Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Guest Review by Kit Bradley
April 17, 2009

I found The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time in my shelf of books to be read. It had a Borders “Buy Two, Get One Free” sticker on it. I’m not sure if this was one of the two or the one free, but I’m glad I read it.

Christopher is a unique 15 year old who happens to be out late one evening and sees his neighbor’s dog Wellington lying in the yard, stabbed with a garden fork. He sets out to solve this murder—and write a book about it—so it turns out The Curious Incident is a murder mystery written in the first person by Christopher. Christopher really likes prime numbers, and he used them to number the chapters in this book. There are 233 chapters.

It turns out that Christopher is very, very smart (he can solve most any math problem), but he has very limited social skills and doesn’t like being around people he doesn’t know. “I find people confusing…people do a lot of talking without using any words…people often talk using metaphors.”

Christopher is very honest and very logical, and he will keep his promises—but not always as his father expects if there is any wiggle room in the literal logic of the promise. Christopher hates yellow, won’t eat any yellow food, and if he passes four yellow cars in a row on his way to school, it’s going to be a Black Day.

Christopher’s constraints (both emotional and also promises to his father) make it hard to gather information about Wellington’s death, but he proceeds with great determination and courage. Along the way he discovers a big secret, and that leads him into a long trip on public transportation (passing four yellow cars), and Christopher is forced to deal with crowds of strangers. It’s very hard, but he deals with it.

Mark Haddon does a superb job in The Curious Incident of describing the thought processes of an autistic boy. We understand exactly what is going through Christopher’s mind, and we understand why everything Christopher does makes perfect sense to Christopher, while it is driving his father and other adults crazy. It’s a real challenge for the people who love him to live with him, especially if they lie to him, even white lies. Christopher is very observant and very logical and can easily spot inconsistencies.

The Curious Incident starts off gently in describing Christopher’s cleverness and quirks, but it gets pretty intense when Christopher is challenged. But Christopher and the adults in his life muddle through everything, and life goes on.

Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon

Guest Review by Kit Bradley
March 28, 2009

I like Neal Stephenson’s science fiction books. And I also liked volume one of The Baroque Cycle, a three (or eight, depending on how you buy it) volume narrative of historical/scientific fiction set in the 17th and 18th centuries. A book named Cryptonomicon was mentioned there, so I bought it. Well, this isn’t it, but the book Cryptonomicon is mentioned in this book too.

A little confusing? A lot of the passages in this Cryptonomicon book start off like that, but you just have to keep reading, and all becomes clear. The narrative develops two stories, one that plays out during World War II, and one in “present day.” The major present day characters are children or grandchildren of the World War II characters.

With 918 pages, Stephenson has plenty of time to fill in the background and develop the story. A lot of his narrative goes into very detailed descriptions of the technologies central to what the characters are doing, ranging from cryptography to mining to digital communications. Unfortunately, “present day” is 1999, and the Internet has spawned a lot of interesting technology since then, making Stephenson’s descriptions feel a little dated. Also, the reader needs to have a nerdish streak to find the detailed descriptions interesting. I loved it, and I would have been happy if the book was half again longer!

The story jumps around between the two time frames and between multiple characters, making Cryptonomicon a little challenging to read, but fun so long as you stay alert. The characters are mostly men, engaging in various physical or intellectual adventures, often missing female companionship, which leads to a few R-rated passages. There were just enough women in the story to produce the characters for the present day story.

And what is this story about? It seems to me that it’s about the characters and the extensive quirkiness each one expresses. Bobby Shaftoe is a very gung-ho Marine who endures without complaint a wide range of adventures during the big war. Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe is Bobby’s son, a Vietnam vet, and runs a sort of marine salvage company in the Philippines. Lawrence Waterhouse is a math whiz who meets Alan Turing before the war and gets involved in cryptography then and during the war. And Randy Waterhouse is Lawrence’s grandson, a computer geek who is helping set up a data haven in the Philippines. And then there’s the puzzling Enoch Root, who shows up when needed—both during the war and in the present day, and also in The Baroque Cycle.

