Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta

This book was recommended to me by an enthusiastic reader of fiction.

I found it original and refreshing and truthfully, a little opaque.  The review I read in Entertainment Weekly after I finished the novel helped me to understand that love of cinema is a theme that runs through the novel
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I thought it merited description as a novel about the way we live now, and about the tension between art and morality, but it is not comforting fiction.  It is also about friendship.  Spiotta captures the complex dynamic between two friends who are as different and as close as Carrie and Meadow -- sometimes competitive, sometimes judgmental and impatient but nevertheless striving to be loyal, caring and supportive.

Carrie and Meadow are filmmakers and lifelong best friends.  Meadow creates documentaries that offer a fresh perspective on topics such as the Kent State shootings. Carrie's work is more conventional.

Amy, whose nickname is Jelly, is a woman who engages in what the author calls, in her "Acknowledgements," as "proto-'catfishing'".  She calls men in the movie industry and talks to them about their work and other topics.  She calls herself Nicole in these phone calls, and she starts them by pretending it's a wrong number.  She loves these conversations and they are thoughtful conversations, but ones in which she is manipulating the person on the other end to be increasingly interested in her.  Spiotta describes how Jelly sits while she's talking on the phone, how she arranges herself to be comfortable or changes position while she's talking on the phone.

Spiotta's last book, Stone Arabia, was a finalist for the National Book Book Critics Circle Award.

The Big Short/Steve Jobs

Both of these movies were adapted from books.  The Big Short was adapted from the book by Michael Lewis, and Steve Jobs was adapted from the biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

As The Big Short began, I found myself wondering: how can this work?  I was very pleasantly surprised.  I think it worked very well.  I found it very enjoyable.

The scene in which Margot Robbie, sitting in a bathtub full of bath bubbles, explains selling short, would probably be worth the price of admission alone to some viewers.

The movie captured the story of the book, the individual stories of these iconoclastic individuals who bet against the system and won.  I think it also captured what I would call the "sheep" mentality of seemingly many bankers who assumed that low quality mortgage-backed securities could not fail because no one refused to sell them and sellers didn't have much trouble selling them, either.

The ending was sobering, as the filmmakers pointed out that no one has gone to jail for selling something worthless or putting families into mortgages they could not afford, and that nothing else has changed, either.

I found Steve Jobs to be less successful.  The tremendous compression of event into the three acts was kind of overwhelming.  One exception, I think, were the scenes between Jobs and Scully.  That, I think, was completely successful in conveying the very complicated relationship the two men had.  In retrospect, I think Jeff Daniels' acting was just sublime .. an accomplishment all the harder to achieve, I think, because it was a very "playey" film, that felt like the film of a play.  In retrospect, I have to say I think the acting was great.

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

I'm reading this now.  I'd gotten interested in it because the plot seemed so clever, and because I saw that it was a popular book club book.

Lucien is an architect living in Paris, two years into the German occupation.  He's a man with few political convictions, and he's somewhat desperate because he hasn't had an architectural commission since the Germans invaded.  The city of light is now bleak and dreary.  Many of the population have fled and it's difficult to get any but the most basic food.

He's approached by a wealthy industrialist, Manet, with a surprising commission.  Manet wants Lucien to design an undiscoverable hiding place for a Jew on the run from the Gestapo.  Lucien is shocked, angered and terrified by this request.  Manet sweetens his well-paid offer with the promise of a commission to design a factory to be built for the Nazi war effort.  Lucien, a frustrated modernist, can't resist the lure.

I thought that this would be a suspenseful book, and it is - I've left off reading at Chapter 25 because I'm so terrified.

I was resolved to finish, and so I have.  The book became even more terrifying.  Lucien experienced so many reversals of fortune, as did the people around him.

I was amazed when I came to the final chapter.  I thought I was still many pages from the end.  It turned out that that was because I was reading a paperback book club edition, with book group discussion questions, an interview with the author, and an "Acknowledgment".

I was interested in all of them.

One of the book discussion questions, number 14, was this:  "If you were a gentile living under the Nazis in World War II, do you think you would have had the courage to hide Jews?  What consequences are you willing to face to help others?"  I spent a lot of time, while reading the book, thinking about this question.

