Library Corner

As a Criminologist myself, I have subconsciously kept away from thriller and crime books.  Being in a book club however has meant that I have had to read books that I would otherwise side-line.  So it was with reluctance that I read Child 44.  I also studied and later taught world history so this book brought together many of my interests.  It is a book about a serial killer in Stalin’s Soviet Union, a time and a place where the mere idea of crimes existing was taboo and unaccepted, being deemed existing only in Capitalist systems.  The plot weaves from one character to the next and I did warm to the disgraced MGB policeman who tries desperately to get to the truth.  His marriage is a failure, based on his wife’s fear of him and in the end, he is very much an ‘ordinary man’ caught up in a political ideology that was the basis of the Soviet Union at that time.  There is enough suspense in the plot to keep the pages turning although for me, the gruesome murders of young children was disturbing, even though this is a book based on a true serial killer.  In the end, the book took me right back to one of the first essay’s I had to write for my undergraduate course, and one which I have endlessly debated over the years in my different classes since: ‘what makes someone a serial killer?’

This book is set in the 1870′s USA as well as present day-two stories about Latter Day Saints.  The historic is about Ann Eliza Young, who divorces her powerful husband Brigham Young (leader and Prophet of the Saints) and sets herself on the path to end polygamy.  The present day is set around Jordan Scott, a young man who has been thrown out of the modern-day Latter Day Saints and who is trying desperately to find out the truth behind his father’s murder.  This book intrigued me from the onset.  The resilience of Ann Eliza Young in facing the challenges and struggles of women under such testing conditions was inspiring.  The same inspiration came from reading Jordan’s story of his mother and her relationship with his father.  I was interested to read about polygamy in the Western world and this book confirmed for me my personal understanding of how patriarchs in all societies use their positions of power to abuse the rights of women and children for their own personal gains. Murder, power, abuse, control, mystery and survival all come together in this well-written and immensely thought-provoking book.

This is an interesting insight into the class differences of India, for those who remain oblivious to these.  We see India though the eyes of Balram Halwai, a sweet maker by caste, yet a White Tiger looking for his freedom.  As the driver of a rich, corrupt family which constantly bribes officials from politicians to policemen, Balram sees and hears all, which ultimately he uses to escape the shackles of his imprisonment from his master.  Amidst the prostitution, corruption, filth, and deprivation, Balram bides his time until he comes out of the darkness, and crosses over into the light.  I found this novel to be worthy of the Man Booker prize it won; as a first novel it kept me interested and also amused.  I was disappointed by the ending and felt my enthusiasm deflate by the last chapter or so.  It is similar to other books that I have read on India and its class system, especially in terms of the pollution, corruption, prostitution etc.  The consensus in our group was that this was infact a really good read.  We were interested to ask whether it accurately portrayed India and in the end were in agreement that it did reflect the sad realities of many of India’s poor and deprived.  It was particularly significant for us living in Kuwait where many of us have housemaids and hired home help.  I also thought it would be interesting to hear from those who have been brought up with different values and experienced these caste differences first hand,  who might therefore have an appreciation for the differences, more than perhaps we could.  A really interesting book, that is written in a very simplistic style, and manages to balance harsh realities with humour.

I usually stay away from suspense of murder-mystery books but had to read this for our book club.  And once again, how pleasantly surprised I was at the way I received it.  The story, set in 1867 Canada tells of the murder of a French man called Laurent, after which, a local boy called Francis disappears.  The narrator is Francis’ mother, (Mrs. Ross)who in a quest to prove her son’s innocence, sets out to find him, travelling on foot through the vast forests and landscapes of Canada.  What is interesting is that as a young woman, she breaks all traditional rules by travelling with a Native Indian tracker called Parker, and throughout the book there is a feeling that some romantic relationship will emerge between the two.  The book highlights the racist beliefs of the time that White people were inherently more intelligent than the native Indian’s, something that is presented as an indisputable fact by characters such as Storrock, who at one point in the book states that Kahon’wes, a native Indian was an intelligent writer and journalist, gifted and educated and must therefore have white blood in him.  Such views, along with beliefs about women’s roles and the rules that governed their behaviour, reflect the time in which this novel was set.  The significance of the book’s title emerges when we hear of the disappearance of a couple of local girls and it is widely believed that they must have been eaten by wolves.  It is Parker who tells us that wolves do not attack people, that they are curious of people but do not attack without provocation, hence their tenderness.  He also points out that wolves would not eat an entire corpse so their would be traces of a corpse if this did happen. In the end, we realise that the real tragedy is that in this story, the men are actually more dangerous than the wolves (particularly Stewart, Line’s lover).

The best part of this book is the description given by the author of the landscape and the bitter cold weather, with snow making travel difficult and dangerous.  The first comments at our book club were about how we all could actually ‘feel’ the cold while reading the book.  I  know as I stayed fixated to the book I was every once in a while checking the temperature of the room, convinced that it was getting colder and colder (and I read this book in November in Kuwait when it was still warm). This is perhaps the best asset of the book, especially given that Penney has never travelled to Canada.  Her descriptions are powerful and compelling.  The book also had some very scary moments, one scene in particular when Line and her children are stranded in the middle of nowhere and have no sense of direction.  There is a cold realisation that this could be a reality from which they never survive.  Such images challenged our otherwise romantic notions of the snow (I felt happy reading this nearing Christmas time when I have beautiful images of snow and crispy fires burning to keep us warm).

The book had some interesting sidelines, though the end was incomplete which some book club members were disappointed about.  We were not sure about what had actually happened to the missing girls, though we were given a few inconclusive leads.  Other questions that remained unanswered were ‘Why had Mrs Ross been in an Asylum and what was the link with that and the story?’, ‘What happened in the end to the Tablet, and had it ever been significant?’ and ‘What was Mrs. Ross’ first name?’.  This is a book I would recommend to other readers.