Book 27-The Man Without Qualities (40th book)

I finally finished book 27- The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. As I set out to write this I have no idea how I am going to summarize a three volume mega novel with a philsophical bent. The first two volumes I didn't like very much, but the third volume I adored. I am not sure what that makes the average for the entire novel in terms of rating, but I guess over all it falls somewhere around a 3 star novel.

The novel, featuring a man named Ulrich who opts out of life by taking a year holiday and doing nothing but thinking through life, has very little action in it. The essential plot follows a cast of characters who have banded together for the collatoral campaign, a project that is trying to come up with one idea to symbolize  the monarch's jubilee. Most of the novel consists of Ulrich playing the devil's advocate through a whole host of conversations with various people. He argues a great deal of the time from both sides of every argument which a lot of the time is highly irritating. The last novel takes place after his fathers death when he reunites with a sister he hasn't seen in years. They have an almost incestuous relationship as they both see each other as two halves of a whole. Ulrich's philosophy is finally solidified at this point in the novel.

One of my favorite tangents in the novel was Ulrich playing with the idea of soul. I actually really like the idea he has which is essentially that the soul is all the empty places inside of us not filled up by personality, societal views or personal feelings. Here are some quotes:

"Every dweller on earth has a tenth character, which is nothing more or less than the passive illusion of spaces unfilled"

" some people even think away out and beyond everything, of a God who has the missing piece of themselves in His pocket"

"all roads to the mind start from the soul, but none leads back again"

"the loved person seems to stand where otherwise there is always something missing"

"I called it the acoustics of the void"

The book also had a great deal to stay about the idea of "mystic rapture". I was ecstatic to feel what I have felt many a time  (and often describe as "so excited I could scream" ) laid out in such fantastic words. It made my heart burn with the excitement the book was describing. It is for this reason, that I can't say I hate this book. It is also this idea of connectedness with the larger world beyond that makes me love literature. When you see something of yourself, outside of yourself it is very heart warming and leaves you with a feeling that all is not lost in the world.

"all moments that had meant something decisive in his life ahd left him with the same feeling"

"all decisive moments of his life had been associated with such a sensation of amazement and lonliness"

"every sort of excitement that exceeds the normal very soon mists over with a patina of melancholy, absurdity and satiation."

"They call it an undoing of self, and at the same time declare they live more fully than ever"

"The heart 'ravenous and satiated' , as they say- suddenly finds itslef in those utopian regions that lie somewhere and nowhere between an infinite tenderness and an infinited loneliness"

The book also has a lot to say about love and what it means between a man and women, but also the love of ideas. Most of the characters are in love with someone, or over the course of the novel several someones. Diotima, Ulrich's cousin is intellectually in love with a member of the collatoral campaign and debates the entire novel whether to take this into the physical realm.

The most fantastic quote that Ulrich aid to Diotima was this:

"to strip to the skin, put arms round each other's shoulders and instead of talking, burst out singing"

and also encouraged her to  'so to speak touching him under his pscyhological loin cloth without shuddering"

There were a lot more that were interesting including these;

"...had entered the territory of intimacy where one reveals oneself to the other person in all one's emotional disorder"

"When do you understand another human being? You have to play along with him"


"It goes back a very long way, this desire for a doppelganger of the opposite sex, this craving for the love of a being that will be entirely the same as oneself and yet another"

"true love-sickness is not desire for possession, but only a gentle unveiling of the wordl itself"

Finally there is a lot that talks about morality. Ulrich never really officially pins down his philsophy of life, but essentially you are never left feeling that the world doesn't have meaning or that there isn't a God. Despite several arguements about good and evil and deconstructing them Ulrich still believes that they exist. This book talks a lot about how morality should be fun and that living a life consistent with your own philosophy of life should not be boring. It left me excited about life and with a feeling that one can have a personal view of the world, still believe in some form of universal truth, but yet also be open to the differences amongst people. By playing both sides of each arguement I really feel like Ulrich comes closer to the truth about life than a lot of other people. He plays with the idea of a both/and philsophy and also that the truth lifes somehwere in between polar sides of an argument.