I think one reason I spent so much time thinking about this is that Lucien was initially very unwilling to help Manet in his effort to hide Jews.  Lucien was terrified by the very idea.  He thought that the chances that they all would be caught were very great, and he knew that they would all be killed.  As a matter of fact, the novel opens with a death.  It underscored the terror of living in Paris under the Occupation. While the Germans were not intent on killing the French, they were ruthless in making examples of anyone they could to frighten the French into abandoing all hope of fighting back.

Lucien is persuaded to accept this dangerous commission because food is getting more and more expensive in Paris, and his dependence on his wife's savings has hurt their marriage, already strained by his wife's inability to have children.  The far more powerful reason is that he not only has not had any work since the start of the war but he has never been successful in getting his career going; he's never had a major commission and he has never been able to build a building in the style he most admires, the modern style professed by the Bauhaus architects.

As the novel wears on, however, while he continues to be ruled by his ego, and often notes in his own mind that architects are very influenced by their egos, Lucien changes.  His experience awakens feelings that he didn't know that he had.  He's quite a different person by the end of the novel.

In The Nightingale, Isabelle was a resistance fighter.  She escorted downed pilots across the Pyrenees.  She was a heroine, but she was quite different from Lucien.  She knew, as soon as France was invaded, that she had to do something to fight back.  Lucien is more like Isabelle's sister, who became increasingly worn down by the war but the escalation of food shortages, murders and deportation formed in her a resolve to fight back.

While war certainly brings out the worst in us, as you would expect chronic fear and deprivation to do, in this novel it brings out the best in Lucien.

In the interview with the author that was printed in the back of my copy, I learned that he is an architectural historian who's written several books about architectural history.  I was delighted to learn that he is an Anne Tyler fan, as I have been since I found a discarded copy of If Tomorrow Ever Comes someplace. Belfoure said that as a native of Baltimore, as Tyler is, he has enjoyed recognizing the places she names in her novels.

In his Acknowledgement, author Belfoure thanked his editor at Sourcebooks (the publisher).  I was so glad to see this, as I think that editors have an important in shaping books.

I read this book with my book group and one member called it a real "page turner" and no one seemed to find any fault with it which is a distinction in itself.

Princess Elizabeth's Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal

I read this on Saturday.  I enjoyed it very much.  I'm struggling to figure out which elements made me enjoy the experience.  I find myself wondering if I'm stuck in a Downton Abbey mindset:  when, for instance, Maggie Hope is roundly rebuked for not dressing for dinner, I think, "Hmm.. that's interesting .. dressing for dinner is still important in 1941."

I wonder if the quality that I enjoy is that it doesn't seem too real, and it doesn't seem too frightening. I know from reading the acknowledgments that MacNeal did some research, especially in reading the memoir of the real-life governess who cared for the royal princesses in Windsor Castle.  Maggie, despite her disappointment at spy school, is someone who is surprising lucky, competent and capable.  She always comes out on top!

I knew from reading reviews that at least one critic thought that the second book in the Maggie Hope series was not as strong as the first; I can't say that I perceived much difference.  In both books, the mystery is, who can be trusted?  And while I was much less surprised by the big reveal in the second novel, I did not predict all the twists and turns.  It may be that the guilty parties were too obviously signaled by the author -- I'm not sure.

As the novel opens, Maggie is excited -- but exhausted -- to be at spy school in Scotland.  Sadly, her physical strength is just not great enough, and she is in danger of failing to pass the physical strength and endurance tests.  At the same time, there's a murder at Claridge's Hotel that suggests not only that there may be a spy or spy network at Windsor Castle, but that there may be a connection to the spy at Bletchley Park that Edmund Hope, Maggie's father, has been working undercover to try to discover.

Frain, the head of MI-5, pulls Maggie out of spy school to pose as a math tutor to the teenage Princess Elizabeth, who is living, with her sister Margaret, at Windsor Castle.  The Luftwaffe bombings have made London unsafe for them.  Maggie's job is to discreetly keep her eyes and ears open while avoiding any suspicion.  This is the perfect job for Maggie, who is a talented mathematician who once aspired to attend MIT.

