Middlesex: A Novel

Available from Audible.com

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Reader: Kristoffer Tabori

Short Review: A novel I absolutely love, full of gorgeous language, beautifully-rendered characters, and entrancing history and myth. Tabori’s reading is downright fantastic, and Eugenides remains one of the most talented writers of his generation. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read or listened to.

Long Review: I read this book on paper several years ago and found it absolutely fascinating. Eugenides treats his subject matter with a great deal of tenderness and honesty, never turning towards the louche or sensational.

For those who’ve missed the hype: the protagonist of Middlesex is a hermaphrodite who is raised as a girl and then chooses to live as a man upon discovering the nature of his unusual condition. That’s not a spoiler–the book opens with this very information. The book is about genetics, the nature of love and family, the natures of human sexuality and gender (which are two different things), Smyrna, Greek-Americans, silk, the foundation of the Nation of Islam, Detroit, racial relations . . . it’s about many fascinating things. It is so engrossing because Caliope/Cal is a true work of art. Eugenides knows how to build a character. He richly deserved that Pulitzer.

Because I loved the paper book so much, I was a bit worried about picking up the audiobook. It drives me batty when someone reads a book I love in the wrong voice for my head. Thankfully, I could listen to Tabori read the phonebook. I wasn’t familiar with him prior to this book, but I look forward to hearing more of his work. Tabori switches comfortably between the voices of many characters, from the basement-deep Jimmy Zizmo to the quavering, fragile Desdemona-as-grandmother. He plays the characters well, but doesn’t push it too far. He’s clearly playing Cal playing the other characters, rather than trying to leave his roll as first-person narrator for those other characters.

In part, the book is so successful because Eugenides is such a careful researcher. Descriptions of Smyrna, silk production, the birth of the US car industry, prohibition, Turkey, genetics, gender reassignment, and many other topics all ring true. Without that underlying research, the book would fall apart. I finished the book with a list of things I wanted to research and a real sense of wonder about Smyrna in particular.

Overall, I think the most surprising thing about Middlesex is its humor. If you describe this book or The Virgin Suicides to someone who isn’t familiar with Eugenides’ work, they’ll assume both stories are weighty, heartbreaking tragedies. In fact, both stories are so engaging because they’re so drenched in wit and humor. Cal, in particular, is charmingly self-effacing and funny. He’s not self-pitying, he doesn’t chastise his relatives for his treatment or his condition. He recognizes the absurdity of humanity itself, as should we all.

Author: John Connolly

Reader: Steven Crossley

Short Review: A decent book with a major flaw, read beautifully by Steven Crossley. Connolly’s book starts out as a promising depiction of the interior life of a bookish, depressed boy with apparently undiagnosed epilepsy and OCD. Unfortunately, it continues on into an all-too-familiar series of retellings of classic fairytales, several of which villanize women for no clear reason. I expected and hoped for more from the book itself. Thankfully, I truly enjoyed Crossley’s narration, and allowed it to carry me through a book that otherwise left me scratching my head and feeling disappointed and maligned.

Long Review: I’m a true mythology buff, so I’ve read many books that recast fairytales and myths in new lights. Some authors do a wonderful job with such work–Neil Gaiman, Angela Carter, Anne Sexton, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and T.H. White all come to mind as masters. But many others can’t meet the task and end up producing novels that can’t match the wonder of the original tales or modernize them in interesting, contemporary ways. I think Connolly’s book falls in that later group.

There are some shining moments in the novel. I love David’s wondrous relationship to books, and how that connects him to his mother, arguably the only positive female character in the book. Her explanation of how real stories feel about the inconsequential stories in newspapers is lovely, and will stay with me. The end of the book is also very appealing to me. I love thinking of the adult David continuing to serve books and being a good man, once all is said and done. In general, I think Connolly is a good writer with a good sense of pace and language. I think his take on sibling rivalry is interesting, as is his vision of a child’s relationship to reality, fantasy, and death. While I was listening early on, I enjoyed the book and the narration equally. It was when I was thinking about the book between listenings that I became frustrated.