"We ourselves must work out the sum he sets us"

"he regarded the problem set by every human life as one of these" (a math problem with a specific answer but no general one)

"nowadays every truth comes into the world split into two mutually antagonistic falsehoods"

"perhaps they're potentially good human beings. They don't lose that even as criminals"

"Why should moral people be so dreary...when their intentions are good ought to be the most delicious, the most difficult, the most enjoyable thing anyone can possibly imagine"

"All moral propostions, "Ulrich confirmed, ' refer to a sort of dream condition that's long ago taken wing and flown away ot of the cage of rules in which we try to hold it fast"

"For him morality was neither conformism nor the sum of acquired knowledge: it was  the infinite fullness of lifes potentialities"

"morality is imagination'

This book was fun, Ulrich never takes himself seriously and you feel light hearted and silly about everything the whole time. It is long, though, and daunting. Large chunks of the book at times seem unnecessary and the action is slow moving.  The book also doesn't come to a conclusion either because the author never finished the novel or he purposely leaves it vague. Either way, this book is likely not for everyone. I love philosophy and playing around with ideas in my head so for that I mostly enjoyed the book.

Book 26-Finnegans Wake (39th Book of 1001)

I am finally finished what I have taken to referring to as "the monster". Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce is a difficult but ultimately clever novel about the rise and fall of man. I have never been so glad to be finished a novel in my entire life, despite the very interesting subject matter. I am sad to say that I understood almost none of it. Essentially, I gathered an interesting collection of Biblical references, silly words and phrases that made me giggle and a general idea of repeated phrases that are used throughout the book. It wasn't until three quarters of the way through that I finally caved and tried to find a cheater guide to assist me. Even with the guide half the time I couldn't see what others saw. I decided I was okay with not understanding or grasping the book, but that I absolutly had to finish it before moving on to the next novel on the list. As I raged about the book to various people that would listen they tried to convince me to move on because life was to short to waste it on bad reading. I have discovered that I am stubborn though, and a far harsher task master than any teacher I ever had. Since I set for myself to read the 100 novels from Daniel S. Burt's book I actually want to do it. I have already had one "cheat" by only reading 2 of the 6 books of "In Search of Lost Time" or "Rememberance of things Past". I have promised myself I will go back when I am done though. Now I am proud to say that I accomplished it and I feel pretty good about pushing past all my anger, frustration and exhaustion. It is suprisingly exhausting to simply read words on a page without comprehension. I don't know how international students learn a second language by immersion. It hurts my brain.

So this is going to be a non-traditional book review since I can't tell you much about the plot and the verdict is still out on how much I hate or like this novel....

Here is a list of my favorite clever "portmanteaus" which are a combintation of two words to make another. Here is a good way to look at it in Joyce's words which I think describe a portmanteau well, "a word as cunningly hidden in its maze of confused drapery as a fieldmouse in a nest of coloured ribbons"

musaic=a mosaic of music
reamalgamerge= reamalgamating and merging
uniswoon= two girls swooning in unison!
chickenestegg= a clever combo which conveys the idea which came first the chicken or the egg
ould lanxiety= a reference to the song old lang sine but also including anxiety
pigstickularly= particularly but also conveying the idea of being pig headed or stubborn
"moanday, Tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday"= the days of the week depressing style!

The book has several really clever references to the biblical stories of the rise and fall of man. The actual story line for the most part involves several sexual indiscretions and the need for the characters to be redeemed and get back with their partners. I can't hate the book because of the clever portmanteaus and the cute biblical references that make me giggle.

"antediluvial zoo/ Noah's lark= a clever reference to the ark since antediluvial means "pre flood"  or something like that.

"they all were afloat in a dreamlifeboat, hugging two by two in his zoo-do-you-doo"- yet another clever reference to the ark, but also life in general

"the first babe of reconcilement is laid in its last cradle" a reference to Jesus

"by Allswell" the inception and the descent and the endswell of man is temporarily wrapped in obscenity"

Wow! What a great description of hope that Christian's have! There will be an all's well that ends well for everyone but it is temporarily wrapped in obscenity. I know he was making fun of religion but that actually makes me happy!

"the onesomeness was alltolonely" aww, a sad reference to God as being lonely.

"flash becomes word and silents selfloud" = a clever reinterreptation of a line from the Bible.