Of course, on her first night, Maggie is roundly criticized for not dressing for dinner.  She begins to meet the many folks working at Windsor Castle -- the librarian, the ladies-in-waiting, the governess, the cook, the falconer .. the list goes on and on.

I think I appreciated the details like knowing that the Royal Mews is located on top of the castle and that that is where the falcons are kept.

Maggie saves the day, as usual, but this time with a big assist from a stout-hearted and enterprising Princess Elizabeth.

In the next book,  His Majesty's Hope, Maggie is dropped into France, and the story begins in Germany.  Stay tuned! 

Golden Egg by Donna Leon

The Publishers Weekly review of this book concludes this way:  "Appreciative of feminine charms, the deeply uxorious Brunetti amply displays the keen intelligence and wry humor that has endeared this series to so many."

I always feel suspicious whenver I see the word uxorious: it reminds me of when Jonathan Franzen didn't want to be named an Oprah author because he believed men would not buy his book.

By the way, the Merriam-Webster.com definition of uxorious is:  having or showing an excessive or submissive fondness for one's wife.

Can't agree with Publishers Weekly's assessment:  I'd say Commissario Guido Brunetti is smart.

When his wife calls him at work to tell him some sad news, that the disabled man who worked at their neighborhood cleaners has died and that she feels bad because she doesn't know how to help or to honor this man's life, he clearly feels that she is being oversensitive.  But he is careful to hear her out, to sound saddened as well, and to call her a pet name as he ends the phone conversation.

It is his wife Paola's concern for the dead man, David Cavanella, that starts in motion Commisario Brunetti's investigation of what appears at first to be an accidental death.  The investigation is difficult:  the dead man's mother shuts her door in Brunetti's face.  He figures a roundabout direction is the best way to investigate further:  the neighbors aren't talking either, and he wonders if his colleague Vianello's wife would be the right kind of person winkle some truth out of the neighbors. But Vianello, somewhat to Brunetti's surprise, turns him down.  Eventually, he turns to his Neapolitan colleague, Griffoni, and also has seeks the help of another colleague, the redoubtable Elettra, his superior's well-informed secretary and a longtime ally.  And, he learns a lot about all of his colleagues, as they struggle over their abilities to manipulate suspects and the tug of loyalties to family and work that sometimes conflict.

The theme, to me, is surprising:  it's about bad, I mean really bad parenting.  Guido and Paola make a strong and convenient contrast.  It's also about the joys of language, perhaps not surprising for an author (and her audience). As wholesome and happy and Guido's family seems, the dark mystery he unravels is very dark indeed.

Tricky Twenty-Two by Janet Evanovich

What a great read!  It's easy, fast and engaging.

Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter who works for her cousin Vinnie, a bond bailsman.  Bonds bailsmen finance the bonds that that people are who are charged with crimes have to pay in order to guarantee that they will return for their court date.  When those with bail bonds fail to show for their court date, it's Stephanie's job to pick them up and take them back to jail.

Stephanie has problems.  She's not really cut out to be a bounty hunter:  she owns a gun, but she doesn't have any bullets.

She has two men who are interested in her:  Ranger, the "super-hot" head of a local private security firm, and Joseph Morelli, a sweet, mild-mannered man whom she loves .. but who has just broken up with her.

She's charged with finding a college student whose nickname is "Gobbles."  He's charged with striking the dean of students at a local college.  Stephanie works hard on this case, but each time she visits campus the mystery of just what it is that Gobbles is mixed up in deepens and something bad happens.  On one visit, Gobbles' fraternity brothers do something very, very bad to her car.  On another occasion, there is a big explosion and fire.

Stephanie says of her trusty sidekick, Lula:

"Lula was originally a respectable 'ho.  A couple of years ago she'd decided to relinquish her corner to take a job as a file clerk for the bonds office.  Since almost all the files are digital these days, Lula mostly works as my wheelman.  She's four inches too short for her weight, her clothes are three sizes too small for her generously proportioned body, and her hair color changes weekly, her skin is a robust dark chocolate.

