adventures of a tired coder

The Third Son by Julie Wu

Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)
Recommended for: fans of Lisa See
Received ARC copy through NetGalley.

Book 13 of 52 in the “Around the World” Challenge

Back-cover summary:
It’s 1943. As air-raid sirens blare in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, eight-year-old Saburo walks through the peach forests of Taoyuan. The least favored son of a Taiwanese politician, Saburo is in no hurry to get home to the taunting and abuse he suffers at the hands of his parents and older brother. In the forest he meets Yoshiko, whose descriptions of her loving family are to Saburo like a glimpse of paradise. Meeting her is a moment he will remember forever, and for years he will try to find her again. When he finally does, she is by the side of his oldest brother and greatest rival. Set in a tumultuous and violent period of Taiwanese history—as the Chinese Nationalist Army lays claim to the island and one autocracy replaces another—The Third Son tells the story of lives governed by the inheritance of family and the legacy of culture, and of a young man determined to free himself from both.

My review:
It seems common in Chinese historical fiction for a female main character to go through a great amount of suffering. I suppose it was a “nice” change in this piece of Taiwanese historical fiction for a man to have the suffering instead. And he certainly had to face a lot of difficult challenges in this novel!

I really enjoyed the setting of this novel, much of it taking place in a Taiwan that many people in American don’t know about. I showed a friend the description of the book, and she remarked, “Saburo doesn’t sound like a very Chinese name to me.” The Japanese occupation of Taiwan isn’t often studied in schools here, but it’s important because the influences remain very strong in the country to this day. I enjoyed reading about the Taiwan of the Japanese, followed by what happened when the Chinese Nationalists took over.

Another bright spot in The Third Son is the main character of Saburo. He is an untraditional scholar, a hands-on self-learner instead of a proper student. He is rebellious and speaks his mind, and he is forced to aim for success in unconventional ways. It brought a smile to my face each time his true intelligence managed to win over politics or trickery. His character is one that is very different from the Asian male stereotype.

Though I was constantly rooting for Saburo to succeed, I didn’t feel a strong emotional connection, especially in relation to the love story between him and Yoshiko. This was the main thing that kept the book from being one that I absolutely loved. However, I still enjoyed it a lot, and I look forward to reading more from this author.

The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani

Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)
Recommended for: Epic historical fiction fans

Book 12 of 52 in the “Around the World” Challenge

Back-cover summary:
The majestic and haunting beauty of the Italian Alps is the setting of the first meeting of Enza, a practical beauty, and Ciro, a strapping mountain boy, who meet as teenagers, despite growing up in villages just a few miles apart. At the turn of the last century, when Ciro catches the local priest in a scandal, he is banished from his village and sent to hide in America as an apprentice to a shoemaker in Little Italy. Without explanation, he leaves a bereft Enza behind. Soon, Enza's family faces disaster and she, too, is forced to go to America with her father to secure their future.

Unbeknownst to one another, they both build fledgling lives in America, Ciro masters shoemaking and Enza takes a factory job in Hoboken until fate intervenes and reunites them. But it is too late: Ciro has volunteered to serve in World War I and Enza, determined to forge a life without him, begins her impressive career as a seamstress at the Metropolitan Opera House that will sweep her into the glamorous salons of Manhattan and into the life of the international singing sensation, Enrico Caruso.

From the stately mansions of Carnegie Hill, to the cobblestone streets of Little Italy, over the perilous cliffs of northern Italy, to the white-capped lakes of northern Minnesota, these star-crossed lovers meet and separate, until, finally, the power of their love changes both of their lives forever.

My review:
I was craving an epic story when I picked up The Shoemaker’s Wife for book club, and I didn’t even realize it until the end. I loved the stories of Ciro, Enza, and their families and friends, weaving in and out of each other’s lives. I loved how the saga moved from location to location, sweeping me into a different world each time.

My favorite parts of the book were the parts set in the Italian Alps (what a beautiful setting!) and New York City. When the setting switched to Minnesota, the story was less enchanting, and the pace seemed to speed up at that point.