"This is the glider that gladdened the girl that lest tis the wind,that lifted the leaves that folded the fruit that hung on the tree that grew in the garden Gough gave"

A very rhythmic interreptation of Eve eating the fruit because of the "glider" or snake (aka Satan)

And another reference to Eve in the garden: "As the last liar in the earth begeylywaylayed the first lady of the forest"....the gibberish word in the middle is a clever combo of beguiled and waylayed!

"In the beginning is the word, in the muddle is the sound-dance and thereinofter you're in the unbewised again"

That is so beautiful and reminescent of the line from John, "in the beginning was the word..."

"All men has done something. Be the time they've come to the weight of old flesch" - What a beautiful way to describe the universality of sin and the human condition.

And Jesus is, "The child we all love to place our hope in forever"

There was also several very beautiful word combos that made me so happy because of the beauty of the imagery.

"star menagerie"
"Souls groupography"
"tidings of great joy into our nevertolatetolove box"
"the better half of a yearn or a sob. Its a wild kitten, my dear"

Finally, there are a lot of pop culture references such as nursery rhymes, songs, and stories thrown throughout the novel. I had the kids nursery rhyme about the blackbirds baked in a pie stuck in my head for days before I stumbled upon another cleverly hidden nursery rhyme. I wish I had written down the one about the blackbirds but it was only unconciously registered by my mind!

See if you can figure out these two:

"Flunkey footle forlaughed foul, writing off his phoney"

and this:

"yunker doodler wanked to wall awriting off his phoney"

Did you get it? Yankee Doodle the kids nursery rhyme!

And heres one that takes reading outloud:

"singaloo sweecheeriode"

Its the old hymn Swing Low, Sweet Chariot!

Oops, I have two last things to say....So the finally above really wasn't all that final! LOL.

Heres one thing that didn't fit in with the other sections. See if you can figure out what this says....this is just one piece of how hard it gets:

"bi tso fb rok engl a ssan dspl itch ina"

No? I was pleased as punch when I discovered of my own accord that it actually says "bits of broken glass and split china"!!! It is moments like that that made me LOVE the book, but it is such hard work and so unavailable to so many people....and ultimately 90% not fun to read that I don't think I can give it a high rating. That being said I don't think I can give it a low rating either since it is extremely clever and if it took as much mental effort to write as it did to read, James Joyce is either insane or brilliant (perhaps both)!

Lastly (and I mean it this time!) the Title in and of itself is brilliant Finnegan's wake has several varied meanings. "Finn" means to end but "egan" has overtones of to begin again. Wake is both a celebration at the end of life as well as to wake again. one of the two list I am using pointed that out to me. One of the last few statements in the novel whose beginning and end are joined by the first and last incompleted sentence making the novel one giant circle to be read again and again is Finn, again" helpfully pointing out that  the title has a double meaning.

The next novel on the list is "The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

The Night Circus- A Delightful tangent from list reading!

Such a pretty, glittery tale about magic! I alternately wanted to continue reading  and stop reading so the story didn't have to end. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is a 5 star book in my opinion. I knew I would love the book by the title, but I didn't realize how much.

I named my blog magic and mystery because to me those two things describe my love all things deep and spiritual. For me, magic is real (although not the circus and slight of hand variety) and mystery is what makes life worth living. This book has both elements to it and I just ate it up. I started the book as I started a very fun adventure to visit a friend. It was a perfect book to be reading  while on a journey.

There was a great quote about magic being the way the world is, "This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it"

The book finishes on one of my favorite themes. The magic of story and the healing power of  of deep truths in mythology, fairy tales and old stories. I have always believed that these things contain soul level truth. The book also talks about dreams and how we should all be living to our fullest potential. Both of these themes have always filled me with such glee. I discovered quite early the joy of living for things that make you happy (not hedonistic, bachanal pleasures but the things that make you tick). The things that make you come alive, are the things you should pour your life into. There were several awesome quotes about dreamers and the idea of story

"Someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in it"

"You may tell a tale that takes  up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose"

I have several of these stories and tales that I have read and shaped me for better or worse. Not all of them are beautiful tales, but all of them involve real life. Some on my list include: East of Eden by John Steinbeck, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Doestoyevsky and some of the more recent ones including A Trip to the Stars by Nicholas Christopher and About Grace by Anthony Doerr.

