The Ambassadors by Henry James

I'm not sure if it was James' intent to get me to totally dislike the main character of The Ambassadors, but I do.  Lewis Lambert Strether is a mess of a man.  Charged by his fiance to go to Paris and retrieve her son, Chad (from a previous marriage,) Strether stays so long in Paris, immersing himself into society there, that a second wave of relatives show up to attempt to complete the job.  Ultimately, Strether and the reinforcements sent in fail to bring Chad home.  Chad is in love with a married woman living in Paris apart from her husband so she's got her own complications to content with.  Just the same, it takes an entire novel overflowing with confusing plotting and speculating to see Strether arrive at this noble act of allowing himself to fail so love can prevail.

In the middle of all this, Strether seems to fall out of love with his fiance as a new Parisian friend, Miss Gostrey, falls in love with him.  While encouraging love to take top priority with Chad, Strether ultimately refuses to accept the love of Miss Gostrey and returns home to his unloved fiance.

Confused yet?  This just scratches the surface of a story overpopulated with characters (some referred to by two different names) and jam-packed with three-page paragraphs and seriously long run-on sentences.  The style gets so tedious I found myself letting my mind wander as I read, which led me to be pretty confused through most of the book.  I almost question why I read The Ambassadors for fun.  I just loved The Bostonians so much, I wanted to try something else from James.  I can honestly say I think Henry James writes women better than men.

Few characters in classic literature really annoy me.  I can tell you that Fanny Price (Mansfield Park) is at the top of my list and that Emma Woodhouse and Hester Prynne linger in the top 10.  It has been a while though since this list has grown, but I have to add whiny Lambert Strether to my #2 spot and close the book (ha, ha) on Henry James for a while.

A Special Thank You to My Dad

I've always considered myself to be well-read mostly because of the hefty amount of classics under my belt, but it wasn't until my Dad started lending me his books that I became widely-read. 

My preferred literary genres consisted of Chick-Lit and 19th Century British Literature until my Dad introduced me to two authors I'd never heard of before.  Robin Cook healded in a love for scientific thrillers and led to my reading a lot of Michael Crichton as well, and Nelson Demille ushered in an affinity for crime dramas - especially when John Corey was on the case.

These two new genres dumped a ton of boks into my lap that I couldn't put down.  I began checking the "coming soon" section on bn.com to see when these guys would publish again - thankfully Robin Cook writes a lot.  Eventually I started sending my Dad my copes of Cook and Demille as my collection became more current than his.

After my Dad died, all these books came to me.  Now they sit on my bookshelf, slightly out of place among Elinor Lipman and Jennifer Crusie but significantly more important than most of the books in my library.  They forever unite me to my Father (I love how books can connect people!) and constantly remind me that steppin gout of one's comfort zone (in anything) can yield something wonderful and new you never knew existed.

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan

The great thing about this book - you don't have to read through it. The structure allows you to open the book to any random page and find a unique "rule" for healthy eating. I did read through it though and, had I been able to get through it one sitting (having a 10-month-old makes that impossible,) I'd have finished it in less than two hours.

The moral of the story here is healthy eating can be done using common sense. Not so shocking. Of course I'm not making a good food choice when I reach for the box of Girl Scout cookies on the counter instead of an apple. Pollan gently reminds you of this and other common sense facts. The broad stroke here - eat wheat exists in nature, in reasonable portions, at a moderate pace.

This set of rules is complete in that it goes beyond what to eat and includes how to eat. Pollan reminds us to savour our food - stop rushing - while eating at the table with friends and/or family. He even okays leaving food on your plate (where were you when I was a kid?)

As someone who has overcome the picky eating disease, "rules" about eating have always bothered me. Even now, there's a lot I won't put on my plate, so when someone tells me what to eat - and it usually includes a lot I don't like - I get defensive. There's so much I don't like, if I cut out 'X' what's left? This thought never came up while reading Food Rules. Pollan doesn't tell me to never again eat a specific something, but rather he suggests I substitute something good when leaning toward something bad or at the very least to cut the bad down to a more moderate frequency (he'd hate that I have a Dr. Pepper every night with dinner.)

Pollan doesn't make me feel like I have to change my life, but he reminds me in quick, easy-to-read snippets what the best options are when it comes to food.

Something Dangerous by Penny Vincenzi

The second book in the Spoils of Time trilogy picks up as the children from the main characters in No Angel are entering adulthood. The entire second book focuses on this next generation of characters as they find love, have children, and decide what to do with their lives. Lyttons, the family's publishing house begins the novel as a viable career option for almost all of the children. Then, World War II breaks out and everything changes.

At Lyttons, Celia still holds a great deal of power. It's the only place where she can still control her children, keep them beaten down or draw them up as she sees fit. Being her children gives them no special treatment and no matter how old they get, they still have to contend with her professional opinions of them. These interactions have more affect on their personalities as adults than anything Celia did with or for them as children.

The focus goes beyond just Celia's children - Giles, Adele, Venetia, and Kit - extending to Barty, the adopted daughter, Jay, Celia's nephew, and Izzie, the child of a family friend. All of these characters, along with their significant others we meet along the way, struggle to find their own identities in their day-to-day life and even more so when WWII begins.

The War plays a much more central role in Something Dangerous. Although WWI happened during No Angel, it never becomes a key player in the story beyond how it affects London and life there. WWII, on the other hand, touches all the lives of our new set of main characters. All the boys (and even Barty) enlist. Lovers die, people's lives change forever because of permanent injury, there's even one harrowing escape from the Germans. In this book, the war is as much a character as any living person -- deeply sinking into the personal histories of this new generation.

I'm really still enjoying this series with two books under my belt and one more to go. I feel like I know this family personally. Vincenzi's story is so complete, even with so many characters to keep track of, and her soap opera-like plot twists consistently spice things up.

I love all the excitement and the historical context with it occurs in. A character going into labor while at work is exciting, but a character going into labor alone in her office while her husband is off at war and London is being bombed, is even more compelling. The history included in the narrative gives us a glimpse of all the experiences one had during the War and sheds a lot of insight into what went on beyond the battles and the bombing.

By the end of this book, you love and hate a completely different set of characters. Someone you may have felt sorry for in the first book you can no longer stand and people you found vapid and useless have no come into their own. You've watched a whole generation grow up not just into adulthood, but beyond, to the point where experience has begun to build wisdom. You've partaken in their joys and sorrows, watched them marry, have children, and begin careers. I can't wait to find out what happens to everyone next.