What truly disappoints me is the misogynist twist Connolly gives most of the tales used in his book. Every major female character other than David’s mother is criticized for her eating habits or weight, sexual choices, appearance, strength, weakness, hunger . . . it’s too much and too common in the book to ignore. Two persistent villains are male, yes, but we expect a werewolf and a Trickster to be villains. I won’t quibble about the child-eating witches who show up in the book as villains, since they were villains in the original forms of the tales. But was it really necessary for Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and all of the other women who show up in the book to be morphed into disgusting, senseless villains? Even Rose, David’s step-mother, is attacked for eating too much and having sex out of wedlock. What is that about? Could Connolly think of no way to retell or change those classic tales without turning all of the female central characters into monsters? Why could none of the kind characters in the book who help David in the other world be female? It really makes me wonder about the author’s views on women. Over and over again, the misogyny forced me out of the story. If Connolly needed to make so many women villains, he should have given more thought to why he needed to do so and addressed that in the book. As it is, the thread seems to reveal more about Connolly than it does about David, and it leaves me loath to bother with the rest of Connolly’s catalog.

As angry as Connolly’s misogyny makes me, I stuck with the book because Crossley’s reading is downright beautiful. I fell for him as a narrator with In The Woods. If anything, his work improves with this novel. His voice is clear and layered, his diction is great, and he voices the different characters distinctly without making too much fuss. I will absolutely seek out more books read by Crossley. I wish we’d set up our review system here at Books For Ears so we review books and readers separately: Crossley gets five stars, Connolly gets 2, max.

 Short Review: A sweet, funny prequel to O’Carroll’s earlier trilogy about Agnes Brown, read with great energy, humor, and personality by the incomparable Donada Peters.

 Long Review: The Young Wan tells the story of Agnes Browne’s early life and her parents’ romance and marriage. Set in a 1940s working-class Dublin neighborhood, the book touches on the labor and Republican movements, the nascent women’s rights movement, the old Dublin markets, class warfare, Dublin’s flawed justice system, the power of the church, and a number of other weighty subjects without ever becoming heavy itself. The pain and difficulty of the most heartbreaking situations are alleviated throughout by humor and ingenuity, as Agnes Brown and her lifelong friend Marion find a solution for each problem.

It’s not a magnum opus, this book, but it’s fun and clever. Donada Peters’ narration is wonderful, producing an audiobook that is better than its paper forebear. This book is a great example of audiobook’s role in the development of storytelling: The narrator does what a great storyteller would, giving voice to several different characters, interpreting the novel as a great actor should, and giving her audience a peek into events (however imagined) they weren’t able to witness personally. I recommend the book, and I think you’d be best served by listening to it rather than reading it on paper.

 Translator: Seamus Heaney
 Reader: George Guidall

 Short Review: Heaney’s excellent translation read well, though not perfectly, by Guidall.

 Long Review: You know already whether or not you want to listed to Beowulf as an audiobook. There are those of us who perk right up at the thought of listening to epic poetry read aloud, and those who go out of their way to avoid such theatrics. I, obviously, am in the former camp. I can think of nothing better to listen to than epic poetry. Frankly. I think the existence of epic poetry is one of the only arguments proving our species is worth keeping around. Beowulf matters, and I make sure to read it every few years. I’ve read multiple translations, and listened to parts of it recited by a number of poets and translators and actors. I love the epic, and I think Heaney’s translation is masterful.

I was sad to find that Guidall’s narration fell so flat for me. Guidall is a well-respected audio book narrator, and I expected a bit more from him. His narration is clear enough and well-paced, and his diction is good. But the words don’t sizzle in his mouth, and they should. He doesn’t declaim as a bard would. I am, perhaps, very hard to please in this particular case, but I know I’d be happier if Derek Jacobi, Philip Pullman, or Campbell Scott had read it. Still and all, it’s not bad. It’s just not as great as it should be.

 Four Souls

 Author: Louise Erdrich

 Reader: Anna Fields

 Short Review: Four Souls is a belated sequel to Tracks, and thus the continuation of the story of Fleur Pillager—one of the recurrent characters in Erdrich’s series of novels that follow an Ojibwe tribe. Read starkly and beautifully by Anna Fields, the plot is intricate and engrossing, the characters clear and interesting, and Erdrich’s writing is precise and energized. The story follows Fleur Pillager as she seeks revenge against a man who stole and then destroyed her land.

Long Review: This book centers around a character who never speaks her own story to us. Instead, several characters describe Fleur’s actions and possible motivations to us. We have their guesses about her decisions and feelings. “Four Souls” was Fleur’s mother’s name, and it’s the name Fleur takes for herself at the outset of the story. The name allows her to be ruthless when she needs, loving when she needs, and to somehow retain some kernel of her self throughout.

