Maria Lynch's Blog

 

Below is an excellent review by Beth Dora Reisberg of January Magazine. 
M y comments are at the end of this post:
The Magic Circle, her third novel, is Neville's most ambitious book yet. It is a story about the big picture and transformation; it is the story of an aeon -- a 2,000 year cycle -- that began at the rise of the Roman Empire and the birth of Christianity and that is approaching its completion right now. This book is about humankind's quest to harness the power of the earth and heavens for such a transformation.

The heroine of The Magic Circle is Ariel Behn who calls herself a "girl nuke," and works as a nuclear security expert in Idaho. When we first meet her she is driving in treacherous snow conditions on her way back to Idaho from San Francisco where she left her brother's shrouded remains in a casket, blown apart by some unknown bomb while operating in an advisory capacity for the military. His death is as sudden as his disappearance from her life some years ago.

Ariel soon learns that she's been bequeathed with precious family papers that her brother, Sam, had inherited from their grandmother. Why she has been given these documents and why everyone in her family wants them before she can uncover what they are is what Ariel must find out. But this wouldn't be a Katherine Neville novel without huge amounts of history and science, puzzles and etymology thrown in. As Ariel pursues the meaning of the manuscripts she uncovers the hard truths about her complex family and their role in major twentieth century events such as the Boer Wars in South Africa and World War II.

Like Scheherazade, the story teller in One Thousand and One Nights, Neville weaves tales within tales, only this time they go backwards into history as we learn about ancient initiation and transformation rituals, runes, Uranus, power spots, who Jesus might have been, and what the Song of Solomon may actually mean.

Neville's historical segments are delicious and compelling. The reader becomes a local observer of, for example, the last week of Jesus's life, seeing the events from Pontius Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea's view.

The magic circle evokes a place to do ritual, to connect with our community, be it the neighborhood, our families, friends or the planet. It is for each of us to enter into the magic circle and transform. This book provokes questions and imaginings, and rereading. Neville delivers another tour de force, and leaves us wanting more.
My comments: In The Magic Circle, Katherine Neville takes the reader on a quest of learning and discovery as the story intersperses through two historical eras and current day situations. The author's back and forth of these periods of time keeps the reader interested and intrigued as the story unfolds in a suspenseful manner with dramatic outcomes. It is an excellent read.  

Therese Anne Fowler, author of A Good Neighbourhood, describes the story of a neighbourhood set in North Carolina. It is a close-knit community of Oak Knoll where the neighbours know each well and socialize frequently as in regular book club meetings. The main characters, Valerie Alston-Holt, a black American professor of forestry and ecology is widowed and was married to a white professor. Xavier is their son. The Whitmans, the other notable characters, purchase a property here and create a mansion with a backyard pool. 
Issues surface when the next door neighbour, Valerie Alston-Holt is affronted as her historic oak tree, in her backyard, is gradually dying due to the aggressive creation of the mansion next door.  Then comes the blossoming romance between Xavier, a teenager, and the Whitmans' teenage daughter. This brings in added tensions between these two neighbours. 
Fowler's scenes create realistic situations about racial interactions in an established, prosperous neighbourhood.  Throughout the novel there is suspense and strained interactions among the neighbours as they face the difficult act of getting along with each other, no matter what the racial or mixed backgrounds of the individual neighbours. 
A Good Neighbourhood by Therese Anne Fowler--a white American author, has created a novel that illustrates the America of today and the challenges of maintaining a good neighbourhood. This new America raises many questions on how this country will evolve over time. An excellent read.  

John O'Donohue in writing Beauty - The Invisible Embrace takes the reader on a journey of discovery into the spiritual aspect of life.  He re-defines beauty by separating it from the outer appearance of defined features of the physical self that tends to lure into glamour.

O'Donohue delves deep into the heart and espouses on the true meaning of beauty as it pertains to our inner soulful being.  In doing so, he highlights the beauty of the natural landscape and its impact on the human heart. He elaborates his concepts through the Celtic art, culture and literature.  His descriptive illustrations enables the reader to develop a new sense and experience of beauty as an invisible embrace. 

