Amid household friction, three reviews

It has been a while since I’ve posted, hasn’t it?  In the past few months my ever-changing, kid-centered schedule has evolved yet again, this time into a napless format (so inconvenient!)… True, bedtimes are now earlier, so you’d think I could accomplish something in the evening—but by then I'm drained.  Empty.  Done.  As before, my evenings are about dishes, endlessly rehashing the day, and brainstorming ways to manage our “spirited” four-year-old.  (More on this later...)

Knitting, too.  I’ve only just learned to purl, and I’m ridiculously proud of myself.

In this odd and unanticipated blogging gap, however, I have read a few things that I’d like to highly recommend!  

1.      The Invention of Fire

What it felt like was the invention of time travel: Author Bruce Holsinger, a professor of medieval literature at the University of Virginia, makes 14th-century London seem immediate!  I can't think of another historical novel that integrates so much daily-life detail (e.g. medieval privies) into a page-turning story.  And the characters!  While John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer--yes, that Chaucer-- are honest-to-goodness historical figures, Holsinger does not handle them with  reverence; rather, he fearlessly fleshes them out, presenting them as approachable, fallible people with context in London society.  I enjoyed John Gower's voice immensely, and am in awe of both the research and the creativity behind it. 

A basic sketch of the plot:  As London braces for a French invasion, Gower, a purveyor of secrets, is tasked with stealthily investigating a mass murder that too many people seem anxious to rugsweep.  The weapon?  Handgonnes, a frightening innovation that, by reducing the need for special skill, democratizes the act of killing... 

In regard to the ending, I'll say this:  While I anticipated some small part of it, my jaw did drop at the final revelation!  And subplots-- one in particular-- closed with elegance and restraint. 

Again, this historical thriller is so worthwhile!  Moreover, my interest in the shady yet earnest John Gower has prompted me to seek out this author's previous work of fiction, A Burnable Book, which features the same character.

2.     Madeleine's War   

Set during World War II,  this well-written (and surprisingly romantic) thriller nearly convinced me that I worked for British intelligence, interpreting and contextualizing the elaborately coded messages sent by field agents in occupied France.     

Here’s the premise:  Intelligence officer Matthew Hammond falls in love with Madeleine, a brilliant and unusual young woman whom he’s training for a dangerous covert mission.  At the conclusion of training, she parachutes into France, while, back in London, he’s on the receiving end of her communications—communications that abruptly break off amid D-Day chaos.  What happened to her?  Is there any chance that she might still be alive?

…This is the story of Hammond's post-invasion attempts to trace Madeleine, and it packs in plenty of gutwrenching twists as well as terrific atmosphere.  Again, I felt as if I were let in on the secrets and tactics of Allied espionage—which to some extent was true, as author Peter Watson took pains with historical accuracy.  This novel is so very entertaining, and I expect that it was also fun to write!

3.     Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting: Five Strategies That End the Daily Battles and Get Kids to Listen the First Time

Increasing frustration brought me to the self-help section and this particular book, which, unlike several others, actually has helped me to deal with my defiant, independent, way-too-smart preschooler!  Its overall approach-- "catching" good behavior in order to employ "descriptive praise"-- demands that I shift my focus from what my child’s doing wrong (opportunity to correct her) to what she’s doing right (opportunity to praise her).  

Don't get me wrong:  I've always praised and thanked both my daughters when I happened to notice a particularly kind, polite, or helpful action.  This book, however, pushes me to look, really look, for those opportunities to praise-- and in the process, helps me to appreciate that, overall, my "difficult" older daughter is a pretty good kid!  And while I sometimes feel silly as I compliment, say, the donning of a single shoe or the cessation of an annoying sound, the additional positive feedback does have her working harder to cooperate with my instructions...  Importantly, too, it improves our relationship and, all in all, gives everyone a more pleasant day than we’d otherwise experience. 

I borrowed this title from the library.  Will I purchase it?  Yes, reason being that I’d like to dip into it as needed for a bit of a mental reset!  While some of the sample dialogue is insufferable (I promise not to slide so far into pop psychology as this), re-reading a few pages might help me to recover a day that's slipping...

On that note, I'd like to wish you-- and fellow parents especially-- a restful weekend!  Thank you for visiting.


Disclosure:  Madeleine's War and The Invention of Fire were gifted to me through Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.

_Warrior Lore_ (Cumpstey): Seven Reasons to Love It.