Fields must speak in the voices of multiple narrators throughout her reading of this work, and she does a beautiful job. Nanapush, who opens the novel, is a tribal elder and Fleur’s grandfather. John James Mauser is the developer and real estate magnate Fleur seeks to destroy. Polly Elizabeth is Mauser’s sister-in-law and Fleur’s employer. Margaret Kashpaw is Nanapush’s sharp-tongued wife. Nanapush and Polly Elizabeth do most of the speaking in the novel, and Fields switches deftly between their voices. I was very happy with Fields’ narration, but I can imagine that some people would be annoyed by her reading of Nanapush. Her natural speaking voice isn’t particularly deep, so her timbre doesn’t sound naturally male when she voices him. To my ear, Field’s performance as Margaret erases any qualms I might have about her voicing Nanapush.

I think Erdrich’s work translates particularly well to audio format because she is so interested in story-telling itself. Nanapush returns to novel after novel to play the roll of chief storyteller. He is Erdrich’s recurrent personification of the oral tradition, and he serves her well. In one of his most important lines, Nanapush asserts their tribal need to maintain Ojibwe land:

“When I look at the scope and drift of our history, I see that we have come out of it with something, at least. This scrap of earth. This ishkonigan. This left over. We’ve got this and as long as we can hold on to it we will be some sort of people.”

It’s the need to maintain that scrap of land that sets Fleur on her initial quest, and that dedication to conservation is one of the things that draws readers to Erdrich and to Native American fiction in general. Erdrich refuses to fall back on stereotypes about Native connections to the Earth, though, and emphasizes real, practical reasons Nanapush and the other residents of Little No Horse want to retain their land and language. Fleur fights for herself and for her people, and also seems to fight against wanton development in general. For tree-hugging dirt-worshippers like me, that’s quite a compelling story in and of itself. Intertwining it with stories of love and betrayal and self-sacrifice just makes it richer and more sustaining.

Author: Lian Hearn
Readers: Kevin Gray and Aiko Nakasone
Short Review: Look Mom—I’m panning a well-loved book!
A fantasy/faux history of feudal Japan read by two readers—one of whom can’t be bothered to pronounce the name of a main character correctly. The characters aren’t particularly well thought-out or fleshed-out, the main character seems like a dunderhead to me much of the time, and the “Christians are persecuted” sub-plot just didn’t excite me. I guess it’s a nice snack as long as I didn’t think too hard about it, but it left me feeling a bit sick, as if I’d had too much sugar.

Long Review: I picked this up because it had been recommended by some friends. It has its charms, but it also has some giant, gaping holes that really annoyed me. I can’t be bothered to continue with the series. I won’t say anything specific about the problems with plot or characterization, though, because it is a plot-driven story, and I think a lot of people with different tastes (i.e., not picky, bratty editors like me) would enjoy the book.

The book follows two main characters: Takeo is a teenager who has grown up in a secret, apparently Christian enclave, who finds that his village has been destroyed and then learns he’s part of a secret clan of assassins. Kaede is a teenaged girl who has been promised in marriage to a man she hates. The two meet and become star-crossed lovers, of course, and they dance around each other during the course of the book. Takeo often seems like an idiot, because the author needs him to do something to advance the plot, but that “something” is irrational or downright stupid. Since he’s supposed to be a member of a brilliant, super-human clan of assassins, these moments of stupidity are particularly annoying to me. It’s one thing when your pimply-faced fool character is doing idiotic things to advance the plot. But when the supposed genius natural warrior does it, things fall apart.

For the sake of the review, I read it on paper and listened to it so I could give a fair appraisal of the book on its own, as well as of the audiobook. I try to do that with most of the books I review for this site, since I think a good audiobook should be able to stand up to the written version well. What drove me most nuts about the audiobook in particular is that Kevin Gray mis-pronounces Kaede’s name throughout the book. That is inexcusably bad editing, as far as I’m concerned, since Nakasone pronounces it correctly throughout. It may seem like a small thing, unless, of course, anyone has ever repeatedly mispronounced your name or the name of someone you love. Each time Gray said Kaede’s name, it pushed me right out of the book.