Oh yes, the story is about hiding treasures (World War II) and finding treasures (present day). And inventing cryptographic codes and cracking them. It was fun to read. I’m looking forward to reading my next Stephenson book.

David Guterson: Snow Falling on Cedars

Back in December, someone named Donna left a comment on my review of The Other by David Guterson. She said some things that made me think that I would like Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars. Although it is still not my standard fare, I did like it. And it reminds me that I need to move off my traditional Mystery/Suspense thriller once in a while.

On one level, the year is 1954 on San Pedro Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Kabuo Miyamoto is on trial for the murder Carl Heine. Ishmael Chambers owns, writes, and prints the island’s only newspaper. Hatsue Imada Miyamoto is the accused’s wife, faithfully attending the trail. Outside the worst winter storm in decades is raging.

But much of the book is told in flashback, dealing with cultural and family relationships. The economy of the island is dominated by fishing and strawberry farming. Kabou and Carl were friendly as teenagers, both strawberry farmers, playing on the same high school teams. Hatsue and Ishmael were very close friends, but kept their relationship secret. Neither family would approve a connection between their “Japanese” and “American” children.

Pearl Harbor shattered the uneasy balance between the two cultures coexisting on the island. The Miyamoto’s and Imada’s were set away to internment camps, with eight days notice. Carl and Ishmael left to fight Japanese in the Pacific. Ishmael lost an arm in the process. Kabou ultimately left camp to fight Germans in Italy.

At the close of the war, Hatsue is married to Kabou, Carl and Kabou are fishermen, and Ishmael has taken over his father’s newspaper. Old high school friendships are over.

Central to the alleged motive during the trial is a land deal between the Carl’s family and Kabou’s family. The Japanese interment comes along when the Miyamoto’s owe two more payments on strawberry land they’ve bought from the Heine’s. Carl’s mother cancels the deal, and resells the land to a neighbor. Kabuo is determined to get his family’s land back.

Snow Falling on Cedars is a many faceted book. It is a story of forbidden teenage love. It’s a war story. It’s a murder mystery. But I think it is mostly a story about prejudice and community. The characters are well developed and believable. The relationships and interchanges are well explored. There are certainly dark undercurrents running through the book. But there is hope in the story as well. It’s not as much fun as what I usually read. But it really is good.

Katherine Neville: The Fire

I’ve been looking forward to reading The Fire by Katherine Neville since hearing that she was writing a sequel to The Eight. In preparation, I re-read The Eight ( http://nates-library.blogspot.com/2008/10/katherine-neville-eight.html ), and I think I’m glad I did. In the sequel we don’t get a lot of background on the Montglane Service or The Game, but both are important to the story. Again we have two intertwined narratives, taking place in 2003 and the 1820s.

It’s hard to say too much about The Fire without revealing tidbits from The Eight. I’ll try to limit the damage, but some points are too fundamental to the sequel. So, if you have not read The Eight and plan to ---- STOP!


Alexadra Solarin is the daughter of Catherine Velis and Alexander Solarin, key players from the first book. (And you now know they get together by the end of the first book.) Alexandra is invited to her mother’s birthday party, along with a surprising list of other characters. All seem to have a role in a new awakening of The Game. Most surprising is having a party at all. Catherine Velis’ birthdate figured prominently in her participation in The Game, and so she has refused to acknowledge it in any way. Anther surprise is that when Alexandra and the guests arrive, Cathering Velis has disappeared.

Back to 1822, Kauri and Haidée are entrusted with smuggling one of the chess pieces out of Albania, just before Ali Pasha is crushed by the forces of the Ottoman Empire. Just how this piece came to be in Islamic hands after being hidden in Monglane Abbey for a thousand years is unclear. Kauri and Haidée are captured by corsairs before they can deliver the piece to Haidée’s natural father, the British Poet, Lord Byron. Charlot (Mireille’s son from The Eight) joins the adventure in rescuing Haidée and the chess piece.