At book club, I found myself saying, “I don’t know why they called it The Shoemaker’s Daughter. That wasn’t even a big part of the book.” Fortunately, the rest of my book club was paying attention and corrected my misreading of the title. Still, I feel like the title didn’t properly sum up the book. While I’m glad the title gave Enza the credit as the main focus, she was so much more than a shoemaker’s wife, and her story was bigger than that, too.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
Rating: ****1/5 (out of 5)
Recommended for: people who enjoy psychological thrillers, anyone looking for a page-turner

Back-cover summary:
Marriage can be a real killer.

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

My review:
I’m not generally a thriller reader. It’s not that I dislike the genre as a whole, but I’m the type of reader who won’t be satisfied with a good plot if I have no interest in the characters. Too many of the thrillers I read end up with flat characters. Not this one. This is a psychological thriller – a lot of the mystery is who to trust, what the motives and personalities of the characters really are. Perfect type of book for me.

It seems like half of the world has read this book by now, but I managed to go into it with no preconceptions or spoilers. I read no reviews, only looked at overall ratings. This definitely made the reading experience better. So this review will be vague and short because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone else by being specific about what I liked. It’s masterful how everything unfolds.

This book totally deserves to be as popular as it is. C’mon, book industry… more psychological thrillers, fewer vampire teen romances, okay?

The Affair by Colette Freedman

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Chick Lit
Rating: **** (out of 5)
Recommended for: fans of Emily Giffin, people looking for chick lit that deals with serious issues

Back-cover summary:
After eighteen years of marriage, Kathy Walker has settled into a pattern of comfortable routines—ferrying her two teenagers between soccer practice and piano lessons, running a film production business with her husband, Robert, and taking care of the beautiful Boston home they share. Then one day, Kathy discovers a suspicious number on her husband’s phone. Six years before, Kathy accused Robert of infidelity—a charge he vehemently denied—and almost destroyed their marriage in the process.

Now Kathy must decide whether to follow her suspicions at the risk of losing everything, or trust the man with whom she’s entwined her past, present, and future. As she grapples with that choice, she is confronted with surprising truths not just about her relationship, but about her friends, family, and her own motivations.

My review:
This book tells the story of an affair -- or more specifically, a crucial week of an affair -- from the perspectives of the wife, the husband, and the mistress. It doesn't break any new ground, but the storytelling is still very satisfying to read. The different perspectives are believable and realistic, and I enjoyed seeing how things that would seem so clear from one perspective ended up being completely different from another. There are no true heroes or villains in this story, only people who love and hurt each other as years of choices reach a point where they can no longer be ignored.

P.S. Don't have an affair.

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)
Recommended for: People who enjoy magical realism and fairy tale retellings, lovers of Shakespeare and poetry

Back-cover summary:
In the ancient Scottish ballad "Tam Lin," headstrong Janet defies Tam Lin to walk in her own land of Carterhaugh . . . and then must battle the Queen of Faery for possession of her lover’s body and soul. In this version of "Tam Lin," masterfully crafted by Pamela Dean, Janet is a college student, "Carterhaugh" is Carter Hall at the university where her father teaches, and Tam Lin is a boy named Thomas Lane.

My review:
This month, I’m reading books that other people have recommended to me as their favorites. It is definitely taking me out of my reading comfort zone, but it’s an enjoyable change. Tam Lin is one of those books. Genre and description wise, it isn’t too far from my standard reading, but the writing style did end up being a departure from the norm.

It took me awhile to warm to the author’s writing style. From the description and genre, it seems like it would be a fast read, but it ended up not being the case for me. At over 400 pages, it was a thick book, and I didn’t read through them quickly. It seemed like some things dragged on slowly, but other times, I found myself having to reread passages because I didn’t quite follow where a transition happened. The most common example would be in conversation where suddenly it would mention that someone was furious, but I couldn’t understand from the dialogue when it went from normal conversation to anger. This and other character reactions that I didn’t understand showed some amount of emotional disconnect between me and the author.

If you’ve ever dreamed of being enrolled in an elite liberal arts college and having a group of well-read friends to have sophisticated intellectual conversations with, this could be a great book for you. It’s hard not to be immersed into the setting, and I enjoyed feeling like I was sitting with Janet and her roommates in their dorm room or listening to lectures in English class. The conversations constantly make references to works of Shakespeare, Keats, and more. Enough of the references are clarified so that you won’t be completely lost if you don’t recognize them. However, a reader with absolutely no interest in English literature might find all of this extremely boring or possibly even pretentiously annoying.

