If you’ve read my blog at all, you know that I am not against magic in fiction.  In fact, some of my favorite books are fantasy books that rely heavily on the premise that I suspend my disbelief in magic.  These stories can be very powerful and can reveal a lot about what attracts us, motivates, and ultimately redeems us as human beings.

That said, I also believe that witchcraft is a real-world concept that is still practiced today.  While I am by no means an expert in the occult or in Pagan practices, I’m always a little wary when my fiction adopts certain characteristics that I associate with witchcraft.

Through reading and experience, I’ve come to define witchcraft as the desire for and pursuit of control over our environment and others.  It’s often presented as a reaction against centuries of female oppression–the only way for women to assert their independence and gain the upper hand.  While I am all for the feminist movement, I’m not one of those who thinks that in order to right the scales of justice, they must be tipped the other way.

That said, Bray’s novel treads dangerously close to that line.  I like that the novel deals with behavioral and societal norms for women in the Victorian era.  I like that the girls are seeking out ways to assert their independence.  I even like the concept of being able to open magical doors into other realms.  Where this all gets foggy is in the description of how women used this power in the past.

Now, the story falls far short of being a how-to book on witchcraft, so personally, I wouldn’t blink twice at recommending it for kids.  However, I do think that there are just a few too many references for my personal taste, and I think it may very well offend some of my more “fantastically” conservative friends.

I do need to mention the one redeeming virtue of the book, which I had to hold out until the bitter end to find.  When Gemma finally succeeds in her quest, it is the power of forgiveness that defeats the enemy.  There is just something so exquisitely beautiful about that…that forgiveness is a more powerful magic than anything evil will try to throw at us.

It almost made me want to read the rest of the series.  Unfortunately, I’m just a little too worried about what Gemma will cook up next, and my reading list is so very long, that I’ll most likely skip this series in favor of discovering another gem.

From a Christian perspective, the use of magic in this book is as inoffensive as you can get.  For the most part, anything magical is a nuisance at best, and down right eerie and evil at worst.  The only good magic turns out to be a sort of unnamed “deeper” magic that stems from the deep love we have for our family.

The book deals artfully with the loss of a parent as well as family dynamics and loyalty.  It might also be fun to have some discussions about Victorian traditions as far as mourning, parent-child relationships, courting, and gender roles.  It would be an especially good book for young readers who are interested in dance.  (Although the sisters have been forbidden from dancing since they are in mourning for their mother, the secretly dance every night.  Their activity actually seems to serve as their way of both honoring their mother’s memory and moving forward after her death.)

My only complaint about the books is that the children’s relationship with their father is very strained after the mother’s death, but this is never really fleshed out.  They make peace and get on the right track eventually, but the narrator never explicitly understands that the father’s withdrawal from the girls is a result of his mourning as well as his preparation to leave them to go to war.  As an adult, I understand this implicitly, but I’m not completely sure that younger readers would.  I’m afraid they would dislike the father and be unprepared to forgive him as he begins to reenter the girls’ lives.

The only other clue I will give you about the plot is that the castle they live in was once enchanted by a very wicked sorcerer-king.  While most of the magic has been undone, the girls stumble upon a secret passageway to an enchanted room, which is where they do their nightly dancing…and in this story, nothing good can come from dancing in a magic room.

I’m still not willing to completely give up the idea, though.

So, I guess the next strategy is to let this become a bit more organic.  I’ve tried to keep all of my entries very formal and focused on reviewing a particular book, but maybe I just need to set myself a goal of so  many posts so often where I can just ramble about whatever book I’m reading, or try to unpack the meaning of particular passages that I’m struggling with.

Who knows, maybe there’s even some sort of value in simply charting my progress through the ideas a book presents to me.  Maybe it will all be worthless drivel.  At least I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something.

I guess this can’t count as the first post in the new style, though, if I don’t actually talk about a book, so here goes.

I’m currently reading Labyrinth  by Kate Mosse.  I’m actually really enjoying it, even though it’s kind of a mystery, which I don’t typically go for.  I guess I don’t typically go for the formula mysteries…the ones where an author maintains a steady source of income by creating a detective-type character who gets into the same sort of scrapes, just with slightly different details.  (Sure, I believe there is a place for that sort of stuff in literature…just not on my shelves.)