"I feel invisible when I stand next to Lula, because no one notices me.  I inherited a lot of unruly curly brown hair from the Italian side of my family, and I have a cute nose that my grandma says is a gift from God.  My blue eyes and pale skin are the results of my mother's Hungarian heritage.  Not sure where my 34B boobs come from, but I'm happy with them, and I think they look okay with the rest of me."

And Stephanie has family:

"My mother and Grandma Mazur were in the kitchen eating lunch when I walked in. Grandma Mazur came to live with my parents when Grandpa graduated from this life to the next.  My mother, being a good Catholic woman, accepted this living arrangement as her cross to bear and gets by with help from Jim Beam.  My father developed selective hearing and spends a lot of time at his lodge.  And now that we took his gun away we feel that it's safe to leave him alone with Grandma."

This is a great book for a trip (or as an audiobook for a car trip) or a doctor's appointment.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

I'm at about page 250.  Roxane Coss is one of the most accomplished sopranos living; Mr. Hosokawa is an opera mad Japanese industrialist who has been lured to an unnamed South American country where the government is eager to attract foreign investment by the enticement of a birthday party for him at which Roxane Coss will sing.  The party is held at the Vice President's home.

Roxane Coss sings and as she finishes her final aria the lights go out; terrorists swarm the premises, having entered the building through the HVAC system.  All of the guests, all of the kitchen workers and staff are held hostage.  The terrorists are surprised and confused when they discover that the President, who was scheduled to attend and was their quarry, is not there.

Two weeks later, a Swiss man named Messner enters the house.  He is a arbitration expert who just happened to be in town on vacation when the hostage event occurred, and has remained long after his vacation should have ended, and he should have returned home, to act as courier and communicator between the terrorists and the authorities.

He thinks to himself that he most likes to talk to General Benjamin; General Benjamin seems intelligent. He finds himself worrying about General Benjamin because the General has a terrible case of shingles that is red, angry, obviously painful and seems to be creeping across his face to reach his eye. Messner reminds himself that it is a mistake to become attached to anyone here, captors and hostages alike.  He knows that situations like this always end badly.

At the same time, Roxane Coss has discovered that one of Mr. Hosokawa's colleagues at his electronics firm is an excellent pianist, and would be happy to accompany her so that she could practice.  All she needs now is sheet music.  She approaches Messner with a list she wishes him to convey to her management in Italy.

The young priest in the house, Father Arguedas, overhears her request to Messner as it is translated by Gen, Mr. Hosokawa's translator.  He rushes to insert himself into the conversation and struggles to get Gen's attention.  His friend lives two miles away and is a music librarian.  Father Arguedas' friend Manuel can get them the Chopin, the Faure, the Bellini, Verdi and Puccini, that they want and more besides. He's so eager to help because he became a priest so that he could help others:  that is his reason for being.  But his great interest, his great comfort, his great passion is opera.  He, like Mr. Hosokawa, is a little in love with Roxanne Coss.  The beauty of her singing moves them so greatly, that love and deference occur to them naturally.

It was at this point that I burst into tears.

Christmas movies: Mr. Holmes/Woman in Gold/Star Wars/Spectre/Spotlight/She's Funny That Way/Brooklyn

I loved Mr. Holmes.  In it, Sherlock Holmes is elderly, retired, living in the country and keeping bees. He's having problems with his memory, and it bothers him.  He struggles to remember his last case. As he struggles to remember, snippets of memory swim into his consciousness, and as they do so, he grieves the past anew.  Milo Parker (who will remind you of Thomas Brodie-Sangster from Love Actually) plays the son of Holmes' housekeeper, who is, increasingly, the old man's friend.  The plot is clever, and the acting is wonderful.

I put off watching Woman in Gold, and put it off, and put it off some more because I think I thought it would be dreary.  As I imagined, Helen Mirren was wonderfully charismatic and charming.  As a creature of my time and place, I felt pained by the "underdog" story -- we all know you can't fight City Hall - but in this case, unassuming people did win.  It's lovely, sad and instructive all at the same time.