I enjoyed the mystical elements of the story, especially the ghost who threw books out of the window, the tradition of the piper, and the horse riders. The action of the fairy tale retelling was a little odd, but I felt that way about the traditional version of the fairy tale, too. Overall, I felt like the fairy tale was a good way to wrap up the story and also helped set the mood for the novel, but the other interactions between the characters were more prominent. This is one of eight in a Fairy Tale Series. I read Snow White and Rose Red as a teen, and now this has me interested to read some of the others.

Distance: 7.2 miles
Elevation gain: 2000 feet
Trailhead directions and more on WTA.

Finally getting around the posting the trip report for the last hike of 2012, back in October. I unintentionally had a hiking season of firsts this year. First hike in the Canadian Rockies. First summit register. First real hike on the Mountain Loop Highway. And this hike was my first time in the North Cascades National Park. There is a lot of gorgeous stuff up there, and unlike national parks like Rainier and Olympic, there is no entry fee (you just need your Northwest Forest Pass). The downside is that it’s a pretty long drive. 3 hours and a lot of gas to get to this trailhead from Kirkland. Hopefully next time I go back, I’ll be able to spend the night and get a few days of exploration.

 
left: MARMOT!
right: dusty fall colors

The Maple Pass trail is probably one of the most popular hikes in the area, and it’s not hard to understand why. The loop makes it so you get different views the whole time, and you get a lot of payoff for the effort. I’d rate the difficulty as moderate (noticeably easier than some of the other hikes I’ve been doing this year) and the views as outstanding. Three lakes, mountains in all directions, and at this time of year, bright fall colors and golden larches. The parking lot was full when we arrived a little before 11, but oddly enough there was still plenty of parallel parking space right next to the trailhead, so we actually got an awesome parking spot.
 
The drive up the North Cascades Highway is pretty nice. Tip #1: The visitors center is a great place to use a real toilet! Tip #2: Save time to stop at overlooks. We passed the Diablo Lake overlook on the way to the trailhead and stopped both ways. Further past the trailhead is the Washington Pass overlook, with a fantastic view of Liberty Bell Mountain, which I hope to stop at next year. Tip #3: Allow time for slow cars. There aren’t a lot of passing opportunities on the highway. On the way there, we got stuck behind 8 or so RVs and I got so fed up that I pulled into an overlook just so I wouldn’t be stuck right behind them.

Lake Ann

Hiking the loop counter-clockwise is the most popular direction to go. The Mountaineers' guidebook suggests this, and if you follow the signs from the parking lot, this is the direction you will go. (If you prefer to go clockwise, you should follow the sign to Rainy Lake from the trailhead, and the trail to Maple Pass splits from there) Counter-clockwise means that it’s an easy grade up to Heather Pass, and it doesn’t stay in the forest for very long. Mountain views start quickly, then there’s a trail that splits to visit Lake Ann (we didn’t take it), and not long after that, views down to Lake Ann and its Taiwan-shaped island start.

 
left: a lot of mountains that I don’t know the names of
right: golden larch

I would definitely like to come back and visit this trail in August, when the days are longer – our timing had pretty harsh shadows cast on the lakes by the time we reached them, and it’s unlikely that we could have gotten an earlier start. The trail is popular through the entire summer, but it’s particularly crowded during early August because of the bright fall colors and the golden larches, deciduous conifers whose needles turn bright yellow before dropping. Another fall benefit is that the ridiculously cute pikas are active, scurrying back and forth to gather plants for their burrows. Anytime we approached a boulder field, we heard them “eep”ing like crazy. Likeliness of actually seeing a pika goes down as the number of people go up (pikas are very shy), but we did manage to see one pika hiding behind a rock. Speaking of people, the crowds were pretty heavy. Fortunately, party sizes were pretty reasonable, but there was absolutely no solitude on this trail.

 
left: view from Heather Pass of Lewis Lake, Black Peak, and a forest fire
right: helicopter dumping water on the fire