The novel, however, caught my interest with (yet again) a rather interesting narrative device.  The novel is part historical fiction, part modern mystical mystery.  (Try saying that five times fast.)  I have found myself completely caught up in both plots.  Mosse expertly switches between the two with just enough to tie them together and quickly enough that you haven’t lost the thread of the one you just took a break from.

I love how she has woven church history into the earlier plot.  Very fascinating stuff.  Not sure yet how I’ll feel about the sort of alternative theology she is building up, but I’ll give her props for keeping me reading despite the sort of “all monotheistic religions trace back to some deeper, mystical religion that only an elite few have maintained.”  But I guess you can’t have a grail quest without something like the Knights Templar, can you?

Surprisingly, with only a hundred pages to go, I’ve sort of stalled out on  my progress.  I don’t think it has anything to do with the book, since every time I do pick it up, I want to keep reading.  I think it is more of an indication that my life is simply too busy right now.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to slow down a bit soon and knock out these last few chapters.

That will also mean that I have officially reached my reading goal for the year.  Now, do I relax for the rest of the year and focus on other things, or do I try to read ALL of the California Young Reader Medal nominees over the holiday?

I think what I love about Chevalier’s writing is that she certainly knows how to use metaphors and symbolism.  I read so much fiction aimed at young adults, that I tend to miss the finer points of literature.  But Chevalier’s writing is literary and sophisticated without being pretentious and difficult to follow.  She is not full of herself, but loves the craft, and while I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Girl with a Pear Earring, it didn’t fall far short.

The book is set in late 18th Century London and follows a family newly arrived from the country, particularly focusing on the boy and a girl he meets in London who tries to help him adjust to life in a big city.  One of their neighbors is the poet/printer/artist William Blake.  (I like that Chevalier focuses on the lives of those around artists, not on the artists themselves.)  While Blake does not figure heavily into the story, he provides the extended metaphor that illuminates the entire novel: the tension between innocence and experience.  Although I love how this concept is developed throughout the story, the rest of it just didn’t engage me quite as much as Girl With a Pearl Earring…still enjoyable, just not quite as powerful.

At any rate, it is still definitely worth a read (I’m sure I’ll be passing on my copy to someone soon), though there are some bits that are not appropriate for children, despite the young main characters.

Salerni teases you along with an intriguing tale until about two thirds of the way through the book when she finally rivets you.  The story is centered around the sisters who are credited with starting the spiritualism movement in the mid-nineteenth century.  (For those who might object to a book about spiritual mediums communicating with the dead, there’s nothing to fear from this book; the main narrator makes it very clear that the “communication” started as a prank and then became a business once her older sister discovered there could be a profit made from it.)

At the beginning, the book simply seems to be a story about how these girls came into the public eye and the various obstacles and dangers they faced even as their fame grew.  About half way through the book, it abruptly turns into a love story.  The first person narrator really seems to come into her own at this point, which I suppose is by design, but it makes the earlier narrative seem a bit mechanical.  While the earlier part of the book is mildly interesting, it almost ends up feeling disconnected from the later narrative.

What I truly love about the last part of the book is that it was entirely unpredictable for me.  By this time, I had realized that this was based on historical events, but refused to look up the real characters themselves, as I wanted to be surprised.  This meant that all my preconceptions of how a love story should be crafted could not be relied upon.  I found myself trying to gain reassurance from the idea that these types of stories always have some sort of happy ending, or at least morally fulfilling if not entirely happy.  Then I’d remember that if the Salerni was following real life events, she was not bound by the unspoken rules of the genre, making this a real nail-biter for me.

I also appreciated the afterward in which Salerni saved me the trouble of digging up what later became of my intrepid narrator.

Unfortunately, while I couldn’t put the book down once I got to the end, it left me with that sad longing feeling in my heart that I feel when either I want the story to continue or wish I could rewrite history for my new literary friends.

The other topic this book touches on that would make for some great discussions is how Christianity can be twisted to serve some pretty diabolical ends.

Unfortunately, as an adult, this book was a pretty dry read for me.  It didn’t really engage me until the very end, and even then I found it a bit predictable.

The novels follows three young girls that are all tied to the factory in some way.  Bella is a recent immigrant from Italy.  Mostly on her own, she has come to America in an effort to save her family from starvation, but finds herself exploited and cheated at every turn, both by her bosses and by her landlady.

