Tag Archives: Orbis Terrarum Reading Challenge

The Girl who Played with Fire – A Book Review

The Girl who Played with Fire

I am convinced this book is wrongly named. Lisbeth Salander the protagonist is definitely not the girl who plays with fire – she is fire.

This book is the second in the Millennium series written by Stieg Larsson. I have reviewed the first book here.

While the first book introduces Salander as a character, this one goes in-depth into her troubled past, and the reasons why she is the way she is. The mystery is Salander itself.

Book Synopsis WITHOUT SPOILERS:

Mikail Blomqvist and another reporter from Millennium magazine are investigating a story on sex-trafficking – young girls are being brought from Eastern Europe, and forced into prostitution. This investigation threatens to bring down many high-ranking Swedish officials who are involved directly or indirectly in this trade.

Unknown to Mikail Blomqvist (the hero from the first novel), the investigation touches upon Lisbeth Salander’s past with whom he is no longer in touch.

When the journalist doing the primary research on this story is murdered, suspicion falls upon Salander. Blomqvist believing her innocent, starts his own investigation into what really happened.

My review WITH SPOILERS:

First off, I have to say I loved this book. It was fast-paced, gripping, with just the right amount of thrills. That said, it’s not perfect. Heck! anything rarely is!

However, one major plot point seems outrageously weak to me. It was hard for me to believe that the Swedish Secret Police (Sapo) would work so hard to maintain and protect Zalachenko (a Russian secret service agent who defected to Sweden) long past his use/value to Sweden. Even when he becomes a complete embarrassment, he is protected by them. Why? How much easier would it have been to kill and dispose him of quietly? No one would have made any fuss about it. If Salander could find and track him so easily, then it should have been a cakewalk for the Sapo. The addition of a James Bondesque villain (a giant man who is incapable of feeling pain) also brings down the standard of the book.

Apart from these issues, I did not find any flaws in the book. I even liked the mundane details of Salander’s life – the shopping in Ikea, her standard diet of Billy’s Pan Pizza. Those details showed just how isolated and lonely her life was.

I am rather puzzled at the inclusion of the character of Paulo Roberto (a
non-fictional boxer) who plays a minor role in the book. His role in the story is not at all relevant, and nothing would have been lost from the book, if his part in the story was not included. Anybody have any ideas why he has been included in the book?

If you close your thoughts to the above voices of reason, and if you loved Salander from the first book, you will love this book wholeheartedly.

Note: I am including this book towards the Orbis Terrarrum reading challenge.

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The Black Angel – A Book Review

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The Black Angel by John Connelly

Ever on the lookout for good thrillers, I checked out The Black Angel by John Connelly from the library (Just Books, yep I eventually switched libraries and I am extremely content with the change ).

The story starts off with a murdered prostitute. Because the police can’t care less about her fate, her cousin Louis (a reformed hitman), his boyfriend Angel, and his best friend Charlie Parker try to track down and punish the bad guys.

The reason for the murder soon becomes obvious – she and her friend have stolen a fragment of an ancient map. The pieces of this map, when put together reveal the location of the Black Angel – a fallen angel who wandered the Earth until he got into a confrontation with a monk and was embalmed in silver hidden within an ossuary in Sedlec in the Czech Republic. Apparently werewolves are not the only supernatural species with an aversion to silver! Now, the twin of the fallen angel is roaming the Earth searching for his twin so that he can free him up and together they can wreak havoc upon the humans.

Storyline sounding weird? Well, yes it is and it isn’t. The basic story is part of Christian mythology chronicled in the Book of Enoch, which talks about the fallen angels Ashmael and Immael who gloried in the death and destruction that they brought down on the earth in the form of wars, rape and murder. But then Immael was confronted by a Cistercian monk and in the ensuing battle fell into a vast vat of molten silver where he was trapped, cast as a silver statue, and hidden.

The murderer is a person named Brightwell – a huge monstrous man who appears to have supernatural powers that he uses to gruesome effect on his victims. Brightwell leads a secret group of people known as “Believers” who are all on the hunt for the elusive fragments of the missing map.

The two forces – the good guys led by Charlie Parker, and the bad guys led by Brightwell are now in a race to acquire the missing pieces of the map and figure out the location of the statue of the fallen angel. The clues eventually take them to the Sedlec ossuary where the final confrontation takes place.