I have discovered two things of late. a) that I probably should have taken more philosophy in university because I love finding things in stories that hint at the meaning behind the universe  and b) that I really should have been an English major in university because of the sick pleasure I get from ripping apart a story and finding themes in it.

"The truest tales require time and familiarity to become what they are"

"He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales , wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives"

"There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path"

There was a lot about dreams and the story of Bailey who is a young boy who stumbles upon the circus is particularly heart warming as he discovers what it is he wants to live for. I love dreams. I would love eventually to do something that would help others discover that in themselves. But what job is that? Career counsellor? That's a piece of it, but so much more I am sure...

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees dawn before the rest of the world ~Oscar Wilde

The circus in the story was called "Circus of Dreams" in French. I thought it a most appropriate  name given that the majority of the circus was someones imagination made reality.

"But you built me dreams instead"

"Follow your dreams, Bailey...no matter what that father of yorus says, or how loudly he might say it. He forgets that he was someone else's dream once, himself"

"The Bailey he is now is closer to the Bailey he is supposed to be than the Bailey he had been the day before"

I guess that is all I will say about dreams and magic but I'll end this review with a description of some of the most beautiful things in the circus. A room filled with snow, a garden made of ice, a room with bottled scents, feelings and emotions, "unusually talented kittens" that jump through hoops, a star gazing room,  and a circus that appears suddenly in town without warning, is only open at night, dressed in black and white, peopled with victorian era ball gowns and dapper suits and fronted by a huge clock that has a multitude of beautiful moving parts. It is singularly the most beautiful thing I have ever heard of.

I'll leave you with one last quote to ponder. It tickled me pink and left me giggling to myself uncontrollably!

"...Not as one smiles at a random member of the audience when one is in the middle of performing circus tricks with unusually talented kittesn but in the way that one smiles when one recognizes someone..."

Book 25- Invisible Man (38th Book)

Wow! I was not expecting that! I didn't know much about this book but I knew it was a book about the African American experience. I was thinking it would be an interesting story but something that didn't really apply to my life beyond an interesting history lesson. Boy, was I wrong. The book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a poetical work of existential questioning. I found myself listening raptly to the story and struggling with my identity right along with the nameless narrator. That is the sign of a good book!
This book, first off, has a great opening and closing line. It starts with "I am invisible" and ends with "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies I speak for you?"

The book follows a nameless narrator through his life as he experiences the various possibilities open to an African American young person shortly after the civil rights movement. He wins a scholarship to an African American school and sells himself out to the vision of it, only to discover, after accidentally showing one of the white donors the underbelly of the poor community, that his beloved leader Bledsoe was a fraud who was selling out his students to further himself in a white world. Expelled from the school he is sent to New York to make his way in the North where a Black man is supposedly more free. As he navigates a factory job, Harlem and the communist group called, "The Brotherhood". He realized, as he states in the opening line, that he is invisible, simply a nameless cog in the great American wheel worthy of nothing but to be spit out and tossed away by his own Black brethern and White people alike. It isn't until the Prologue that the story finally reconciles itself through a beautifully spun  descriptoin of  human nature and what it is like to be a member of society and yet still an individual.

The book uses African American folk culture to show what it is like to be a minority in America. Some of the African spirtuals clearly show the nature of a repressed culture in their focus on death and irony.

One of the snippets of song that comes to the nameless narrator at a particularly difficult moment was "Well they picked poor Robin clean". Through his difficult experience he finally realized that the song was talking about how it was a reflection of the African American experience of constantly being torn down. One of the most poignant experiences in the novel for me was a trivial incident where the narrator runs into a cart selling yams. The smell tempts the narrator but reminds him of his "backward ways" back home.  He eventually caves and buys a few filled with memories of home but also shame. The silly line he creates to reconcile his two selves has biblical overtones to it, " I yam, what I yam".  One of the lines that shows me clearly what it must be like for a minority living in a dominant culture is this:

"You could cause us the greatest humiliation simply by confronting us what something we liked"

How horrible to hate yourself because you liked something different from everyone else. This is a truth that can span so many minority issues including race, sexual preference, religious differences etc, etc, etc.