O'Donohue emphasizes the importance of encountering ultimate stillness and a deep dive into being silent; this he indicates brings one to appreciate and embellish a different kind of beauty within one's heart. It is the human spirit--a kind and gentle awakening of an inner self. 

Beauty - The Invisible Embrace by John O'Donohue is a refreshing and powerful examination of the art of being beautiful in a spiritual sense.  
 

 Banks, in his introduction to Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant writes:  “In Gallant’s stories, the conflicts, obsessions, and concerns – the near-impossibility of gaining personal freedom without inflicting harm on those whom you love and who love you; the difficulty of forgiving a cruel and selfish parent without sentimentalizing him; or the pain of failed renewal – are limned with an affectionate irony and generated by a sincere belief in their ultimate significance, significance not just for the characters who embody them, but for the author and, presumably, the reader as well.”
There are fifteen stories set in Europe--mainly in and within the environs of Paris and in Montreal, Canada. These stories are poignant and authentic that brings to surface the realities of life.  Gallant illustrates these realities in a variety of themes that depict an international flavour within each story.
Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant deftly illustrates the trials and tribulations of human life in a diverse yet captivating manner. 

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith is a Comoran Strike novel. The private detective, Comoran Strike is commissioned by the wealthy Chiswell family to solve the mysteries embodying their family. These mysteries vary from blackmail to murder coupled with the head of the family--Jasper Chiswell being a Government Minister. 
It is an extensive dive into private detective work mixed with personal and professional issues that surface throughout this novel. There are vivid and detailed   descriptions of each scenario that encapsulates a complete chapter. The reader is exposed to the details of detective work performed by a small private detective agency with a meagre staff complement.
Galbraith manages to weave in suspense throughout leaving the reader wanting to continue reading, if only, to determine the ultimate outcome.  At times it appears exhausting just as the characters in this novel experience the exhaustion and the sheer tenacity to continue solving the mysteries surrounding this family; their income depends on their pursuance of the cases presented to them during their quest for resolution.
Lethal White is an interesting read despite its length. 

Nicholas Royle, editor of Best British Short Stories 2018 put forth twenty short stories by authors with a variety of styles and interests that surface in each of these stories.  It takes the reader to a variety of places within Britain and abroad that gives a British perspective in each of these stories. 

These stories depict the trials and tribulations of human life--some of which are adventurous while others are morbid and depressing. The reader is taken on a journey of exploring each author's style of writing as it relates to the themes of each story.  Some of the themes include tragedy, mystery, family drama, and betrayal.

Best British Short Stories 2018 is an eclectic story collection that gives the reader pause to reflect on life's twists and turns.

The author, Phaedra Patrick, of The Library of Lost and Found creates a cast of characters living in a coastal village of England. Everyone knows everyone and are intertwined into each other's lives.  

Patrick captures the nuances of family life that highlights the unusual nature of these family members. The main character, Martha Storm, stumbles into a book of stories that she remembers writing with her grandmother who died a long time ago. 

Thus begins a new journey for Martha as she tries to unravel the discrepancies that surround her grandmother's death. During this process she becomes independent and develops her own way of living without constantly pleasing everyone she is close to. She speaks her mind and challenges those who question her much to the chagrin of her family members. 

It is a riveting tale with favourable and unfavourable surprises that Martha confronts as she develops this new sense of freedom by thinking and acting according to her wishes and desires. 

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick is a very interesting story that has many bizarre situations; some appear unrealistic, but Patrick makes it real for this family. 

Erich Fromm, author of The Art of Loving discusses the meaning of love in a non-traditional manner.  He rejects the notion of "falling in love" as it is not a true sense of being in love. The genuine art of loving needs to be separated from the emotional effect of being in love. Fromm delves deeper into the process of loving. It is a skill that needs to be learned and developed in its many forms and over a period of time.  