Star Wars was a lot of fun.  I think a pulse of electricity rolled through the audience as the first battle sequence began.  Daisy Ridley seemed like a revelation.  It will be so interesting to see how her career unfolds.

I really enjoyed Spectre, and especially loved the opening scenes in Mexico City.  I thought it spectacular and entirely engaging.  I thought that Christoph Waltz was miscast.  I think villains are somewhat boring but I feel that Waltz' acting reveals his intelligence and this interferes with projecting evil menace.  I had read reviews which complained that the plot was somewhat muddled, and I felt in retrospect that that may have been a fair criticism, but it didn't occur to me while I was watching it, and it didn't interfere in any way with my enjoyment.

Spotlight was very well written, well paced, well acted, and quite enjoyable.  It deals with a difficult subject that not everyone will want to view.  I think everyone in the cast wore khakis except for Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo's hair cut was awful, just awful, which I believe we are to understand is the kind of haircut that journalists sport.  I'm making fun, and I was surprised, but I appreciate the seriousness of the plot and the costumes.

She's Funny That Way is a film I saw on video; I'm not sure how I found it. It was directed by Peter Bogdanovich.  It's a "quirky" comedy that reminds me very much of a sixties comedy starring Barbra Streisand I saw on the TV the other day (For Pete's Sake, actually not from the sixties), which reminds me that this material is meant not just to be funny but to be funny in a comforting way.  It's a movie for movie buffs.  Obviously, no one thinks that this movie is a masterpiece but I realize that I admire it.  It's entertaining, escapist, and ends happily.  Imogen Poots plays the title character; at the end of the film she rues her debut play closing in a week, saying, "Long Island housewives just want to escape."  I think a lot of people just want to escape and this movie offers that.  Somehow this reminds me of Sullivan's Travels, and I want to say that Veronica Lake and Barbra Streisand were wonderful comic actresses.  I think Imogen Potts carried on the tradition in this film, and I think that's quite nice.

Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan, was a film I felt I had to see because I had read the novel.  I'd found the novel very troubling.  I wasn't sure if Eilis was really happy with her choice.  Had she really chosen freely?  Or, had she allowed herself to be persuaded to do something that she wasn't really ready to make a commitment to do?  The movie suggests that she did choose what she really wanted and that she was happy with her choice.

The movie is so beautiful.  It's really true to the action of the book.  Saoirse  Ronan is so beautiful; the costumes are spectacular and so are the scenes shot in Ireland.   The movie is set in the '50s.  It's the story of an immigrant, and the pain of immigration - not wanting to leave, but being forced by a complete lack of opportunity.

I'd never read anything by Colm Toibin at that time; I found out about the novel because the Chicago Public Library chose it for their "One City, One Book" program.

What I'm Reading Now

Continuing to read Luckiest Girl Alive, but haven't gotten that much farther.  Have mislaid Rebecca Mead's A Life in Middlemarch (feeling very Bridget Jones now), have read first ten pages of The Paris Architect (chilling right from the beginning), but I picked up The Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl - and while I would really like to get away from reading yet another historical fiction mystery, I have to say it's charming from the outset.  The narrator recalls when, as a 19-year-old, he worked as a waiter on the train and his favorite part of his work was when the book vendor came on the train.  Is it embarrassing to find yet another "book for book lovers only" with a high degree of twee on my reading list? Yes, it is embarrassing and all I can say is that I have known embarrassment before.  

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal

I'm reading Great Kitchens and I'm really enjoying it.  I found out about it from a co-worker who said she really liked it.

From early in the novel:

Adam held out the pack for Mitch.  "You don't need to be in the kitchen?" Octavia asked, preemptively crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Dirty little secret," Mitch said.  "Eva has saved my life.  She does everything I can do and people can't tell the difference.  I'm actually writing a book now, I have time to write a book."

"What's it called?"

"Tapas Girls and Bottomless Sangria:  Hot Times in Spanish Kitchens.  You know anyone who can help with a book proposal?"