My Review:

This book is a strange combination of Stephen King, Dan Brown, and Michael Connelly i.e a crime thriller with a supernatural bent. This is the fifth book in Connelly’s Charlie Parker series and frequently references the previous books in the series. As this is the first book I have read, a lot of the back-story references and the character development of the main protagonists were lost to me. Hghly recommend that readers read this book only after reading the earlier books in the series.

As for the story itself, it was good, but required a lot of editing. The actual story does not get going until after the first 200 pages or so. The beginning of the book is such a drag that I was tempted to just put it aside. It didn’t make sense at all for me to struggle through a thriller…a good thriller needs to be so taut that you just can’t stop wondering what is going to happen next. This one fails big-time on that score.

However, once the story starts to get going in the middle of the book, and I got used to John Connelly’s rather verbose writing style, I started to settle in and enjoy the ride. I loved the fallen angel mythology and how it has been integrated with the plot. I also liked the fact that, despite the touch of the supernatural you are never quite sure whether the villain is supernatural or not.

I loved the spook factor, and all the information about ossuaries, and bone art. I had absolutely no idea about the concept of ossuaries until I read this book. Actually, I did a lot of wiki reading along with this book to figure out for myself how much of the mythology was real and how much was fictionalized. Really, the whole concept of ossuaries and ossuary art (the use of human bones to create art) is very spooky. John Connelly’s research is also very meticulous.

I eventually googled Sedlec and got this awesome image from wikipedia. The chandelier below is made of all the bones in the human body. Spooky, but beautiful right?

Chandelier Made of Human Bones at Sedlec Ossuary

If you are interested, there you can find more imagery and information about the Sedlec ossuary at their official website.

Getting back to the book, the ending sucks big-time. It all ends in a shoot-out leaving behind tons of unanswered questions. But, I suppose that’s inevitable in a book of this kind.

Last Words: Good in parts. Strictly for Charlie Parker and John Connelly fans, and for folks with a strong stomach, and a fascination for the arcane and the esoteric.

P.S. I am including this book as reading towards the Orbis Terrarum reading challenge as the author John Connelly is from Ireland.

The Swan Thieves – A Book Review

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The Swan Thieves

What I feared would happen has happened. I have finished The Swan Thieves, which I had expressly picked up for the flight, even before the trip has started.

There were a lot of reviews on the web mentioning that this book is slow, so I didn’t really expect to finish it within 3 days – especially considering I have so much travel preparations to get through.

But that is what I exactly managed to do! Now, I am stranded with nothing to read, and will have to make a last-minute dash to the bookstore/library and pick up something to read.

I can’t say that I feel too bad about it because I enjoyed this book thoroughly – slow and all.

The story:
Robert Oliver is an extremely talented artist. When he attacks the painting ‘Leda’ in the National Gallery, no one can understand why. Oliver ends up in a psychiatric hospital and Dr. Andrew Marlowe who paints as a hobby is assigned to treat him in the hope that he will understand the artist’s mindset. Oliver refuses to speak, but continues drawing and painting the same woman over and over again. He also has in his possession a packet of letters from the late 1800′s that may hold the key to the mystery woman. Marlowe himself becomes obsessed, seeking out the women in Robert’s past in an attempt to help Robert.

The rest of the story deals with how he solves the mystery behind Robert’s illness and how he finds love in the process.

My Review:

I am always a little biased towards books that have present-day protagonists investigate mysteries of the past. Which means that I am going to be a wee little bit more effusive about this book than some other reviewers. But, this book is still not so good that I can ignore some of it’s rather weird plot points.

Yeah, it’s slow, and yeah, the male lead is as dull as ditchwater…but the writing, oh my gosh…the writing is simply superb. The descriptions of the art, and the Impressionist movement was extremely illuminating without being dull or preachy.

Kostova seems to have made a deliberate writing choice in describing the artist Robert Oliver through the eyes of his ex-wife, lover, and psychiatrist without having him utter more than a half-dozen words throughout the book. I like this approach as it gives him some mystery and savoir-faire thereby making up for Andrew Marlowe’s dullness. I also loved the love story between Robert Oliver and his wife, and really felt for them when it all started going wrong.

