P is for Paris

The End of the Alphabet

CS Richardson

Doubleday Canada

Aphorisms be damned! I know they say that you can't judge a book by its cover, but that's what I did with the subject of this week's post and it seemed to work out fine. I was originally attracted to The End of the Alphabet by the picture of the camel that graced the front cover. The cousin that lives with me at the moment has been nuts for dromedaries since she was a little girl. She's got pictures, stuffed animals, figurines, Christmas ornaments -- you name it, and if it has a camel on it, I'm sure she has one.

When I picked up the book and read the publisher's blurb on the dust jacket, I didn't quite know what to expect. I suppose I thought it would be like an alphabetized Book of Hours crossed with Tuesdays with Morrie. It turns out that my assumption wasn't that far off the mark.

Somewhere in his early fifties, art lover and advertising man, Ambrose Zephyr learns that he has a month to live. He decides that in his remaining days he wants to travel his way through the alphabet and use the time he has left to absorb the beauty of art, life and the self. He and his wife only make it as far as Istanbul when Ambrose returns home to die. Gentle, witty and charming, The End of the Alphabet is a magical love letter well worth picking up. Three camels out of five.

Somebody's Watchin' Me

The Traveler
John Twelve Hawks
Vintage

A few months ago, one the big debates being discussed in the Toronto media was whether or not the city should install CCTV cameras to monitor activity in a few "problem" areas in the downtown core. Frankly, the idea that the city could track my movements even more than they already do gave me the creeps. Don't worry, I'm not one of those "live free or die" types, but I do believe that the both the government and big business know way too much about what I do, where I go, and what novel I'm likely to choose next at the bookstore. We could just chalk it up to being one of the perils of living in a post 9/11, information age. Or not. I think it's a matter of perspective.

John Twelve Hawks, the author of 2005's The Traveler, might argue that it is possible, and somewhat preferable, to fly under the information radar and "live off the grid" since it is the only real way to live free. The novel focuses on a pair of brothers, Gabriel and Michael, who are suspected to be Travelers -- that is, men who can escape their physical beings and use their energy or "Light" to travel to other dimensions. An evil empire called the Tabula (headquartered in Purchase, NY) want to capture the brothers and use their powers to open a portal and map a path between realities. While Michael is eventually captured and convinced to use his powers for the dark side, Gabriel manages to elude his seekers and flees to the Arizona desert. He is assisted in his escape by a young woman named Maya -- a trained killer sworn to protect Travelers, and a couple of Angelinos who believe in the cause.

I really liked this book. Twelve Hawks (if that, indeed, is his real name) has managed to put together a novel that defies categorization. Part sci-fi/fantasy, part thriller, part social criticism, this novels works, and works beautifully, on so many levels. Despite the fact that I understand this novel is the first in a trilogy, there is very little fat in the text and even the characters names are invested with meaning. Twelve Hawks has done a fantastic job making this an intelligent, engaging read. Four points of light out of five.

Leonardo's Girl

I, Mona Lisa
Jeanne Kalogridis
St. Martin's Griffin

So, believe it or not, I'm one of those odd ducks that doesn't actually mind spending time at the airport. When my brother and I were quite young, my dad used to take us to Malton on Sunday afternoons to watch the planes from the roof of Terminal One. If we were really lucky, the afternoon would conclude with a dinner at the Ponderosa. Yeah, I know -- I am so small town it hurts.

Anyway, aside from the noise pollution and the smell of automobile and jet exhaust, there isn't much about the airport that I don't like. I still enjoy watching the planes take off and land, I love making up stories about the people I see, and I get a huge kick out of the randomness of the whole experience. I can tell you which airports across North America have the best bars, the best ice cream, the best lounges, the most inconveniently located car rental agencies, and, of course, the best bookstores. What else is there to do when you take a 3 hour delay?

As you've probably guessed from the lead-in, I've been travelling quite a bit lately and the subject of this week's post I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis was purchased last week on my way home from YOW. Set in Florence during the early 16th century, the author skillfully weaves fact and fiction to create a compelling and immensely readable narrative about the fall of the de Medici, the rise of the Savonarola, and the vie quotidienne of one Lisa di Antonio Gherardini. Surprisingly, the most interesting character in the novel is not the subject of that much talked about painting. It is the portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci that really captures the reader's imagination and leaves him/her wanting more. Three flights of fancy out of five.

