3 Random Reviews 4 U

Troubling Love, Cluny Brown & Désirée

Dear reader! It’s the Friday after the Friday I wrote to you saying that I wasn’t reading much, and I still haven’t read much!

Not entirely true. I did finish The Maltese Falcon for my beloved podcast (Something We Read™ (out next week)), and I started Eating Bread and Honey by Pattiann Rogers, a collection of poetry that I am thoroughly enjoying. I was being strategic when I started the poetry, thinking that maybe I could get through it quickly and write about it for you this week. But I don’t want to get through it quickly, so you’ll just have to wait!

No one asked for these explanations, but I’m giving them anyway because I feel I owe it to you. It’s nice to owe you.

You may be thinking, Eve, what is Something Eve Read if Eve isn’t Reading? Great question. I don’t know, but I shan’t be having an existential crisis about it anytime soon. Instead, here are three books that I read this year, now months ago. I liked them all, but didn’t feel like writing about them after I read them. Now I’m going to force myself to write about them because I owe you.

You’re welcome, you deserve it (and probably more), enjoy.

---

Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante

Troubling Love was my most recent read of the three (July, I think), so it feels like a good place to start. It’s the story of a woman—Delia—who recieves news that her mother has died unexpectedly. Actually, the news she recieves is that her mother’s body has been discovered, washed up on the beach in only her bra. Disturbing on it’s own, but even more so because Delia’s mother got on a train from Naples two days earlier to come visit her in Rome.

Or at least she was supposed to. But then there were the strange phone calls. The unknown male companion. The bra itself—not something her mother would have ever worn.

Thus begins Delia’s unraveling: both her active attempts to unravel this confusing situation, but also the unstoppable unraveling of the present into the past, and the resultant unraveling of Delia’s own grip on reality. She is digging for the truth, and as a result finds herslef standing on the edge of a virtiginous cliff, and we alongside her.

Of course, Delia is trying to figure out what happened leading up to and during the two days between her mother’s supposed departure for Rome and the discovery of her body. But in the midst of that, she’s reckoning with the fact that she may not have known who her mother was at all. She’s also reckoning with the role she played in determining who her mother was and who she would be percieved as. The duality of the mystery—both the literal version of it and the more psychological version—were enthralling. Not that Ferrante’s writing gives any kind of out, even if you wanted one.

I find her language to be extremely forceful. I was a big fan of the Neopolitan quartet back when I read it, which was admitedly a while ago. Troubling Love dealt with many of the themes that crop up over there but more aggressively, and in a way I found more difficult to stomach. I don’t mean that in a negative way necessarily.

---

Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp

Casting my mind a bit further back, we come to Cluny Brown, which was recommended by Read Like the Wind in May. I read it in short order, since the Strand happened to have a copy in stock.

Orphaned (though by this time around 20 years old) as a baby, and raised by her plumber uncle, Cluny is a dear, and Cluny is a whole lot of trouble. She might be a dear because she’s a whole lot of trouble. Early in the book, Cluny is home alone when a call comes in for plumbing help. The dear and troublesome thing figures that she can handle this one on her own and sets off with her uncle’s tools. After the necessary unclogging is done, it seems only natural that the gentleman she assisted should offer her a dry martini (her first ever!).

He’s just inviting her to stay by for a party he’s hosting that evening when Cluny’s uncle busts in. She’s excited to see him, the gentleman less so. When, having been swept out of this precarious situation, she informs her poor uncle that she almost took a bath to clean up before the cocktail, it’s the final straw.

Cluny Brown just does not know her place. To help her learn where it is, it’s into service for her. Meaning, of course, since we’re in the 1930’s, that it’s time for her to become a maid in an aristocratic household—the Carmel’s to be exact. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the reader, Cluny’s spirit is not easily constrained by apron strings. She is an individual and won’t be tamped down.

This makes her supremely likable—plain in the face, but a real charmer with a mind of her own. The grown up’s Amelia Bedelia (iykyk). Her character alone would be enough to make this a recomendable, entertaining read. On top of it though is Sharp’s….sharpness. The notion that our little flaws and idosyncracies are just what make us charming isn’t reserved for Cluny alone. The writing is reliably clever, and even the most minor characters come to life.

---

Désirée by Annemarie Selinko

Last but certainly not least, we have Désirée, which was a birthday gift from my grandmother. I read it in March after returning from Paris. This is relevant context because it is the story (fictionalized) of Napoleon Bonaparte’s first love! Who doesn’t love a little travel inspired reading?

This novel is written as a diary, starting in 1794, less than a year after Marie Antoinette is guillotined. Our main character, Citizeness Bernadine Eugenie Désirée Clary is 14 years old. It concludes in 1829 on the evening before her coronation as the Queen of Sweeden.

I cannot stress enough how totally berserk this story is. And it’s TRUE. Fictionalized yes, but true. That’s really my main takeaway and what still sticks in my mind all these months later. I had a vague sense of the events of the French Revolution going into this book, but this book was a great reminder that I know literally nothing! There is so much to learn.

One of my favorite element of the novel was Désirée’s relationship with her husband, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. Yeah, yeah I’m a sucker, but it’s just an incredible love story. It’s written as a diary afterall. Yes, history is happening live all around her—quite often in fact, she has a hand in making it happen—but she’s a human being too.

Selinko spins a captivating tale that centers this fact, while also working in just an outrageous amount of historical infomration. There were moments when it lagged (it’s almost 600 pages long), but for the most part, I could not wait to find out what happened next.

---

That’s all from me for now! Next week will be my companion reading report for The Maltese Falcon (episode out on Tuesday), so you know you can rest easy knowing you’ll get at least one more book reveiw from me.

Beyond that, in case anyone is worried and wondering how I’m planning to save this missive from becoming totally bookless in the event of an ongoing reading slump, I’m happy to report a that I do have a simple 8 step plan.

1. Eating Bread and Honey

2. Intermezzo—yes, I’ve been talked into it already

3. Probably a regency romance in here

4. The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt

5. Whatever Kathryn and I choose for our December podcast read

6. Something wintery by Agatha Christie

7. Not sure but I’m sure by this point I’ll be just absolutely on a roll, reading 3 books a week

8. It’s Christmas now

Don’t hold me to it or you might be disappointed. Love you, bye!

---