Ian Cumpstey, Warrior Lore: Scandinavian Ballads (2014)

1.  The translated lyrics flow smoothly, with a feeling of great simplicity-- which no doubt took lots of skill and effort to cultivate!  Translator Ian Cumpstey spent eight years in Sweden, where he absorbed the language and marveled at the integration of music into daily life.

[If you'd like to hear a sample read aloud, Skadi Press has posted "Widrick Waylandsson's Fight" to Soundcloud-- and I think you'll agree that the reader's charming accent does no harm!  Oh, I'm such an American.]

2.  The lyrics themselves are front and center.  Short intros to each ballad enhanced my appreciation without overburdening me (a casual reader) with scholarly detail: Cumpstey provides a helpful summary, and then lets the ballad speak (or sing?) for itself.

3.  There's something shattering about a tale of great trauma rendered so simply and directly...!  Although as gory as Grimm's tales, many of these medieval songs evoke remarkable compassion in few words.  For example, the ballad "Hilla-Lill" tells the fate of a lady who-- by consenting to an unsuccessful elopement-- furthered the slaughter of her father, lover, and six of her brothers:

"My brother he wanted to have me killed,
My mother she wanted to have me sold.

"And so I was sold for a bell so new,
It hangs in the church of St. Mary now. 

"My mother she heard the chime of the bell,
And broken her heart into pieces fell." 

Along the same lines...

4.  Female suffering is voiced.  These songs don't posit that fairytale women will live happily ever after, Disney style.  Rather, the wives and daughters of legendary knights can-- and do-- lose all that is dear to them in a single battle; and even a lasting marriage can be far from romantic.

"Yes you took my serving girl,
And lay on the pillows of blue,
But me you've pulled me by my hair,
And cursed and beaten too,"

Elin accuses her husband from her deathbed.  She refuses to forgive him-- and who could blame her?  (Well, the Victorians.  Maybe.)

5.  Still, the women of these ballads aren't saintly.  After Cumpstey's introduction described one young lady as "playing hard to get," I had to laugh out loud-- for she'd posted her suitors' severed heads on stakes outside her home!  Yet the gentlemen callers kept right on coming.

6.  Oh yes--and there's humor, too.  Really!  For example, a crossdressing Thor nearly gives away his game by revealing a less than delicate appetite.  (I enjoyed this version of Thor's famous search for his lost hammer-- the only tale remotely familiar to me, by the way!  All else was new.)

7.  Homeschool potential.  I could imagine high school students using this work to ease into early literature, or to sample from a different cultural context.  Each ballad and its introduction read easily in one brief sitting, yet offer plenty of material for thought and discussion.

Happy Friday! Thank you for visiting, and please drop by This Ain't the Lyceum for more Quick Takes.

Disclosure:  The author/translator gifted me a Kindle copy of this work in exchange for my honest review.

Diana Gabaldon, Outlander (1991)

This one floored me.

It begins as a time-travel romance-- one of unforced sweetness.    Of course, the formulaic "psychological obstacles" are there, but the situation and characters are so well-drawn that all structure is a natural extension.

In the middle of the book, however, Gabaldon adds a shock.  And it's an honest sort of shock:  The hero lives in a place and time when beating one's wife is acceptable.  So, when the heroine--a woman slipped back in time from the 1940s-- takes an unnecessary (he thinks) risk, he first saves her life and then beats her nearly to death.

The mother of all psychological obstacles??  Ninety-nine percent of my brain was rooting for her to leave him-- anachronistic or not-- even while recognizing that, from a practical standpoint, the heroine was stuck.  But relationship-wise, where could it go from here?  Downward spiral? ...That the author does move these two characters beyond the trauma in a convincing way is testimony to her skill.  I'm in awe.

But wait-- you thought that spousal abuse was an obstacle? What's ahead is transgressive.  It's psychologically wrenching.  It's well foreshadowed, so that it fits (nothing in Outlander feels forced), but-- it took guts to write!  And while the cleanup is surely more tidy than in real life, this horrifying string of scenes takes the story to a place that I'd never have expected or, frankly, wanted to go.  The word "unflinching" comes to mind, although I'll assure you that I, the reader, flinched plenty.

Unexpectedly, too, Outlander backlights this final stretch of horror and salvation with a positive depiction of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, which becomes the heroine's source of strength.

How they'll make a movie (er, TV series) of it, I have no idea.