Now for the weird plot points…what do you think about a plot where an 18th century married woman has an affair with her father-in-law’s elder brother? And where the husband seems to be implicitly encouraging them to go ahead? I found this so weird in a very ugghh way. In fact, in the modern love story too, there is a significant age gap between the lovers. There is also a love story between a 50 something old woman, and a young bisexual man.

I guess Kostova is trying to make some point that love can come at all ages, and in all variations. However, she makes her point with a very heavy hammer, instead of being a little more subtle about it. Not too much would have been lost in terms of plot if Kostova had chosen to make her leading men a little bit younger.

In comparison with her first book The Historian, this one is a more mature and sedate book. I actually prefer it to The Historian, which was nice, but overlong, repetitive, and with a tame ending.

This book’s ending is also weak, but still much better than The Historian. What do you think? Have you read both her books? Which one do you prefer and why?

Note: Because parts of this book are set in France, I am going to include this book in my participation in the Orbis Terrarum Reading Challenge.

The Brothers Karamazov – The Finale

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After the pace and excitement of part III, I went into part IV with great expectations.

Unfortunately, the book does not quite deliver. I expected a lot more from Dmitri’s trial. I found these sections (the speeches from the prosecutor and the defense attorney) to be very tedious, with too much speculation, and psychology. All the events of Part III are rehashed again and again until I was bored speechless.

As a comparison, I found Crime and Punishment to be much more snappier and suspenseful.

There were some expectations that I had from the ending that the book just failed to meet. I was hoping for some hard evidence for or against someone. Instead, all we got was a half-baked confession and a suicide.

I also started feeling very disappointed with Alyosha’s role during this section. For the most part, he is a passive observer rarely playing any role in the proceedings. I was hoping that he would go through some kind of trial by fire just like his brothers and come out a stronger and better man. Unfortunately, he is written so saint-like that there were not many interesting options left to develop his character. Ultimately, the main protagonist in the story turns out to be the most boring.

Another issue I have with the end is the whole sections devoted to Ilyusha and Kolya. In the end, they turn out to have nothing to do with the main plot of the story. Wondering if I had missed something, I googled to find out that Dostoevsky was working through his grief over his son’s death. I am not sure whether that was enough reason to include this section in the book, because it unnecessarily added to the length without adding too much value to the plot.

However, all said and done, I am very glad I read this book. Some of his thoughts on people really ring true (at least for me). Consider the following snippet uttered by Ivan in part II:

The more I love mankind, the less I love people in particular. I often went so far as to think passionately of serving mankind yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for even two days.I can begin to hate the best of men: one because he takes too long eating his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps blowing his nose.

Plenty more physochological insights such as the above, as well as socio-political commentary of Russia during this period in history kept me going through this book.

But these are not the only strengths. This is one of those sweeping epic stories that has a little something that can capture the interest of most people (some amount of patience is required) who read this book.

Highly recommend!

A huge thanks to Dolce Bellezza for hosting this wonderful readalong. Head on over to her blog to get far more insightful reviews and discussions on this book.

You can find my previous posts on The Brothers Karamazov here and here.

I am also including this book for the Orbis Terrarum reading challenge.

The Poet – A Book Review

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The Poet by Michael Connelly

This is the year of thrillers, it seems. Last year, I read lots of young adult and fantasy, but this is the year of thrillers, and here is one more that I am reviewing for you guys.

I spent last night wide awake compulsively turning the last 100 odd pages of The Poet by Michael Connelly, and I can’t say enough good things about how well the book made that lack of sleep all worthwhile.

The book starts off with the following sentence:

Death is my beat. I forge my professional reputation from it. I treat it with the passion and precision of an undertaker – somber and sympathetic about it when I am with bereaved, a skilled craftsman with it when I’m alone. I’ve always thought the secret of death was to keep it at arm’s length. That’s the rule. Don’t let it breathe in your face.

The above sentence is how professional crime reporter Jake McEvoy introduces himself and his profession – a crime reporter.

He finds himself at odds with the above philosophy when his twin brother Homicide Detective Sean McEvoy is found ostensibly to have committed suicide. Although initially, Jake believes this version of events, while writing an article on police suicides for his newspaper, he stumbles across startling evidence that his brother might have been murdered, and that there might be a serial killer operating successfully across the country.

