The Grouchy Editor

by Charlotte Bronte

Until now, my exposure to Jane Eyre has been limited to four-letter answers in many a crossword puzzle.  I thought of Bronte’s 1847 novel as one of those stuffy classics that I really should read – someday.  So now that the deed is done, I’ve learned that the book has pleasant surprises … and also that it confirms some of my worst suspicions about 19th-century “chick lit.”

Good:  By far the biggest surprise is a creepy subplot about a mysterious entity that lives on the third floor of Thornfield, a family mansion that serves as most of the story’s setting.  This … thing, conjuring images of Linda Blair at her demonic worst in The Exorcist, likes to pay unexpected, middle-of-the-night visits to sleeping guests on the floor below.

Bad:  There is much character analysis by narrator Jane, who goes on ad nauseam about everyone’s good qualities, bad qualities, religious beliefs, social standing, grooming habits, forehead shape, and bristly eyebrows.  But that’s nothing compared to poor, repressed Jane’s endless self-analysis and, at times, self-pity.  Can you say, “inner turmoil”?

Good:  The best novels allow you to completely escape your own world, and there’s no greater diversion from the 21st century than 19th-century literature.  Bronte’s England is at once familiar and foreign, and it sucks you in.

Bad:  Jane Eyre is all about character, which is fine, but its plot doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.  There are amazing coincidences (Jane, near death in an unfamiliar part of the country, just happens to be rescued … by a man who turns out to be her cousin), and contrived plot developments (a character who creates an obstacle for two lovers commits suicide, thereby clearing the way for a happy ending).

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by Marie Belloc Lowndes
                                                             

Lowndes drew inspiration for this 1913 novel from the Jack the Ripper slayings, but the author’s genius lay in whom she chose to play her protagonist:  a frumpy, middle-aged landlady.  Just as Dostoyevsky placed readers inside the guilty mind of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Lowndes puts the psychological in “psychological thriller” by lodging us firmly within the rattled thoughts of “Mrs. Bunting,” an oh-so-proper English maid who grows increasingly paranoid, fearful, and – hold on – attracted to the mysterious gentleman who takes rooms at her boardinghouse … and who also takes late-night “walks” through the fog-shrouded streets of London.

Lowndes draws parallels between the way we deal with horror in the abstract (visits to the “Black Museum” and Madame Tussauds are good fun) and the reality of having a serial killer in your house (not so fun).  Above all, The Lodger is a testament to the power of suggestion, because not knowing what’s in the lodger’s handbag is more chilling than actually knowing.

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

 by Ernest Hemingway

I wonder if this Hemingway memoir would have such a legendary reputation if the people populating its pages were lowly Bill the bartender, Carl the concierge, and Connie the coat lady, as opposed to Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and other luminaries from the “lost generation.”

I say that because the stories themselves, derived from Hemingway’s life in 1920s Paris, aren’t all that intriguing – at least on the surface.  Hemingway has lunch with a poet; Hemingway edits a woman’s manuscript; Hemingway goes for a walk; Hemingway has lunch with another poet.  And the celebrated artists we meet through “Papa’s” pen come off less mythic than all-too-human:  We learn that Ford Madox Ford had body odor, and Fitzgerald suffered from penis-size anxiety … if you believe the author, who claimed to be a stickler for “truth.”

But Hemingway’s writing style grabs and holds.  His voice is strong yet remote, as if he noticed everything but none of it really affected him.  He describes a person or situation, and then sums it all up with some pithy, perfect observation, and suddenly those mundane sidewalk strolls and lazy lunches become compelling.

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 by Frederick Manfred

When I was a kid, my parents used to drop me off at Blue Mounds State Park in Luverne, Minnesota, near the confluence of that state, South Dakota, and Iowa.  Not only were the park’s pink, quartzite cliffs spectacular, but in the distance I could see buffalo grazing, and nearby was the futuristic-looking (this was the 1960s) home of a real curiosity:  a man who wrote books for a living, name of Frederick Manfred.

So it was with a mix of nostalgia and intrigue that I recently picked up Manfred’s Lord Grizzly, a National Book Award finalist in 1955 and the story of Hugh Glass, a real-life mountain man who survived a bear attack and subsequent abandonment in 1820s South Dakota – not far from my Blue Mounds stomping ground.

Lord Grizzly invokes that long-ago land of Indians, grizzlies, mountain lions and buzzards, but Manfred recreates it to a fault.   The book reminded me of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain with its endless depictions of wilderness flora and fauna – nirvana for naturalists and American West fans, I’m sure – but not my cup of tea.  Old Hugh’s cumbersome crawl across the Midwestern Plains had nothing on my tedious trek through 100 pages of riverbeds, sunsets, and prairie-dog villages.

