75 in ’13: The Marvelous Land of Oz

Insert joke about riding something wooden here.

For the ninth book in the challenge, I read The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. This is the second book in the Oz series, and it’s a weird one. If you’ve seen the movie Return to Oz, then you’ve seen bits of this story plus some of Ozma of Oz thrown in there and mashed up with weirdness about a mental hospital.

I’m not really sure how to describe this book without giving something away. Dorothy isn’t in this book at all; it’s about a boy named Tip who happens upon some magical stuff, being that he lives with a crabby old witch, and he decides to run away. Since he doesn’t have friends, he makes some at first, but eventually, in his travels, he meets others. There’s Jack Pumpkin-head, the Wooden Sawhorse, the Gump, and the Tin Man and the Scarecrow, who are each rulers of different parts of the land of Oz. They get in a jam on account of some girls (hello, sexism) who don’t want to do work anymore, and think the Scarecrow is being a jerk by hogging all the jewels by using them in the Emerald City for decoration, instead of necklaces and earrings and rings to be worn by certain girls who are tired of doing housework. Awkward.

Frankly, these books just get weirder and weirder. This one wasn’t too bad, for all that; I gave it three out of five stars.

75 in ’13: Peter Pan

Nice hair.

For the eighth book in the challenge, I read Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

So, like…Peter is kind of a jerk. And hello, sexism and racism and…man. Don’t get me freakin’ started.

The copy I read was from Project Gutenberg, so there were no illustrations, but it was free. This book is a classic, in that it really celebrates and…”nurtures” is the wrong word here, but encourages the imagination of a child to go right along with the story. The narrative was far too stuffy and grown-up and full of social commentary for my kids to really get much from it, however, so paraphrasing had to be generously applied.

The descriptions and treatment of the native peoples were really uncomfortable. How do you soften things for a kid when the whole tale is nothing but stereotypes and a little white boy lording it over them because he won’t bother to understand their language? On the other hand, the description of Hook’s internal workings was illuminating for me. The movie Hook, with Dustin Hoffman in that particular role, is more informative when it comes to his motivations but could always do with more. I was happy to find that in the original. It wasn’t all easy to understand, and had I not been somewhat familiar with the relative time period, a fair amount of the social commentary would have been completely over my head. As it is, I don’t know that I kept my head quite above water the whole time.

It’s worth a read, even if it’s hard to read.

75 in ’13: What’s a Ghoul to Do?

Kick ass and take names? I don’t know. Solve your own damn problem.

For the seventh book in the challenge, I read What’s a Ghoul to Do, by Victoria Laurie and the first book in the Ghost Hunter series. I’ve read a few books from her Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye series, and enjoyed those enough to pick up another in that same vein.

I ended up giving this book only three out of five stars. I wasn’t really pulled into the book very much until they got to the haunted house and into the meat of the investigation, at which point I was interested. The first part of the book focuses almost entirely on the thrown-together romantic relationship and because it’s in first-person POV, that means a lot of self-nagging and throwing shade and exposition about how nobody really wants M.J. because she’s bad at relating to men, or keeping them, or won’t give them a chance. I’m losing interest in the emotionally constipated characters who suddenly find meaning again in the arms of this specific other half of their soul wrapped in chiseled abs/cheekbones and flowing hair and inexplicable wealth and a snazzy sports car–why always the sports car?–such that they finally realize their destiny of getting married and baby-making. Not that this is how it ends all the time, but it plays to that cliché so often that I’m starting to yawn and fantasize about a heroine who saves the day and has a hot companion but who decides he (or she) is really kind of a drag and it’s a positive decision, not a heart-wrenchingly self-sacrificing one that sets the stage for their eventual boning in the next book. Am I out of line here?

Also, “Dr. Sable?” “Gilley Gillespie”? …really, with the names?

I am clearly a cranky old woman and shall go take my Geritol and lie down before my early bird special down at the local diner. Get off my damn lawn.

75 in ’13: The Mystery of the Blue Train

Theft! Murder! Affairs! Exotic dancers! Jewels! Curses!

For the sixth book in the challenge, I read The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, part of her Hercule Poirot series. Now, I’ve read quite a few Poirot novels by this point, and after we get into the double digits, it becomes so much harder to explain how one is different from another without giving away half the plot (which I despise in reviews). However, in this book we do get to see a slightly different side of our little Belgian friend. He plays the cop, matchmaker, and a father figure/confidant to Miss Gray. Katherine Gray, who also has the natural ability to attract those who need someone to listen to them, finds herself embroiled in this affair unexpectedly. Quite a shock for a lady who has spent most of her life assisting elderly women of moderate means and traveling in the same respectable (if sedate) circles as they.

Naturally there is a murder, and an unhappy marriage, and lovers and jewels and greed and curses and people in disguise, but that’s practically expected for this genre. I gave it four stars.