This book, especially its opening, reminded me so much of Anne Tyler.  I ran through the first 100 pages.  The phrase that comes to mind is "the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie."  These modest, unpretentious people are very funny and sweet.

I read an article about the author, J. Ryan Stradal, and I got the impression that "food culture" wasn't that important to him personally - it was just the setting for the book.  However, talk about food is constant in this book, whether it's venison, lemon bars, heirloom tomatoes, artisanal bread, or lutefisk.  I'm amazed I haven't gone to get something to eat already!

The Rumor by Elin Hilderbrand

I enjoyed The Rumor.  I thought it was slight, however.


This is the first Hilderbrand novel I've read.  She lives on Nantucket Island, and I assume that her novels, like this one, are set there.

Nantucket sounds like a very nice place; I enjoyed imaginatively hobnobbing with its citizens.

This is a book about friendship as much as anything.  Two friends, Madeline and Grace, are at the heart of the novel.  Each of them is in a rocky patch, in very different ways.  Madeline is a novelist, and one who has known real success but who is under contractual obligation to deliver another novel and she's got writer's block.  Her friend Grace seems to have it all:  beautiful house, beautiful garden, two pretty and accomplished teenage daughters.

Grace is someone who came from money and who has refined and artistic tastes.  She loves her garden, and she loves to cook.  Her daughters are somewhat distant, especially the older one, who aspires to a modeling career.  Her husband is a successful real estate agent, and he is gone a lot - he's never far away, since they live on an island, but his hours as an agent mean that he's not around.

Grace does all the work herself on her garden, but she has a landscape designer and he visits the garden almost every day to talk to her about the design.

Grace and her husband, Eddie, pay a publicist to get a paper or magazine to do a spread on her garden, of which she's rightly proud.

Eddie is a realtor, and he's facing pressures in his business.  Business is slow.  He's always been a hard worker, and someone who needs to be available when his clients are available.  He feels that he has to be in the office so that he can be there when clients walk in.  As a result, he's never home during the day, and is often gone in the evening as well.  Of course, weekends are his busy time.

Meanwhile, Grace has developed a crush on her gardener, Benton Coe.  He's been gone for the winter, visiting Morocco, and when he comes back, he brings her first a tea set, and then macarons for the mint tea Grace makes with the tea set.

I felt that the Rumor was slight and fun - superficial in that, in part, it was about surfaces.  For instance, Grace has a potting shed, which is described several times.  It's as if the potting shed is a symbol of a certain kind of middle class aspiration and attainment, a token of "having arrived," and, of course, while Grace is proud of her garden and her potting shed, her lifestyle, which is an act of creativity on her part, is supported by her husband, who is not only struggling to keep his business profitable (and support Grace's lifestyle) but the stress is causing him chronic heartburn.  Grace is a wonderful cook, and Eddie can't eat the beautiful food she prepares because his heartburn is so bad. She creates stylish and delicious meals using the fresh produce from her garden, and she feeds her husband cheese and crackers because that's all he can digest.  Is it obvious that there's a disconnect here?

In her acknowledgements, Hannah mentioned that she had been fighting breast cancer while she was writing this book.  I wonder if that influenced the plot -- or the tone.  I wonder if her other books are a little big lighter, a little bit more whimsical.

I often wonder what are the purposes of the fiction novels I read.  Obviously, one is escape - both in the sense of escaping from one's daily reality and demands and also, in the sense of being allowed to see how the other half live, and where they live, and how and where others unlike ourselves live. Obviously, some books are art, or attempts at art, whether conscious or not -- and, equally obviously, most of the books I read do not fall into this category.  But what about a novel like The Rumor? Some might dismiss it with a wave of the hand, saying, "It's just escapist entertainment."  But why this particular escapist entertainment?  Why not Nancy Thayer, or fantasy or science fiction or crime fiction or any one of another kind of novel by any one of a number of authors.  

What I'm Reading Now

I feel a need to clear my palate, so to speak.  I started reading Jessica Knoll's Luckiest Girl Alive, and I saw right away at least three of the similarities to Gone Girl:  a) the author is a magazine writer; b) the protagonist is a magazine writer; c) the protagonist is concerned with the need to appear perfect and to disguise her true feelings.