Long Review: I’m guessing a lot of readers aren’t familiar with either O’Faolain or Molloy, and that breaks my heart. Molloy is an accomplished Irish actress who established her career at the Abbey and Gate Theaters in Dublin, went on the the Royal Shakespeare Company, and then became one of the go-to actors for Brian Friel’s plays. Her voice, diction, accent, and performance are ideal for Kathleen, the speaker and protagonist.

O’Faolain, an Irish journalist, rose to prominence by publishing her first memoir, Are You Somebody? She shocked the remaining traditionalists in Ireland with the book by openly speaking of her bisexuality, her sexual freedom, her break from the church, and so much else that so many people were expected to leave in the closet at home. Sadly, we won’t have the chance to hear much more from O’Faolain. She died this May of cancer, having published her two memoirs, the engrossing The Story of Chicago May, and this lovely novel.

The book is told in the voice of Caitlin de Burca/Kathleen Burke, an ex-pat Irish travel writer living in London; questioning her career and personal life; dealing with various griefs; researching an obscure bit of Irish history, and trying to use it as the basis for her first historical novel. Kathleen’s best friend dies, and she finds herself lonely, separated from family, and essentially anchorless. She decides to go home to Ireland and research a sensational upper-class divorce case that took place in the wake of the potato famine. During her research, she winds up befriending a bristly small-town librarian, an innkeeper and his family, and a married middle-aged ex-pat who becomes her lover.

As the novel progresses, O’Faolain includes excerpts from the book her protagonist is writing. Through these, and through Kathleen’s own thoughts and discussions of sexual mores, adultery, pregnancy, motherhood, and love, we get an interesting view of women’s sexuality in Ireland over more than a century. One of the things I found particularly touching about the book is that Kathleen is open about her own transgressions against friends, family members, and fidelity itself. She doesn’t make excuses for her behavior, but does look into its genesis. That is still a rare thing in literary fiction. We live in a world that still pillories sexually transgressive women, and Ireland is perhaps even more judgmental about women’s promiscuity than the US is, if that’s possible. O’Faolain’s plot breaks from that arc. Instead, Kathleen thinks about her relationship to men and transgression and chooses a path for herself.

I always favor authors who sketch flawed but lovable characters, and O’Faolain is certainly in that camp. Add to that her decision to write about Ireland, passion between middle-aged–and even elderly–characters, historical research, and about the state of Irish women’s rights over the last century and a half and you get a novel tailor made for, well, me. Thanks Nuala O’Faolain–you have given me yet another wonderful gift through your writing. I will cherish it. And I will miss you–you were a gem.

Author: Michael Shaara
Reader: Stephen Hoye
Short Review: Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize winning masterwork about the Battle of Gettysburg, well-read and voiced by Stephen Hoye. One of the best pieces of historical fiction ever written, Shaara’s story alternates from North to South, depicting the mistakes of some leaders and the genius of others. All the while, he reminds us of the heartbreaking nature of the war that was fought between siblings, classmates, and one-time compatriots. Hoye trips up occasionally, voicing a few characters too similarly and occasionally garbling a regional accent. That said, he does a good job narrating a very important work.

Long Review: I’m no Civil War expert, but I am a history buff and a Virginian, so I grew up going on field trips to Battlefields, and many of my American History classes were taught by men (always men) who were obsessed with the generals and battles that left their names all over this region. So I was intrigued to find an audiobook version of this fantastic novel which had been recommended to me so many times by so many people. I admit that I often exhibit a fair amount of snobbery towards most historical fiction–so much of it is poorly researched and badly written. But when it’s good, I absolutely love it. And this book I love.

I did worry, when I first started to listen, that I’d have a hard time keeping track of all of the characters in this intricate story. In fact, Shaara’s characterizations are so clear and Hoye’s voices distinct enough that I had no trouble keeping up, even though I listened to the audiobook before reading the novel on paper.

Shaara was a dedicated researcher and a talented writer. His study of the war and its participants brought him deep into the lives of the men he writes about here, and that familiarity with his subject allowed him to display nuances that are unknown to most of us. I love the fact that he could look at the different leaders on each side of the Battle of Gettysburg as people, rather than as pawns or model soldiers on a map. A few of the leaders come out looking the brightest–Gettysburg is so widely studied in part because it revealed so much about the leaders in both armies. Shaara was obviously a fan of Chamberlain and Longstreet and critical of Stuart. Nevertheless, even with his quiet critiques, Shaara shows a great deal of compassion to all of the men whose experiences he chronicles in the book, which makes it such an engaging read and listen.