The author illustrates the importance of loving oneself before one can love another. It is a process of knowing, caring, respecting and taking responsibility for oneself. Only once there is self-love can one project genuine love to another; be it to a neighbour, sibling, parent or another individual.  He promotes loving all mankind to obtain that higher level of true love. 

The title encapsulates the theme of Fromm's take on being in love. It is an art form that needs to be cultivated through discipline, concentration and patience in all aspects of life. 

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm is an extraordinary enlightenment on the topic of love. 

Saturday by Ian McEwan is a thrilling story that spans a full winter Saturday in the heart of London, England. The main character, Henry Perowne, is not only a distinguished neurosurgeon but is happily married to a successful newspaper lawyer, with two children who are now adults, moving in and out of their lives as these children explore their future lifestyles. There is happiness and contentment in this family life. 

The author weaves in and out of various characters as they impact the lives of the Perownes. On this Saturday morning the main character encounters a very unpleasant interaction while he was driving through the streets of London avoiding the marching protesters decrying the imminent Iraq war involvement. The story unravels as this one incident becomes a constant thorn on the sides of the Perowne family.  Eventually, Henry Perowne is struggling to save his family from being critically harmed by this one interaction on that Saturday morning. 
It is a story that keeps the reader captivated as each scene is vividly described bringing in anxiety and wonder of what will come next. The main character tends to reflect and analyze the various situations he encounters and appears to be accepting of what transpires during this day. It is an unusual story with well-researched information on neurosurgery with gory details of a brain operation that is translated to easily digestible data for an average reader. These sections bring authenticity to the novel.
Saturday by Ian McEwan is a gripping read with many twists and turns throughout the novel and concludes with unexpected outcomes. 

My personal comments follow this review sourced from the website of Kirkus Reviews
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ben-lerner/the-topeka-school/
In which the author scrupulously investigates his upper-middle-class upbringing to confront its messy interior of violence, betrayal, and mental illness.
Adam, the center and occasional narrator of Lerner’s (The Hatred of Poetry, 2016, etc.) essayistic and engrossing novel, enjoyed a privileged adolescence in the Kansas capital during the 1990s: He competed nationally in debate, had plenty of friends, and was close to his parents, two psychologists at an illustrious foundation. (Lerner is again in autofiction mode; he, too, competed in high school debate, and his parents are psychologists who’ve worked at Topeka’s Menninger Clinic.) But all is not well: Fred Phelps’ homophobic Westboro Baptist Church recurs in the narrative, a childhood concussion has left Adam with migraines, and his parents’ marriage is strained. 
Lerner alternates sections written from the perspectives of Adam, his mother, and his father with interludes about Darren, a mentally troubled teen who committed an act of violence at a party that Adam feels complicit in. How much? Hard to say, but the book sensitively gathers up the evidence of abuse, violation, and cruelty in Adam’s life. Though the conflicts are often modest, like Adam's mom’s fending off Phelps-ian trolls angry at her bestselling book, Lerner convincingly argues they're worth intense scrutiny. 
As a debate competitor, Adam had to confront a "spread"—an opponent's laying out a fearsome number of arguments, each requiring rebuttals—and Lerner is doing much the same with his adolescence. How do childhood microaggressions build into a singular violent act? Were the rhetorical debates between the Phelpses and the foundation a rehearsal for contemporary Trumpian politics? Few writers are so deeply engaged as Lerner in how our interior selves are shaped by memory and consequence, and if he finds no clear conclusion to his explorations, it makes the “Darren Eberheart situation” increasingly powerful and heartbreaking as the story moves on.
Autofiction at its smartest and most effective: self-interested, self-interrogating, but never self-involved.
My Personal Comments: As I read through this novel I became captivated by the nuances of a family embroiled in struggles with great achievements on the debating stage. I was intrigued by the poignant family dynamics that creates an agonizing reality of their lives.  Ben Lerner's Topeka School is an excellent read.