Yetta is a young Jewish immigrant from Russia.  She and her sister are working to bring the rest of their family to America to save them from the increasing pogroms.  However, Yetta is determined to be treated fairly and is one of the first girls on the picket line when the strike begins, suffering frequent beatings and imprisonment.

Jane is a budding socialite from a family climbing its way to the top of New York society.  She has been brought up to wear pretty dresses, attend teas and balls, marry a wealthy man who will fatten her father’s assets and/or esteem, and have absolutely nothing but fluff between her ears.  But when she meets Yetta and Jane on the picket line, she sees in them a freedom that she has never known and yet longs for.

Haddix really does a lovely job of intertwining the stories of these three girls as well as weaving in the facts of the strike and the fire that so quickly followed the end of the strike and resulted in the deaths of so many young girls.  The novel provides some fantastic historical elements that tend to get glossed over in most public school history courses, where there is a race to finish the course in time for state testing.  It is a great starting point for conversations about women’s and workers’ rights, the historical need for unions, the ethical obligations of business owners, and the discrepancy between the poor and the wealthy and how much money they each think is “enough.”

I am starting to feel a bit repetitive lately, but this is yet another book that had a superb concept, but poor execution. The story is set in Medieval Europe where Nell, a commoner, serves as Princess Joan of England’s double. When the princess dies en route to her wedding to the Spanish heir, the Black Prince, determined to forge the alliance with Spain at all costs, forces Nell to take her place.

Now, up to this point, the story was rather interesting. Where it falls apart entirely is when we start to see the dark side of the prince. There are hints and suggestions that he is some sort of sorcerer, that he can control the group of rats that keep attacking Nell, her brother, and her protectors as they try to flee from the Prince, that the prince can somehow track their movements using an amulet that he gave Nell’s brother, and that her brother also has some sort of ability to heal those suffering from the plague.

While I have absolutely no problem with a magical bent to the stories I read, the problem here was that it was never developed. Everything was left at the level of superstition, which, while common at the time, ends up being highly unsatisfying in a plot.

I was also left disappointed when I actually did a little research into the time period. I wondered about the depiction of the prince–entirely made up, it appears. In the book, everyone seems to fear him and cower in his presence, including his own soldiers. He is depicted as a heartless, manipulative, evil man. Even a cursory glance into what is really known about the man himself turns up a prince who, while fearsome in battle and hot-tempered, was generally loved and admired. Again, while I don’t mind historical novels taking some liberties, this was a little too much for me.

Overall, as a story, this one isn’t bad. I can see young readers enjoying the adventure, but no one is going to fall in love with the characters or get excited about what happens to them.

I found Bloody Jack a bit difficult to read at first, because of Jacky’s broken English, but she cleans up her language soon after she joins the crew. How does the language we use define where we are accepted socially? I think that’s a great commentary in itself about becoming what you surround yourself with.

There are pirates in this book, but they are definitely the bad guys–enemies of the Royal Navy. A great read to mix in with all the other pirate-fantasy-adventure stories floating out there.

That said, this novel is incredibly sympathic towards Marie Antoinette. I suppose this is the same trend that I’ve noticed in novels about Anne Boleyn I’ve been reading. Of course, there is no way of really knowing what went on in the minds of these women, and much of what we do know about them is through a male lens. As a result, modern writers tend to Romanticize them, depicting them in a way that will appeal to our modern sensibilities. Thankfully, Naslund doesn’t go overboard with this. There are a few moments in the novel that are a bit more frank about Louis XVI’s and Marie Antoinette’s contributions toward the revolution. However, for the most part, Antoinette and Louis are depicted as charmingly naive.

In any case, it was a fun read. There is quite a bit of sexual content, though not inapproriate since it primarily focuses on the married couple. (Their marriage was not consumated for years, so much of the novel deals with Antoinette’s attempts to “inspire” her husband.) Surprisingly, Naslund is very careful to keep Antoinette’s relationship with Axel von Ferson strictly on the platonic level. I know there is a lot of controversy about this, but Naslund never even hints that there was anything inappropriate about their relationship.

Throughout the novel, there are hints of faith. Of course, Marie Antoinette was catholic, and it is touching to see how the events towards the end of her life draw her deeper into her faith. Part of this movement towards God is due to her devotion as a mother; her desire to protect her family was always a much stronger pull on her than the temptations of court life, but even more so when that life disolved.