Meanwhile, back in the twentieth century, Alexandra returns to her job tending fire at a fancy restaurant in Washington, DC. Suddenly, it appears that her boss, the Basque nationalist, Rodo, is also involved in the maneuverings. It turns out to by significant that Monglane Abbey, located in the Pyrenees, was located in the French portion of the Basque homeland.

In The Eight we sometimes had trouble telling who was on the White team, and who was on the Black team. But White was bad, and Black was good. In The Fire, we still have trouble telling who is White and who is Black, but good guys and bad guys seem to be intermingled between the teams. What’s that all about?

The Eight bounced between the 1790s and the 1970s. But by the end of the book, there did not appear to be any secrets from the 1790s that were not know to Catherine Velis in the 1970s. But The Fire introduces information from the 1820s that is only resolved in 2003. I kept feeling that the 1820s information really should have been included in the resolution of The Eight. It just felt inconsistent to me.

It took three readings of The Eight before I finally started feeling that everything made some sense. After one reading, I do not feel that everything makes sense in The Fire. I was actually disappointed. I didn’t think the pieces fit together well, and I did not think the conclusion concluded well.

Katherine Neville: The Eight

When I saw that Katherine Neville’s new book, The Fire, was to be a sequel to her first book, The Eight, I decided to re-read The Eight. I think this is my third time through, over a twenty year time span.

The Eight is a complicated book, told across two time spans, with many flashbacks. Our main characters are Catherine Velis, a musician and a computer expert at a Big Eight accounting firm in New York in the 1970s, and Mireille de Remy, a novice nun in France in the 1790s. Catherine’s story mostly takes place in New York and Algeria. Mireille’s story takes place mostly in Paris and Algeria. For those of you not up on your French history, this timing places Mireille in Paris during the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.

At the core of the story is a chess set, once owned by Charlemange, reputed to have mystical powers. The set was hidden in Montglane Abbey for a thousand years, because it’s powers were considered too strong to be trusted to secular rulers. But the Abbess decided to scatter and hide the pieces when the revolutionary government closed the abbey and was coming to search for its treasures.

Initially, Mireille’s role was to help scatter the pieces. But as the story progresses, events cause her to try to find them before more sinister people can find them. That also seems to be Catherine’s role.

The mystical story of the power of the chess set is told through flashbacks. Neville drops historical names liberally as she brings different characters in to tell parts of the story:
• Helene de Roque, Abbess of Montglane, tells the story of how the chess set was presented to Charlemange in the year 782, its origin in Moslem lands, and of strange events that ensued.
• Maurice Tallyrand, Bishop of Autun, tells a story of the ghost of Cardinal Richelieu revealing a secret buried with Charlemange, and of Voltaire studying Richelieu’s private journals.
• Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, tells of things she learned from the mathematician, Leonhard Euler at the Prussian court of Frederick the Great.
• The French chess master André Phildor tells of things he learned from Johann Sebastian Bach and Leonhard Euler, also at the Prussian court.
• Letizia Buonaparte (Napoleon’s mother) tells of how Jean-Jacques Rousseau tried to learn parts of the secret on Corsica.
• Maximillien Robespierre tells of things he learned from Rousseau, and that Rousseau had learned from Giovanni Casanova in Venice.
• William Blake and William Wordsworth tell of a meeting between Voltaire and Isaac Newton, where Newton tells of what he has learned.

As the mystery unfolds across the continents and the centuries, many characters are killed, and many events surprise us. The chess analogy runs throughout, with black pitted against white. The problem is that the players do not know who all the opposing players are, or what their roles are, or even where the board is.

Who is the black queen and who is the white queen? And why does it matter? I found the plot line to be very complicated, well really, confusing. But engaging all the same. I think I followed it better this third time through.

The first two times I read The Eight, I was satisfied that the book came to a logical conclusion. This time, I have to say that it is clear that there is room for a sequel. And I look forward to reading The Fire.

David Guterson: The Other

The Other by David Guterson came highly recommended by Book of the Month Club. And it actually is pretty good. I suspect my brother would love it. But even though it is relatively short (256 pages), I have to give it credit for helping me catch up on my reviews – because it is so put-downable.