The book also focuses on the competing pulls on man in general. The pull to be part of a whole, and also the pull to be an individual set apart from everyone else. There was one quote in particular that made me realize that minorities frequently only have identity as a member of a group. I suppose as a member of the "majority" the thought had never crossed my mind:

"Our task is making ourselves individuals. the conscience of race is a gift of its individuals who see, evaluate, record"

"I saw not a crowd , but the set faces of individual men and women." It was finally after the funeral of one of his collegues in the "Brotherhood" that the narrator could finally see his brothers and sisters in Harlem as individuals and not as a collective that behaved in  a certain way.

The book is series of brilliant existential questions about "Who am I? what am I? how did I come to be? What do I make of the life around me" ~ Ellison quoted in The Novel 100. I love most existential thoughts and have always been okay with the fact that I don't have the answers to all of them. The anxiety we all face in facing the unknown nature of these questions thrills me rather than causing me anxiety. The narrator ends the novel recognizing that though he is invisible he still has a responsibility to come out of hibernation and play a role in existing amongst others. Here are some great quotes in that vein:

"You ache with the need to convince yoruslef that you do exist in the real world, that you're part of the all the sound and anguish"

"step outside teh narrow borders of what men call reality and you step into chaos...or imagination"

"live is to be lived, not controlled"

"None of us seems to know who he is or where he is going"

"I have been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself"

"Once you get used to it, reality is as irresistable as a club"

"I was my experiences and my experiences were me"

Lastly, the book also hints at sin (both communal and personal), but also talks about the true meaning of life being that of Love. I loved that about the book.

"The fact is that you carry part of your sickness within you, at least I do as an invisible man"

"I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of it all I find that I love."

This project has been good for me to expand my horizons and read books that I never would have picked up in my life. Some lead for pleasant suprises and some lead to a new perspective. The next book on the list is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. I am excited to read it since I enjoyed Ulysses

The Nine Tailors (37th Book)

Oops!  I forgot to review this book on my blog although I did a super quick review on Goodreads. This is a classic british murder mystery. My favorite! This one was just as good as any of the others I have read though I am not sure that it is any better although it is on the list of 1001 books to read before you die. Keeps you guessing until the end which I always like. The predictable ones although fun and fluffy aren't as much fun. This book is set in the Fenlands in Eastern England and have some definite biblical flood references in it.  There are two mysteries to solve in this novel, one being the theft of some jewels many decades ago and the other being a more modern murder tied in with the jewel theft. The novel is a stuffy British Lord and his manservant who get trapped in the small town of Fenchurch St. Peter during a snowstorm. He stays in touch with the church rector and comes back to solve the murder when it happens.   The Nine Tailors is a reference to the church bells that are always present in the novel. They toll out significant events in the town and you get to learn a lot about bell ringing and the importance of what they are used for. I had no idea that there was so much to it. I would love to actually hear church bells run by an actual human being. I don't think it is something I have ever heard before and it sounds complicated, fascinating and beautiful. Anyways, I think that is about all I have to say about this novel. I was excited to read something by  Dorothy L. Sayers who is one of the founders of the modern mystery.

Book 24-Vanity Fair

It took me forever to finish Book 24 which is Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray but in the end the feat was accomplished and I actually enjoyed the process. I didn't doubt that I would, because although I didn't know much about the content of the book, by the title it seemed like my kind of sctick!

The book dubs itself  "A Novel without a Hero" and in a sense it is true. All the characters have the fatal flaw or "hubris" that Shakespeare so often potrays in his novels. Though each characters flaw is different in the end you see that they all made mistakes or lived selfishly at the expense of others.

For most of the novel I was convinced the dear old Dobbin, a devoted puppy dog following around Amelia, one of the novels two main characters, was a hero since he loved selflessly. I had to laugh after reading Daniel S. Burt's view on the book and also after coming to the end of the novel because I took a good hard look at myself. Of COURSE I would love Dobbin, because I too have been guilty of being someone who blindly follows people about who have no idea I exist. Amelia who Dobbin loved was also guilty of blind love as well, since she loved her unfaithful husband beyond reason. I think this quote best describes the flaw in their natures and mine: "The crime she had long ago been guilty-the crime of loving wrongly, too violently against reason"

And another: "And the business of her life, was to watch the corpse of Love"

The novel really focused on how Amelia did not see her husband for who he actually was, but for the exalted image of him she had created. When she witnesses him in unfaithfulness she stuffs the knowledge down inside of herself to avoid seeing it. I thought this extremely long quote showed the fate of a lot of women and men:

"Did she own to herself how different the real man was from that superb young hero she worshipped? It requires many, many years and a man must be very bad indeed before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such a confession"

You don't hear about idol worship in the church very often anymore, but I once had a professor at the Christian university I went to stop class to speak at great length about two troubled types of relationships one being Relational Idolatry and the other soemthing along the lines of Relational narcissism. I will always remember reacting violently to that message and seeing myself in it so clearly. If there is anything that people put on a pedastal and worship in this world it is often the idea of Love and sometimes another person.