I felt I was looking for something else, so I picked up The Rumor by Elin Hilderbrand.  I found the opening pages breezy, light and entertaining.  However, as the plot thickens, it seems a little less light.

I'll continue with it for now.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I just finished this book last night, and I still feel strongly moved by it.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris.  Her mother is dead.  She loses her sight to illness.  Her father, a locksmith at the Natural History Museum, dotes on her and trains her to use her other senses to compensate for loss of sight.

Marie-Laure grows up in the Natural History Museum, spending time with the curators and becoming an expert on shells among other things.  She finds the world of the Museum, with its scholars and specimens, magical.

Her father makes puzzle boxes for her for her birthdays.  She's very talented at opening them, and will find a treat inside.  Then her father begins to give her Braille books.  One of them is Jules Vernes' Twenty Leagues Under the Sea.  Her father makes a model of her neighborhood, which helps her to learn how to navigate the streets,

Werner Pfennig is an orphan after his father dies in a mining accident, when he and his little sister, Jutta, go to live with Frau Elena in a house with other orphans.  He's traumatized by his father's accident, and dreads and hates the mines.  The mines are where all the boys go when they grow up - when they're fifteen or sixteen. He pulls his sister, Jutta, around in a little wagon amidst the slag and coal heaps.

Werner finds a radio somewhere, and manages to make it work.  Late at night, he and Jutta sit up and listen to a science program for children that is broadcast from France.  Jutta is particularly fascinated, and begins to exhaustively draw pictures of Paris.  Werner begins fixing radios for the neighbors. Finally, a Nazi officer comes to the house looking for him; he wants Werner to fix his radio.  Werner is nervous, but he does fix the radio, and this leads to his being nominated for entrance into a military school.  As frightening as he finds the entrance exam, and as much as his sister profoundly mistrusts this turn of events, he feels compelled to accept any route that will permit him to escape the mines.

When the war comes, Marie-Laure flees Paris with her father to Brittany, where they live with her father's uncle, a shell-shocked veteran of the First World War.  Meanwhile, Werner is miserable at his military school.

The book opens with the bombing of Saint-Malo, the medieval walled city on the coast of Brittany where Marie-Laure lives with her great-uncle and his servant, the redoubtable Madame Manec.

The narrative skips forward and backward in time, and the story is told through short chapters.  I think the short chapters give a reader a sense of time passing quickly, and also allows the reader to focus not only on the plot but the wonderful pictures the author creates.

Werner's experiences in the war reminded me of the film of Gunter Grass' novel The Tin Drum.  Marie-Laure's childhood in Paris reminded me of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by David Selznick.

I absolutely adored the first 100 pages with their jewel box quality:  the fascinating exhibits at the museum, the wonderful puzzle boxes, the streets of Paris and the Jardin des Plantes.  After the invasion, things become much less magical and much more frightening.  I found that my sense of dread was profound, so much so that I found it hard to return to the book after page 100.

A friend who read this book said that the ending fizzled out.  Perhaps it did, but I didn't see it that way.  I thought that the brevity with which the end events were described were a reminder of the absurdity, brutality and randomness of violence in war.  There was another example of this from earlier in the book that has stayed with me:  Werner's friend forces men he meets on their travels to take off their boots and let him try them on.  He's a big man and he's looking for boots that fit.  When he finds boots that fit him, he just takes them, even though he knows a man without boots will die from exposure. The war was over for the man forced to give up his boots.

This man, who behaved in a way that certainly preserved himself, really loved Werner, I think, and certainly tried to protect him.  He also showed great tenderness to Werner's nephew in the monologue.

I think the epilogue permits us to see that Werner is not forgotten, and that the intensity with which he is missed is a reflection of his exceptional quality.  I think it's meant to be both a comfort and a balancing of the brutality and anonymity of war.

I think I read something about Anthony Doerr, or an interview with him, in which he said that he wanted to show that people are good. I'm not sure exactly what he meant, but perhaps he meant that people have the capacity for goodness even though they steal other people's boots.  It's a romantic notion, and a comforting one.

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