75 in ’13: In Bed with a Highlander

Yeah, that looks historically accurate. Shaved chests were totally in back then.

For the fifth book in the challenge, I read In Bed with a Highlander, by Maya Banks, book one in the McCabe Trilogy. This was another from the Vaginal Fantasy group over on GoodReads, and that’s going to be my justification for reading this book. I gave it two whole stars out of five.

This book suffered badly from the inconsistent heroine problem. In one chapter, she’s the epitome of responsible fealty, a rock upon which the raging stream of fate crashes over unsuccessfully. In the next chapter (heck, sometimes just later in the chapter), she is a petulant fifteen-year-old whining about not being able to marry her Imaginary Prince Charming and purposefully putting herself in stupid, stupid danger to express her outrage at The Injustice Of It All.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the hero/love interest suffered badly from a similar inconsistency. I don’t really expect a man who suffered a lot to jump at the chance to suffer some more, but when he’s described as a big, scary, angry man for a fair part of the book, even by his family, I take issue with the happy-go-lucky dudebro behavior displayed when he’s training with his men. You can display his gruffness as a well-intentioned stern mask that covers how much he really cares for the people around him, and you can show that his men respect him, and you can do it without big-ass grins and ass-slapping the heroine to show off for the other dudebros.

I suppose I shouldn’t be at all surprised, since somewhere in the middle the narrative switches from Heroine Is Kinda Screwed, to Whosoever Owns This Woman’s Vagina, Please Stand Up. I realize that this sort of conflict did happen back in the *mumblemumble*-hundreds, especially since land was attached to legacy, and I am trying to appreciate that the author tried to show that this was wrong, but it felt like more anachronistic behavior from Mr. Sensitive GruffDudebro KiltyNoPants. Not hitting women because you’ve had a bad day, that would be progressive back in the *mumblemumble*-hundreds. But, going along with that would be the idea that she’s not capable of a lot of things, even though she’s a Precious Gem To Be Protected. (I am seriously abusing capitalization rules, here. My apologies.)

I should note that there is a fair amount of rape-talk, and rape-posturing, and…okay, well, rape. Don’t get me started. If you want to get someone else started, though, be my guest. The forum over here is still going on about the “rape-y-ness” of the first real sex scene. Cannot promise it is at all safe for work.

75 in ’13: Arsene Lupin Versus Herlock Sholmes

CAPTIONS. CAPTIONS EVERYWHERE.

For the fourth book of the challenge, I read Arsene Lupin Versus Herlock Sholmes, by Maurice Leblanc. This is listed as the second book in the series.

Lupin’s opponent may sound familiar; this is because, after Leblanc used Sherlock Holmes in one of his short stories against a young Lupin, Conan Doyle legally objected. Leblanc changed the name…technically. However, Sholmes’ companion is a dolt who consistently gets himself incapacitated almost immediately and falls for even the most obvious of Lupin’s tricks. Sholmes himself is an outright jackhole; at least in his own story, Holmes has the benefit of being cast in a heroic light, but it is not so for inflexible, proud, unsympathetic Sholmes.

This whole book is less about the capers Lupin gets up to, and more about the myriad ways he trolls Sholmes, dancing in circles around the guy as he tells him to back off and stop investigating. Naturally, Sholmes refuses to just give up, and is thus humiliated and out-maneuvered over and over again. While we are supposed to be sympathetic to Lupin’s attempts to get Sholmes out of the way, all the taunting Lupin does only makes Sholmes all the more determined to catch him.

At least nobody went against a Sicilian, when death was on the line.

75 in ’13: Arsene Lupin

Like a sir.

For the third book of the challenge, I read Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc (translated by Edgar Jepson). I found this book (as well as several others in the series) over at Project Gutenberg for free, so if you’d like to read it as well, head on over here and download the file supported by your e-reader of choice.

There seems to be some inconsistency in the ordering of the books in this series. GoodReads has it one way, Wikipedia another, and neither lists this particular book (which is, as far as I can tell, different from the others) as part of the series. So…I dunno. It does not read like the first book in the series, and given the sheer number of red herrings, disguises, deceptions and concealments in this book, I don’t really know what to think. I just read it, and it was amusing enough (though no Agatha Christie), and I didn’t worry about it all that much.

The biggest mystery of this story is the question: who is Arsene Lupin? Nobody knows, it seems. Everyone knows OF him, but he is a master of disguise and a gentleman-thief, a prankster and master of distraction and social engineering. Half of his tricks are very simple, things that today we (and the police) are very careful to not be fooled by, like notes ostensibly from one person but actually from another. Lupin is a cocky fellow, but his little jokes and tricks can’t last forever, especially the more complex and confusing they become.

It’s a bit formulaic (but keep in mind, this was written during the beginning of the popularity of the detective genre), but still entertaining enough watching people run about frantically, trying to figure out what will be stolen, and when, and how to catch whoever is responsible.