John William Barry and Neil Countryman meet in high school on opposing teams at a Seattle track meet. John William comes from old money and goes to a private school. Neil comes from a line of carpenters and goes to public school. But surprisingly, they develop an enduring friendship. Neil becomes a high school English teacher. John William withdraws from the world, ultimately becoming known as “The Hermit of the Hoh”.

The book is narrated by Neil and jumps back and forth between his 50 something persona and flashback with wild abandon. We’ll be reliving a college experience, and then in the next paragraph something like “my son came over with fresh bread last night”. There really seems to be no discernable plot. I’m reminded of a training program I wrote in COBOL years ago. I assumed it would be easy, but it was hard to get it going because it had absolutely no purpose besides demonstrating various table handling techniques. So where to start and where to go?

The Other deals with characters, primarily Neil and John William, but also parents, girl friends, children. There is a lot of wilderness and hiking in the book as well. The book takes place mostly in Washington, although it includes a chapter in the Italian Alps. Ringing true to me was a brief mention of a sojourn to Oregon to see Fort Clatsop and to tour the Tillamook Cheese Factory. (Both of which I’ve done.)

John William and Neil seem to prefer off trail wilderness travel with no maps. One episode involved getting lost in the North Cascades for two weeks as high school kids. What struck me as strange is that no one seemed to miss them, or launch any kind of search for them.

John William and Neil discover a special place on the South Fork of the Hoh River in Olympic National Park. It ultimately figures prominently in the book.

A few years ago I spent some brief time in both Olympic National Park and the North Cascades National Park. Both these parks are extremely inaccessible to the casual hiker. So I can really appreciate the level of outdoors expertise demonstrated by John William and Neil. And the book has intensified my desire to go back to both.

My biggest complaint about the book is the amount of casual drug use. But I suppose it is central to the characters. I found myself turning to Wikepedia to learn a little more about Gnosticism. And I also turned to the internet to see just how out of the way the Hoh River is from Seattle.

The Other is a much more literary work than my normal fare. Normally I’m into the book just for the story. But although it was easy to put the book down to take care of other chores, I could not just walk away from it. I really did want to know what happens with John William and Neil. And Guterson does ration out the information, with different characters appearing to explain different aspects of their lives.

On balance I’d say that The Other is better than what I normally read, but not as much fun.

Stef Penney: The Tenderness of Wolves

I find myself wondering what the difference is between literary fiction, historical fiction, and a murder mystery. The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney seems to be all three. Two things we don’t see a lot of are tenderness and wolves.

The story takes place in the 1860’s in the Canadian wilderness, north of Lake Huron. That’s a historical period. The protagonist, Mrs. Ross, finds the body of a local trader who had obviously been murdered. We don’t know who did it, so we’ve got a murder mystery. But the back-story of all the characters is introduced in a very piecemeal, out of sequence sort of way. It seems like an English professor would like that, so it must be literary. Overall, I’d say that we spend more time developing characters and their relationships than in spinning out the plot line. So I guess literary wins out. I suppose I could also have taken a hint from the fact that the book won a British literary award.

The book is written in first person singular when our protagonist, Mrs. Ross, is around. For the other main characters, we get a traditional third person narrative.

The book has everything it needs for a good plot. Francis Ross, the protagonist’s son is missing and wanted for questioning. William Parker, a half-breed trapper has been detained as a suspect, but ends up helping guide Mrs. Ross through the wilderness in search of her son. Donald Moody, an inexperienced clerk from the Company (Hudson Bay?), is also trekking through the wilderness with another guide trying to find Francis Ross. And an American trader with an anthropologic interest in the case is involved with another group trying to recapture William Parker. Then throw in the story of two girls who were captured by Indians years earlier, a religious commune deep in the wilderness, a missing treasure in furs, and a cold Canadian winter, and you have the makings of a really complicated story.

The Tenderness of Wolves is well written. The characters are well developed. The story ultimately pulls all its pieces together in a logically coherent way. But it’s not a fun spinning of the tale. Maybe it has too many pieces to just tell the story front to back. Maybe I just wasn’t feeling very sophisticated when I read it.

