La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

La’s Orchestra Saves the World

by Alexander McCall Smith

Though the plot in the first part of the book seemed a bit trite to me, Alexander McCall Smith’s writing and the plot in the rest of the book struck me as slice-of-life writing at it’s most beautifully realistic.

La is pursued by a young man in college, prior to World War II, and agrees to marry him. She isn’t sure she loves him at first but thinks they will make a compatible marriage. She does come to love him very much and is devastated when he runs off to be with a lover in France. His father is ashamed as well. He gives La the husband’s portion of the family business and a house in Suffolk.

La moves into the house just before World War II and the story is moved forward by some minor intrigue as La gets comfortable in her new home. But then the war arrives and La goes to apply for “war work.” They don’t have much for her. The major encourages her toward the Women’s Land Army and La ends up helping with a farmer’s chickens.

The story explores simple village life in Great Britain during World War II, what people thought and felt. How it could be affected by outsiders coming in, rationing, simple pleasures, and how distanced it was from the conflict at the same time. They grew their own vegetables. They listened to the radio for news. It’s the minutiae of daily life and the reflection that make a slice of life novel. World War II is the backdrop but life goes on in spite of those events.

La meets a friend’s brother, Tim, who works at the RAF base and together they start a village orchestra. Of course, the orchestra doesn’t really save the world but it can be argued that it saves a number of people from abject despair, La included. The orchestra creates connections between people — village people, country folk, and people from the Royal Air Force base that all need something to sustain them.

Tim gets a worker from the base, a Polish airman with a damaged eye, assigned to help at the same farm where La works. She is quite smitten but Feliks is distant.

It is a slow book but the ending may have been my favorite part as you see how things come full circle and how such simple things as a village orchestra and one person can change the world for some people. It’s about how a single life does matter and what we do, the kindness we offer, the connections we make, matter. They may be the only things that do give meaning to life on this scale.

Is it unrealistic to hope that Feliks and La meet again and share some part of their life together? There are elements of chance and there are things the characters do to make things happen. Isn’t that true to life? 

In the end, the writing skill of the author and the way he ties things together, make this an enjoyable story. The pace of life in the country, the drudgery and the simple pleasures, make it enjoyable. If you’ve experienced that, you’ll recognize it. If you haven’t, you may find it enjoyable to see it from a distance.

Arcadia by Iain Pears

Arcadia 

by Iain Pears

Three distinct worlds, one separated by time and one by imagination.

It begins in Oxford, England, during the 1960s, with the telling of a tale. Professor Henry Lytten has been constructing his own world, much like his old friends C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, but with a distinct difference.

“I want to construct a society that works. With beliefs, laws, superstitions, customs. With an economy and politics. An entire sociology of the fantastic.”

He calls it Anterwold.

A little problem, Angela Meerson, on the run from her company with a machine she devised but they hold the rights to, hides it in Lytten's.  It is, in part, a portal, though more than that.

Of course, the girl who feeds his cat, Rosie, finds it, and steps through. Anterwold has been so thoroughly grounded that it runs on its own and Rosie becomes part of the world.

Events take place in the current, 1960, in a different time period, and in Anterwold. It is the type of book that you read then go back, enjoy thoroughly, and read again to pick up all the threads that you missed the first time. Most of all, it’s great fun.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain

Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning complex look at economies and inequalities through a science fiction lens.

Leisha’s father, Roger Camden, bullies the scientists who are pioneering bioengineering, through infiltration of their databases and money, to make his daughter one of the “Sleepless.” His wife is not so enthusiastic but he bullies her into compliance as well.

At roughly the same time the egg is being implanted for Leisha, Mrs. Camden becomes pregnant naturally with Alice. Alice and Leisha are twins, but not remotely alike. Leisha has also been bioengineered to be tall, blond and beautiful. Because she does not sleep, she is able to take advantage of her ability to learn. 

Mrs. Camden loves Alice and abhors Leisha. Roger Camden is cold and manipulative to anyone but Leisha. Eventually he sends Mrs. Camden away and marries the scientist who did the genetic changes for Leisha.

Most people do not like the changes that make babies “Sleepless.” They feel it gives them an unnatural edge in competition. The Sleepless are barred them from many things, like competition in sports or investing. More than that, the “Sleepers” grow to hate the sleepless for being different. Both groups perceive the Sleepless as better.

Some parents don’t think far enough ahead to prepare for having a Sleepless child and when a child doesn’t sleep at night and doesn’t have round the clock nurses, you can guess what happens. Leisha and her friends are party to a couple kidnappings of Sleepless toddlers who are being abused. Unfortunately, one of them is caught and put in jail, where he is murdered by the other inmates, simply because he is a Sleepless.