At Heather Pass, you get a beautiful view of mountains and a peek at Lewis Lake underneath Black Peak. The trail to Lewis and Wing Lakes branches off a little before the pass, and the whole thing is visible from the pass, including a long boulder field traverse. Pictures I’ve seen of these two lakes look absolutely gorgeous, and I hope to make it there on a future trip. However, no one was heading there on this day because a small forest fire near Lewis Lake had the trail closed. We continued walking to a sign marking the North Cascades National Park boundary (NO HUNTING!) and took a side trail to a high point for better views of Lewis Lake. Sat here and ate lunch, gazing out towards the mountains. Every once in a while, we’d see a helicopter fly past us with a bucket of water to dump on the forest fire.

 
left: valley and Glacier Peak
right: fall colors, switchbacks heading towards Maple Pass

After lunch, there was more walking and more uphill to get to Maple Pass. Along the way, there were more views down at Lake Ann and across a valley to more mountains, including Glacier Peak. Visibility wasn’t great looking in that direction, probably partially due to smoke haze from the forest fires. I felt like the views on this last leg of the hike were less interesting than the first half, but it was still nice to be walking a different part of the trail. There was a partial view down to Rainy Lake, which is easily reached by a short, flat, paved trail from the parking lot -- definitely would have done this if we had more time. Finally, we passed by a woman who asked if we had a satellite telephone (no) because she had broken her leg (ouch!). We saw search and rescue come up with chainsaws and other gear as we went down, and I read afterwards that they got her out by helicopter... at midnight. The trail was very dusty from the lack of rain and steep in a few parts, and I had fallen down once or twice that day as well. Made me realize that I need to figure out how to be more coordinated before I get older, or I’ll probably end up with a broken leg, too.
 
Stopped by Diablo Lake on the way back, where we encountered four Corvettes parked side by side in the parking lot. Naturally, I parked right next to them, and now they have an ugly, dirty Camry in their photos. Anyway, highly recommend this hike! I was sad to see a good hiking season end, but this hike was a high note to end it.

We were at book club, trying to get a discussion going about our December book, Where’d You Go, Bernadette. One of the discussion questions was, “Do you sympathize with Bernadette?” Immediately, one of the book club members responded flatly, “No.” “Really? Not at all?” I thought. End of discussion.

Earlier, I was discussing Chekhov’s play, The Seagull, with someone who loved the play. From the description, it was one of the things I looked forward to seeing the most in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2012 season. But when it came to the actual performance, I was disappointed. The characters weren’t likeable. I didn’t connect to them. And one of them even had my name. His response was that the characters weren’t supposed to be likeable, they were supposed to be realistic. And that he fell in love with the play when he read it in high school, right after breaking up with his girlfriend, and the characters in the play spoke perfectly to his situation.

Thinking back on conversations, I realized how often this comes up in conversations with friends about books, films, and plays and how much of our enjoyment of the media is based on how we personally relate to the characters. Going a step further than that, some of the most beloved stories are things that we can project ourselves on. What woman loves Pride and Prejudice without pretending, at least while reading, that she is Elizabeth Bennet? Though I am one of those people who blindly judges Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, maybe they aren’t as stupid as I’d like to believe once taking into account the fact that the story is more than what is written on the page – it’s a combination of that and the interaction of the words with the reader. With such ideal blank slate characters, it’s quite easy for the reader to interact with and project onto the story and such an experience is an enjoyable one.

Orson Scott Card addressed this when discussing the various reader responses in his introduction to his book, Ender’s Game:

I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.

As a reader, this is a powerful thing to realize. With romance novels or other “blank slate” type fiction, it is an “escape” when the reader knowingly submits to it, but it becomes a “guilty pleasure,” a sort of manipulation, if he or she unknowingly and perhaps unwillingly submits. But more interesting are the complex projections – seeing ourselves in defined and perhaps unlikeable characters. How much could we realize about ourselves if we spent time in specific reflection after discovering a character like this?

In reading book reviews, I find that there is almost always a discrepancy of opinion about whether to like or not like a character. Sometimes this is to the fault or credit of the writer, but more often it speaks to the differences in the readers, perhaps differences that are not unlike the ones that start conflicts in the real world. Imagine a system where people could confront their stereotypes privately with a novel instead of acting against a real person! I’d like to make it a goal – not to like every character I encounter – but to fully understand why I dislike the ones I do and to learn more about why others might disagree.

Reading has already opened my eyes to facts and history I was previously unaware of, but I hope that in the future, I can learn even more about human nature, different worldviews, and myself.