It isn't until the end of the novel that Dobbin cracks and admits that his Idol has fallen off of her pedastal: " I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning"

What is so great about literature is that when our flaws, or values are seen outside of ourselves in literary form you can really see them clearly for what they are and their end results. It is much easier to digest them first as fiction and then apply them to our lives, then it is to see them clearly in ourselves.

I love how this novel starts as a walk through the Vanity Fair and that it really plays up the idea of life as a trip to a fair.

"Yes, this is Vanity Fair; not a moral place certainly, nor a merry one, though very noisy"

"The world is a looking-glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face"

"Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?"

I absolutely adore the idea that our lives our a story with chapters, climaxes, villians, heros, etc. Perhaps that is why I love fairytales so much.

The novels lighthearted nature allows for very hard things to be said. Apparently Thackeray turned to the use of the novel as a teacher after facing much  hardship in life.  Daniel S. Burt talks about the fact that this novel was written "informed by  his sense of the world  made up of fellow sufferer's and sinners".

There are so many other quotes that I loved, but the last thing I will end with is one German concept the book talks about that I super excited about. I nearly died when I googled what it meant since I thought the concept was spot on!

The term was, "Sehnsuch nach der Liebe" which loosely translated means "yearning or longing for love". The book describes it this way, "yearning after the Ideal, and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre their affections, which are spent elsewhere, as it were in small change"

Although the book uses the concept to talk wittily about how women have the closest bosom friends until they marry and turn their backs on all but their husbands and children after,  I actually think the term applies to so much more. So many of our addictions, obsessions, delusions and attempts at self soothing are all pale reflections of what we are really longing for which is to intimately know and be known by God. I have a magnet I picked up in Portobello Market, London which also talks about this too. It states, "We are all prostitutes and junkies". I love it because that statement basically means that we all sell our selves for something and all chase after other things as well". Kind of a harsh way to live life, but I actually find it makes me more compassionate towards others when I realize I am just as flawed as everyone else.

The next book is Book 25-Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, I am not so patiently waiting its arrival through the library system. Methinks I will not LOVE this book, but I am determined to read through the list and expose myself to new ideas.

And now for something completely fluffy...

WOW! What a good book! I loved Martha Grimes The Old Wine Shades. I expected to read it as a fluffy mystery (which it is) but it also comments on the idea of story as important to life and about stringtheory and Shroedinger's cat. So it goes a bit beyond your average British mystery. 

Here are a few quotes about story:

"We always  dream a story" referring to the fact that our brain makes up a story for the random images are mind flings are way when asleep. As bizarre as they are they are all incorporated into a tale.

"You dream in symbols, yes, but the symbols take place in narrative form"

"Are you saying we live for stories?"

YEEES!!!!

The books prologue ends with "Man walked into a pub..." and from there Richard Jury and the reader are hooked. The story told over a series of days in a series of pubs begins a very crazy and bizarre mystery that the reader wants to solve. You are left guessing right up to the last page and at the end of the book just want to keep right on reading. I can't wait to pick up the next Martha Grimes novel. Good thing I bought a stack of them at the mega used book sale/fundraiser in my town this fall.

I am still obsessed with all things British since my trip to the UK this summer and this book didn't let me down. Filled with just enough street names and tourist locations to keep me happy I gleefully snapped up things about Fulham Road, Hatchards, Fortnum and Mason and Picadilly.
"You've got to understand with Harrod's you're there because you're there. It's a destination place, you know like Las Vegas or the La Brea Tar Pits"

Although this book was obviously not on any of my great classics lists it was well worth the tangent to read it. you have to go fluffy this time of year and I didn't have anything holiday themed to read.