In structure, the novel jumps from camp to camp, following Lee for a time, then Chamberlain, then Longstreet, then Buford, then the British onlooker Fremantle, and on and on. In this way, Shaara depicts the actions and habits of the different participants without seeming to choose a side to follow. He reveals the individual participant’s intelligence, and explores their connections to soldiers and generals on the other side, and to their distant families.

The audiobook also includes an interesting extra feature: an introduction from the author’s son Jeffrey explaining his father’s love for Civil War history and the difficulties he had finding a publisher and getting people to read his novel. Shaara’s manuscript was rejected by 15 publishers before he finally got a book deal. Even after receiving the Pulitzer, Killer Angels still received little attention and disappointing sales. Only after the film adaptation of Shaara’s book, Gettysburg, was released did the novel gain a larger audience, and by then Michael Shaara had died.

Audio sample available.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel

Author: Susanna Clarke

Reader: Simon Prebble

Short Review: A gorgeously read version of a Hugo Award winning modern epic I absolutely love. Clarke’s novel is part Harry Potter, part Tolkein, part comedy of manners, and part historical fiction of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s long, detailed, engaging, and by turns hilarious and heartbreaking. Simon Prebble is a distinctly talented reader, with just the right tone and accent, but for one small niggling mistake that would bother only, well, me and a few of my friends. Settle into this book and cherish it as you would Tolkien or Dickens or Ovid.

Long Review: I’ll get the pip out of the way first. The word “sídhe” is important in the second half of the book. It’s an Irish word, and it’s pronounced “shee.” Prebble says “sid-hey” whenever he encounters the word, and it makes me want to strangle him just a little bit every time. I forgive him, he does it again, I forgive him, he does it again . . . you see how it goes.

Apart from that petty complaint, Prebble is a fantastic reader. He voices a myriad of characters clearly, imparting each with an individual voice and tone. One of the true charms of this book is the conflation of very proper English sensibilities and manners with improper, difficult to accept magic and magician’s idiosyncrasies. Prebble gets the tone just right, throughout. He hops from explaining the delicacies of a lady’s table manners or quiet reminders to her husband that he is monopolizing the conversation to a quasi-realistic description of a spell to revive the dead, and back again. His diction is gorgeous, which is of great importance to a work like this, and yet he changes pace and tone as the story demands, without ever seeming like a bad actor or over-excited kid. He’s a great reader, and I’ll be seeking out more of his narration.

Clarke’s book is an absolute treat. She’s clearly a careful researcher, and the sections describing the facts of the Napoleonic wars ring true. As do the sections describing fantastical, magical things that never happened during the Napoleonic Wars. She also sketches her characters well. Jonathan Strange is flawed enough that we like him but are frequently annoyed by him–good should never be too good to be real–and Mr. Norrell is infuriating right until we need him to redeem himself, and then he does. The women in the book are lovely and soft and loyal, but also strong and brilliant and dangerous when they need to be. The dozens of supporting characters are intriguing and seem to function independently and rationally, except when they’re mad. I would gladly follow the stories of The Raven King, Vinculus, Stephen Black, or Emma Pole through another epic.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is also available through the Simply Audiobooks Rental Program.

Author: Louise Erdrich

Read by: Louise Erdrich

Short review: A beautifully written historical novel set in Germany and North Dakota between the two World Wars.

Long review: I’ve been an unabashed fan of Erdrich’s since I read her phenomenal first novel Love Medicine: A Novel. Most of her books are set in and among an Ojibwe tribe in North Dakota. This time around, however, she follows the life of Fidelis Waldvogel, a German butcher, singer, and veteran who immigrates to the US to build a life for his family. Delphine Watzka, daughter of the town drunk, becomes enmeshed in the Waldvogel family while trying to sort out her complex relationships with her sodden father and her perplexing Ojibwe partner Cyprian Lazarre. The book explores questions of love, sexual identity, parenthood, duty, loyalty, genealogy, war, friendship, forgiveness . . . all concepts that resurface in Erdrich’s books.

I was particularly intrigued to hear Erdrich read her own work, since I’ve never had the chance to go to one of her live readings. She has a gorgeous sense of language, and her work as a poet has definitely spilled into her novels. I found her narration clear and evocative, but not overly emotional or dramatic. There were a few pauses here and there that were a tad jarring, but overall I was surprised by how well she read. I will gladly listen to more self-narrator works by Erdrich.