He goes to the FBI with this story, and soon a nationwide manhunt begins for a serial killer dubbed as the Poet. He is called the Poet because of his habit of leaving behind snippets of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry as the dead cop’s supposed suicide note.

The rest of the story moves quickly at breakneck pace, finally ending in a thrilling climax.

My Review:

I am a big Michael Connelly fan and am completely surprised that I had not read this early novel written by him – set in the mid 90s. It’s a shame really that I have waited this long to read this one. The reason being that many other thriller writers seem to have derived considerable inspiration from certain aspects of this story. And having read all these derivative novels, The Poet did not have as much impact on me as it could have had if I had been somewhat less exposed.

That said, he is easily one of the masters in this genre. And in spite of the datedness of this book (sections of the book describe digital cameras as a completely new technology), I still enjoyed and relished every bit of it.

One reason being the amazing way Poe’s poetry has been integrated into this book. I love Poe’s writing so when I recognized snippets of Poe’s For Annie as part of a suicide note, I was sold –

And the fever called “Living”
Is conquered at last.

How chilling to read that one liner as a suicide note!

Another reason why I like this book is the characterization of the Poet. This man is the stuff of nightmares, literally a monster walking amongst us preying on the unwary. Although, he is completely real, there is an almost other-wordly aura about the man, and his ability to commit murders and escape notice. Jake after a brutal final encounter with the Poet talks about looking into his eyes, which were a pool of darkness with the fires of pure-evil…something like that…I can’t remember exactly the way it was written, but when read at 3:00 in AM, it definitely sent shivers up my spine.

All raves aside, I don’t think this book is for everyone. People who do not like gruesome murders should not be reading this. In addition, the many insights into the killer’s mind are extremely disturbing especially the paedophile-related details. We all know that these people exist, but reading a book where the killer’s sick needs are openly discussed was very disturbing in the least.

It really made me wonder how safe we and our kids are…we presume our playgrounds and schools are safe, but could there be people out there looking on from outside wondering how/when to take advantage. I know that I will be much more alert than I currently am with regard to the safety and security of the snubnose.

That said…I loved this book

Note: I am including this as the first book in the Orbis Terrarum reading challenge (USA).

Challenging Myself in Different Ways

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You guessed it right (partly). Yes, I am signing up for another reading challenge. This one is the Orbis Terrarum challenge hosted by Bethany.

The Orbis Terrarum Reading Challenge

According to the rules of this challenge, I need to read 8 books written by authors from 8 different countries. This sounds absolutely cool because my reading is generally restricted to American, British, or Indian authors. I rarely venture out of this comfort zone, so I am hoping to diversify my reading by taking on this challenge.

Bethany also has options where bloggers can run mini-challenges (related to Orbis Terrarum), and I am seriously thinking about taking this on. This will be the first time I host anything on my blog, and I am really kicked about the idea I have for the mini-challenge. If I eventually decide not to host the mini-challenge, it will only be because of the lack of time or because all mini-challenge slots are full, or because…well, so many reasons really . Anyway…this is a heads-up from me regarding this.

I have yet to plan my reading for this challenge. I will probably take it as it comes and just enjoy the different books I will end up reading.

Apart from reading, I am thinking of challenging myself in some other ways as well, and one of them is fitness. This January, I gave up my Gold’s Gym membership because I was finding it too boring and expensive to boot. Basically, I had enough of lifting weights and just wanted to do something different and more outdoorsy.

Last year, I had taken on and successfully completed the Couch to 5-K plan. In the process, I realized I love jogging outdoors. This summer I decided to expand on the Couch to 5-K plan by going for the One-hour running plan. I am much more confident about my fitness this time around and am super-excited to get going.

For the upper body, I decided to try out the 100 pushups challenge.
The challenge is to train yourself to be able to do 100 consecutive pushups. That is, 100 pushups without a break. Old back and knee injuries prevent me from doing complete pushups but I am planning to do partial ones; even that will be challenging for me as I have stopped weight-training for months now.

Slowly, I am planning to add yoga and swimming to add some diversity to my fitness plan. Yoga and swimming are activities I enjoy doing, so it is absolutely no challenge at all.

The only challenge is finding the time to do it all, and balance work, life, and family throughout.

Well, let’s see how it goes. Looking forward to a summer of travelling through books (Orbis Terrarum), and pushing myself a little harder than I normally do while exercising.