What in Me is Dark, Illumine

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tahar Ben Jelloun

Penguin Books

Every once in awhile, you come across a book that speaks to you in such an intimate way that it becomes a touchstone for how you live your life. I'm lucky enough to have three -- Le Petit Prince, The Alchemist, and now, This Blinding Absence of Light.

Geographically, the book is set in the Tazmamart prison camp in southeastern Morocco. Though he never fired a gun, the narrator (a lieutentant in the Moroccan army) has been incarcerated for his participation in a failed coup d'etat against King Hassan II. The "prison" is actually a concentration camp and for twenty years, he and the other inmates literally live in the dark -- given only enough bread and water to exist on the edge of death. Individually confined to cells that don't allow them to stand, they only see the light when one of their companions dies and the guards allow them to attend the funeral. Eventually, this "privilege" is also taken away and the men must exist in total physical darkness.

What is so moving about this novel is that collectively and as individuals, the men resist despair. Despite the horrific conditions, they use their faith and their imagination to rise above/beyond their physical selves in an attempt to survive. To be able to transcend the kind of cruelty, pain and suffering that these men endured is a testament to man's infinite capacity for hope. They lived in complete and utter darkness, but some never succumbed -- they never lost sight of the light. Five shining stars out of five.

Get a New Plan Stan

Getting Rid of Matthew

Jane Fallon

Harper Collins

As unfair as it might seem, I had big hopes for this novel. The premise is definitely intriguing. An under-achieving, but very beautiful secretary/PA decides to end the four and a half year affair she has been having with a much older, married co-worker. In the process of leaving her lover, she somehow manages to befriend his wife, alienate his pre-teen daughters, and fall madly in lust with his son. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun, right? Sigh. If only it had lived up to its potential ...

I honestly can't think of anything good to say about this novel. I didn't hate GRoM (it wasn't written well enough to evoke that kind of passion in me,) but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends. I found the main character to be vapid and shallow and flat-- much like Kitty Fane at the beginning of The Painted Veil. It could be that the novel is just a victim of bad timing --admittedly, my mental landscape is still occupied with thoughts of Adam Spark and I still don't seem to have room for much else. Or it could be that I had such high expectations (I was hoping that GRoM might be the harbinger of an anti-chick lit genre) that the book just couldn't measure up. I'm not sure. In any event, I have to give this one two thumbs down.

Save Me

The incredible Adam Spark
Alan Bissett
Headline Review

A very unusual thing happened to me last week when I was coming home from the gym. It was Saturday afternoon and I had just finished a gruelling workout (note to self -- never do legs when the trainer has a hangover -- she gets real mean.) As a reward for making it through the session without either giving up or throwing up, I decided that I deserved a trip to the bookstore. As usual, I let the books pick me and I ended up coming home with three selections. I didn't notice it at the time, but each of the titles contained a boy's name -- The incredible Adam Spark, Getting Rid of Matthew, and We Need to Talk About Kevin. I'm sure there must be a message in there somewhere -- if only I had collected enough cereal box tops to send away for that decoder ring ...

Anyway ... let's talk about Adam. The incredible Adam Spark was, for me, a very engaging read. Bissett's brilliant use of colloquial Scots combined with a sort of stream of consciousness narration quite literally hurt my head. I found that I often had to resort to reading sentences out loud in order to figure out what the narrator was saying. Not such a bad strategy in the privacy of my own home, but it did occasion some odd looks on the streetcar during my morning commute.

The story centres on a developmentally challenged young man, Sparkie/Adam, who, after getting a nasty crack in the head, wakes up to discover that he has superpowers; not only can he see auras, but he has also developed the ability to communicate with machines and animals. While his new skills may come in handy in his quest for Employee-of-the-Month, Adam understands that he really needs to use his powers for good. Knowing what "good" is -- well, that's the challenge.

Over the course of the novel Sparkie/Adam has a lot of adventures. He falls in with a gang, falls out with his sister, and falls in love with girl name Bonnie. He is both wonderful and repulsive and I didn't really want his story to end. I'll definitely be coming back to Bissett to see what other work he has written. There was so much packed into a few hunderd pages that I will be thinking about this book for weeks to come. Four big macs out of five. Supersized.