Art with his development plans.  Jetlagged and unable to sleep, she stumbles upon a collection of suffrage pamphlets hidden away in a window seat in the cupola.  Slipped in between the pamphlets is a letter from someone named Rose to Iris.  Soon, Lucy is consumed with finding out who Rose was and what connection she had to the Jarrett family.

Although, as I mentioned, I was disappointed with the book, there were a couple of things I liked about it.  First, it is beautifully written.  For example, after opening her father’s tackle box, Lucy finds a set of lures:

“Iridescent, made of greens and blues and deep oranges that seemed to have been drawn from the depth of a prism, richly hued, yet also somehow luminous.  They were like gemstones, smooth and spherical and trailing feathers, streamers, bits of lace.  Some were tiny perfect images of the earth, blue-green and wondrous, each turning slowly in a mist of white.”

I could see their beauty clearly and wanted to touch them.

Second, the history Lucy unveils regarding the women’s suffrage movement and Rose’s role in it was fascinating to read.  Sprinkling historical figures, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in Rose’s writings lent her story authenticity.

That being said, neither the wonderful writing nor the descriptive history could overcome my intense dislike of Lucy.  Lucy is selfish and destructive.  And in trying to uncover the secrets of the past she never thinks about how the answers might affect anyone but herself.  In addition, her “romance” with Keegan, her ex-boyfriend, seemed forced and untrue.  For me, there was no tension between them, romantic or otherwise.  It was an unnecessary plotline to a novel chock-full of plotlines.

~ Linette