The plot is about Glass’s quest for revenge on the men who left him for dead, but the theme is man’s struggle between his desire for freedom and the bonds of society.  Manfred seemed to prefer the former; for me, those daylong prowls in his Blue Mounds backyard were wilderness enough.

  Blue Mounds State Park:  my childhood playground and Manfred’s backyard.

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Suzanne Collins 

The Hunger Games is a pretty good “young adult” book.  If that sounds condescending, I apologize, but the story has just a few too many silly contrivances, shallow characters, and teen-angst moments to transcend its Y.A. genre.

There are valid reasons why Games has become a cultural phenomenon:  The feisty heroine is appealing, and Collins creates some genuine suspense in a futuristic North America where 24 teenagers engage in a televised fight to the death.  Collins also introduces some interesting themes – including class warfare – but what really sets Games apart from ancestors like The Most Dangerous Game is its “reality TV” angle.

The protagonist’s romantic dilemma of choosing between two boys (neither of them particularly well written) is probably of interest to teen girls only.  But her struggle to survive the games while simultaneously pleasing an audience – it’s all being shown on live TV – is often intriguing.

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Rachel Maddow

Reading a book like this one can fill you with hope or despair.  Hope, in that there are still good Americans (the one percent of our population comprising the volunteer military) and vital journalists like Maddow; but also despair, because as the proverb says, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The cycle goes like this:  Presidents and institutions gain power and then proceed to abuse or misuse it.  There is public outcry, restraints are instituted – and those presidents and institutions resist mightily.  Good intentions lead to unforeseen disaster.  These patterns are repeated throughout history.  Your choice, as an average citizen, is to be outraged, depressed, or desensitized.  Maddow’s book makes the case that, since the Reagan administration, Americans have become desensitized to war, and this attitude is encouraged by politicians (right and left) who prefer that most voters be removed from the actual cost of endless military adventures.

I suppose it’s a product of  my age, but I believe that a lot of the material in Drift would have outraged me when I was younger.  Now, mostly, it just depresses me.

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by Jon Ronson

Ronson is a peculiar fellow.  At times, while reading his descriptions of the charm and deception utilized by psychopaths to get their way, I wondered if perhaps Ronson himself was a psychopath, using his considerable writing skills to mislead us and cajole us into buying his book.  For one thing, the title of The Psychopath Test is inaccurate:  Yes, Ronson unearths a psychopath or two, but mostly he presents a series of encounters with people who are merely odd – or possibly crazy, but not psychopaths.

Test is no scholarly analysis of mental illness, but it is a fascinating read, letters from a Caspar Milquetoast with balls (Ronson) who passes on the unwelcome news that all of us harbor some of the traits found on the Hare checklist of psychopathic symptoms.  There is also the unsettling possibility that – with all of our recent talk about the wealthy “one percent” – we should perhaps be focused on a different “one percent”: the estimated number of psychopaths in our midst.

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                                                         by Bill Maher                                                                     

I’m tempted to call Bill Maher a genius – but if I did that, I might be accused of self-flattery, because I happen to agree with about 95 percent of his opinions.  No, that’s not true:  96 percent.  If you lean left like me, Maher is your man, because he counters any “bleeding-heart-liberal” charges with take-no-prisoners wit.

As Maher points out in the foreword to New Rules, this is primarily a joke book, with hundreds of one-paragraph zingers targeting pop culture and everyday life.  The jokes are usually clever, often true, and frequently funny.  But Maher also includes dozens of longer essays – mostly about politics – and this is where he does us pinkos proud.

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Janet Evanovich

Reading an Evanovich “Stephanie Plum” novel is a bit like watching an episode of I Love Lucy.  Everyone is silly and everything is far-fetched – and yet it’s often quite amusing.  Evanovich goes all supernatural on us in her “between-the-numbers” books, including this one, which makes the proceedings in Plum Spooky even more ridiculous than usual.

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by Ross Macdonald

As I was reading this mystery, I was reminded of a Hollywood legend about the movie script for another classic detective story, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.  Supposedly, the novel’s plot was so convoluted that at one point the screenwriters contacted Chandler to ask him who was responsible for the death of one character.  “They sent me a wire,” Chandler later said, “asking me, and dammit I didn’t know either.”  The Chill, in which Southern California detective Lew Archer attempts to solve several murders, is all plot, plot, plot – but Macdonald’s dialogue is snappy, his action is fast-paced, and his characters are colorful.  Best of all, the denouement features a wonderful twist –  and it doesn’t cheat.

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