As things develop, people become more wary, more scared, and angrier at the Sleepless. There’s a whole We-sleep movement trying to grind the Sleepless into the ground or kill them. The few people who are sleepless of Leisha’s generation, recognize the pernicious hatred being sent their way and some of them band together to buy land and create a place called Sanctuary.

Much of the novel deals with economic principles and inequality. Roger Camden is a Yagaist, a follower of Kenzo Yagai. His philosophy, in part, states that “. . . the only dignity, the only spirituality, rests on what a man can achieve with his own efforts. To rob a man of the chance to achieve, and to trade what he achieves with others, is to rob him of his spiritual dignity as a man.”

Leisha finds holes in Yagai’s theories. She finds that trade can be non-linear. “If Stewart gives me something, and I give Stella something, and ten years from now Stella is a different person because of that and gives something to someone else as yet unknown – it’s an ecology. An ecology of trade, yes, each niche needed, even if they’re not contractually bound. Does a horse need a fish? Yes.”

One of the Sleepless tells Leisha of an analogy called the Beggars in Spain, that they will turn on you, rip you apart for what they want if you don’t give it, so you have to cut them off.

But Leisha finds that the whole beggars in Spain analogy falls apart. “Yes, there are beggars in Spain who trade nothing, give nothing, do nothing. But there are more than beggars in Spain. Withdraw from the beggars, you withdraw from the whole damn country. And you withdraw from the possibility of the ecology of help . . . Beggars need to help as well as be helped.”

A fascinating book, and not too heavy handed for the all the heavy topics it deals with. I highly recommend it.

The Knowledge by Martha Grimes

The Knowledge

by Martha Grimes

I’ve long been a fan of Martha Grimes and though this is #24 in the Richard Jury mysteries, she has not lost my interest.

The author brings us into the story with the fascinating culture of London cabbies. The Knowledge is a bar that only cabbies can find, and no amount of bribery or threatening will ever induce them to bring one who is not their own to the location, not even the royal family.

The story begins with cabby Robbie Parsons being forced to drive someone through London, at gunpoint, after he has just been witness to a double murder.

Richard Jury has spent a lovely evening talking philosophy with the murdered astrophysics professor and his wife very recently. Have you ever met someone that you just connected with almost immediately? Maybe you have a fantastic conversation and can’t wait to chat again? That’s Jury with the professor. Sadly, that can’t happen, and Jury wants to find out why.

As with many fun stories, we find a precocious young girl, living by her wits, who follows the murderer through the airport and onto a plane, all the way to East Africa. Strangely, the murderer is particularly kind to the young girl, quite fatherly, assuming her to be traveling alone.

Wonderfully quirky characters, Melrose Plant and Marshall Trueblood fill out the cast as they run leg work and experiments for Jury.

Fun, relaxing, and charming. Too many coincidences and too easy for the girl to get through airport security? Perhaps. But it didn’t dim my enjoyment. Definitely lighter fare than some of her other stories, it was a welcome bit of relaxation.

The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack

The Memory Painter

by Gwendolyn Womack

I really liked the premise of this novel –  Bryan paints scenes from his dreams, but they aren’t like normal dreams. It is as if he is remembering his own life.

These dreams, and the aftermath, are very hard on him both physically and mentally. They tire him, make him sick and confused. After the dreams, he is often able to speak the language of the person he was in the dream, fluently. The people in his dreams can also be verified to have existed, historically. He becomes quite certain that these are past lives but integrating and yet separating them from the present takes time.

Then Bryan meets Linz. He has an instant affinity for her and, by concentrating, he can see who she was in his past life. She was in all of them.

Finally, a past life comes to light which shows how this all started.

In the 1980s, Bryan and a small group of researchers were working on a medication to unlock memories for Alzheimer’s patients. The researchers take the medication and because they are healthy, it unlocks past lives. Another little catch - though this happened in a previous life, it seems to carry over into the present one.

Also, Bryan and his wife in that life are killed in a lab explosion.

Some people are still living from this previous life while some people have died and been reincarnated. Sorting out who is a danger and who is an ally can be a bit precarious.

I enjoyed this book, but had a little of an ambivalent reaction to it. I felt that it both went on a little too long and also was not in depth enough. It was very action oriented and I felt that perhaps the author could have focused on a few less scenes and given them more depth.

In trying to capture the breadth of the history the two characters had, I think she tried to pack too many lives in. They were interesting, but too much is too much.

I still enjoyed it a good deal and would give it 3 stars. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations but I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it.