But probably the book isn’t about the story. It’s about a mother’s unconditional love. It’s about a confused teenager. It’s about a young man trying to prove himself in a new world. It’s about an older man trying to recapture lost honors. And it’s about a man trying to do what’s right, and to right past wrongs. There’s a good story in here, but Penney seems to have had a lot more important things to say.

Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged

Guest Review by Kit Bradley
February 1, 2008

“I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, all one thousand one hundred and sixty eight pages of it. It was quite an experience.

Ayn Rand has a very strong and comprehensive philosophy that describes the perfect man and how he operates in an industrial society, and this book exemplifies her philosophy through its characters and their actions. These characters fall into three categories, set in American industry in the 1940s and 1950s. There are the competent industrialists, who build factories, face problems, and solve every problem with their own brains and initiative. Then there are the rest of the industrialists, who build factories, try to run them, and blame all their failures on someone else. (I called them the whiners as I was reading the book.) And finally, there are the government officials, who think the only way to solve problems is to institute more regulations and controls—generally to the pleasure of the incompetents and the horror of the competent industrialists.

The book portrays the changes in American industrial society as the three factions play out their roles. Over time the government exerts increasing control, the industrialists are increasingly frustrated and forced to react, and the population begins to suffer.

Well that’s the story, but Atlas Shrugged is really about the characters, their philosophies and anxieties, and how they gradually come around to the “right” (Ayn Rand’s) way of thinking about their roles in society. A key character is Dagny Taggart, who runs the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad with her brother James. Dagny overcomes all obstacles—many of them put in place by government edicts—to keep the railroad running. She faces a dilemma: As she overcomes the obstacles, her success helps society, which gives more power to the government, and the government can then install more obstacles. It comes down to a values trade-off between government altruism (supporting the needy) and corporate selfishness (rewarding the successful).

I will hold off getting any deeper into Ayn Rand’s philosophy, since the philosophy and story line unfold together through the dialogs and thinking of the characters. I found these character developments to be quite tedious at first, but as I gradually grew into Ayn Rand’s world, I learned to enjoy it. (I have to admit, though, that I had some trouble making it through a sixty-one page speech near the end of the book, in which the entire philosophy was laid out in detail.) Following is a randomly selected excerpt (p. 144):

“Moving aimlessly through the crowd, Dagny wondered why she had accepted the invitation to this party. The answer astonished her: it was because she had wanted to see Hank Rearden. Watching him in the crowd, she realized the contrast for the first time. The faces of the others looked like aggregates of interchangeable features, every face oozing to blend into the anonymity of resembling all, and all looking as if they were melting. Rearden’s face, with the sharp planes, the pale blue eyes, the ash-blond hair, had the firmness of ice; the uncompromising clarity of its lines made it look, among the others, as if he were moving through a fog, hit by a ray of light.”

Needless to say, Rearden is one of the good guys, the men with strong goals and the ability to achieve them. The rest of the book is like this passage. No action takes place without detailed introspective analysis by the characters involved.

Atlas Shrugged was sometimes difficult to read, and it strongly espouses philosophies that only a Libertarian might be comfortable with (and they tried but couldn’t get along with Ayn Rand). The book challenged all of my existing thoughts about industry and politics, giving me a lot to ponder. It was well worth reading.

John Grisham: Playing for Pizza

I just finished John Grisham's Playing for Pizza. It is a pleasant little book. Like his earlier A Painted House, it is not a lawyer book. Unlike A Painted House, this book is pretty light hearted.

The basic story is about a not so great NFL quarterback who is not ever going to make it big. After all his choices run out, he goes to play in the Italian football league. The description of Rick Dockery’s fall is absolutely hilarious. And the mistakes he makes in Italy are pretty entertaining as well. Learning to drive (and park) a stick shift is classic.

I think this is a story of being open minded, setting priorities in life, and keeping commitments. In many ways, it’s a coming of age story – if that’s allowed for someone in his late twenties. I think Rick Dockery finally grows up in Italy.

But even though there may be some character values offering redeeming social benefit, to me the best thing about the book is that it's fun.