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Chip’s book reviews

I notice that on the paperback version of this book, Kingsley Amis calls it, "The most thrilling book I have ever read." And indeed it starts out very strong.

The narrator is introduced to a band of terrorist anarchists who, one by one, are revealed to all be agents sent by a single man -- a man who turns out to be something like a god. That is the nightmare part.

What can I say. Chesterton is a great writer and his Father Brown stories are excellent both as mysteries and as moral inquiries. I wish I knew Father Brown.

There is no such likable character in "The Man Who Was Thursday." Oh sure the writing is up to Chesterton's usual high standard, and the story moves along well enough, and I was never bored.

But I was left wondering what the point was -- especially since Chesterton himself disavowed the most obvious reading (that the man in charge was actual some sort of insane God). I imagine Chesterton scholars can explain the whole thing, but I was left wishing for something.

On the other hand, this book makes me think of stories like Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" (spoiler alert, if you haven't already read that really good mystery) in which the central crime is eventually revealed to actually not have occurred. In Chandler's moral universe, no explanation is necessary, but somehow I had hoped for more from the creator of Father Brown.
03/25/2008
This is not a book fit for all, not only for young readers. Some modern children might even find the vocabulary requires explaining.

The story itself can be appreciated by anyone. A little girl, alone in the world, is sent to live with her uncle in a nearly empty house -- but not so empty as it seems at first. For as she comes to see, the house is filled with friends. And they change her.

And that's the real theme, I think: the power of friendship to affect us. Be it Mary with Colin, Colin with his father, Dickon, Ben -- everyone in the story, really -- people are transformed through their relationships with each other.

Burnett's style ought not be passed over lightly. She was brilliant at giving a feeling of being in a place, of understanding an environment. I've never been on a moor, or in a manor, or in an English garden. But she makes me feel like I have. And she does it without the "writer's workshop" feeling of so much modern evocative writing.

It's a cynical time to be alive right now. But if you're in the mood for something less cynical -- maybe even something idealistic -- maybe something with robins and jumping rope in it -- you might well enjoy this book. I do.
04/09/2007
There might be an author of English who is funnier than PG Wodehouse, but I've never seen her or him. This is the man. And the funniest books of this funniest of authors are the Bertie and Jeeves ones.

The story is nothing in particular, and Wodehouse was a master at weaving a plot out of gossamer and fairy kisses (i.e., NOTHING).

But between the brilliant dialogue, the utter absurdity, the names, the quirks, the very smell of that special Wodehouse ink on the page, you will be amused.
04/04/2007