Janet Gleeson - The Arcanum

Old-fashioned and dowdy are probably the words most associated with porcelain these days. But once it was nothing less than white gold, an art form so precious and admired, so exotic to Europeans that when the first pieces started making their appearance in Europe, Chinese porcelain collecting soon became the hobby of kings everywhere.

For a king to be able to produce his own porcelain, to crack the Arcanum used by Chinese artisans, was a dream on a par with possessing the alchemic formula to transform base models into gold, so close in value were the two materials in XVII century Europe.

“The Arcanum: the extraordinary true story of the invention of European porcelain” narrates the tale of the man who was first able to produce porcelain, Johann Frederick Bottger, as well those of a couple other historical characters that would help shape the famous Meissen manufacture, after Bottger passed away.

Still in his early twenties Bottger was already on the run, because of some unfulfilled promises: more specifically he had claimed he could change copper and silver into gold. Even though he had managed a good sleight of hand before, when observed carefully he was unable to repeat the trick and had to flee in order to escape the wrath of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.

But Bottger wasn’t (just) a con artist: trained in the ways of alchemy he straddled the line between magic and science, a line that was barely visible in the XVIII century, anyway. When the king finally captured him and decided to spare his life, Bottger swore he would give him the secret of porcelain – and kept his promise.

After experimenting with different combinations of regional clays and other substances, after perfecting the then existing kilns, Bottger made Augustus a very wealthy and envied man, indeed. The factory was set up in the town of Meissen and its secrets set under lock and key with good reason. There were always a couple of spies around trying to snatch the Arcanum for other monarchs.

Bottger’s chronic depression, (he was after all, a royal prisoner until his last years and kept up his impossible search for the alchemic secret of gold – the price of his freedom) made him turn to alcohol and over the years commit more than a few indiscretions to fellow factory workers who were quick to run away with the secrets and establish manufactures in nearby kingdoms.

Incredibly, only decades after his death would Meissen become a viable economic venture – Augustus may have enjoyed the perks of his own personal porcelain vending-machine but he would seldom pay for what he purchased - or salaries for that matter.
I knew of the name Meissen only through its figurines featured in a short chapter in Bruce Chatwin’s Utz – I read it somewhere in the foggy night of adolescence and for some reason, even though I don’t recall the actual narrative, historical figurine collecting became a fascinating hobby to my mind.

In “The Arcanum” I learnt that figurines were actually one of the last stages of innovation in Meissen: dinnerware was the bread and butter of porcelain for many decades. Figurines were actually the brainchild of Johann Joachim Kaendler, who looked at the sugar and marzipan statuettes that adorned the banquet tables of the filthy wealthy (like spoiled two-year-olds they had to be continually entertained, even between courses) and thought of turning them into a perennial object. Soon, Meissen was cranking out shepherdesses, arlequins and pierrots like there was no tomorrow. And exorbitant though the prices might be (a Meissen factory worker, for instance, could never dream of buying a porcelain piece in his lifetime) there seemed to be no shortage of collectors.

Janet Gleeson’s book is an easy read although, I must be honest and say it gets a little tedious at times. In think it’s the single subject thing: I felt the same with "Tulipomania" – these are interesting subjects but if you adhere too close to the script it starts lagging. I prefer it when single subject books take the transversal view and pull every curious or interesting story into it, even if it’s not strictly related to the narrative at hand. You might end up with a mammoth of a book like "The Song of the Dodo”, “The Medici Giraffe” or “Krakatoa”, but those are the kind of books that really make a difference in your reading life.

So I guess the conclusion is that you can take or leave “The Arcanum” (unless you are a huge porcelain fan – a slight interest doesn’t qualify) and it won’t make much of a difference, although I will say this: a decorative arts book without a single illustration is a publishing offence and should be prosecuted somehow.

Marina Belozerskaya - The Medici Giraffe

“The Medici Giraffe” is a remarkable book that spans from about 250 years before Christ up until the last century. From ancient Egypt to the Aztec court of Montezuma, from the court of Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor to the opulent Florence of Lorenzo de Medici and from the menagerie of Josephine Bonaparte to the vast hills of Hearst Castle in California the author never falters.

Marina Belozerskaya’s book is subtitled “and other tales of exotic animals and power”, so expect no fuzzy tales of roman emperors and the love they lavished on favorite pets. While this was also a reality, this book focuses on the many ways exotic animals served as currency to those powerful enough to obtain them. “Exotic” is the keyword here – it was because particular animals were rare and strange that they were used as a way to gain leverage, impress neighboring rivals, give a little push to whatever diplomatic conundrum was going on at the time. Vast menageries with hundreds of animals from hundreds of different locales (such as the one Spanish conquistadores found in Montezuma’s court) were a way to state that their owner was a man respected and feared in all those faraway provinces. Montezuma even kept humans in his zoo – albinos, who were considered precious additions. The Spanish took this as a further proof of the Aztecs godless ways, and proceeded to slaughter them in a cruel and vicious fashion, more to the liking of Christ’s soldiers, apparently forgetting all the dwarves, hunchbacks and hairy men kept in European courts for the entertainment of their monarchs.

For Ptolemy Philadelphos, king of Egypt, elephants were a way of terrifying his opponents. Although neighboring kings had been able to procure some tens of elephants all the way from India, Ptolemy wanted his army to have hundreds. He sent expeditions into the wild and unknown regions of what is today Sudan, and ended up putting into place a vast network of trading posts along the Nile to keep the steady flow of animals into Alexandria, a city he was also shaping into the most beautiful and grandiose in the known world (the famous library dates from his reign).

For the roman leader Pompey, exotic animals were also a way to make his might obvious to all. However, in true roman fashion, the circus was their final destination. For animal lovers this chapter makes for very uncomfortable reading. That roman leaders would routinely organize spectacles ending in the slaughter of a lion or bear is not news, but the numbers butchered under Pompey’s organized circus in 55 BC are staggering: for five days, twice a day, lions and leopards chewed their way through monkeys, antelopes, sheep and gladiators alike. For the grand finale a herd of wild elephants was brought out to match their wits against a group of elephant hunters from Sudan. Cornered, the animals still standing after the initial massacre are said to have let out such awful cries of despair that even the jaded roman audience pleaded for them to be spared. Pompey did not heed their requests. In time Julius Caesar’s henchmen would not heed his.

Lorenzo de Medici was no warm and cuddly boy himself. In roman tradition he tried to organize his own circus in Florence, but the lions kept as a symbol of the city were so well fed they ended up dozing amid the petrified sheep brought for their enticement. But this setback was not enough to render Lorenzo insensitive to the diplomatic power of exotic animals. He wanted, after all, to be seen as a king, instead of a republican merchant leader. A giraffe had a neck almost as high as the importance he thought he should get.

Now, Rudolph II was probably mad as a hatter. I mean, it’s all very well to emulate family tradition, but when that tradition involves allowing lions to roam your palace and maul subjects at their will as your father once did, it’s probably best to review your priorities. If obsessive collecting has a shade of mental illness to it, you can also check that square: Rudolph became so obsessed with collecting every zoological specimen he could get his hands on (alive or stuffed) he even forgot he had a kingdom to run and ended up deposed.

My favorite chapter was “The Black Swans at Malmaison” regarding Josephine Bonaparte’s menagerie. It’s not only that she was kinder to her exotics than any male counterpart on the book: she also had a head on those pretty shoulders. At a time when cabinets de curiosités and menageries were all the rage among the wealthy and crowned, she stepped into a male hobby without skipping a heartbeat and with a lot more discernment. Josephine wanted the animals at Malmaison to roam free and as such gave away to Natural History Museum all the offers she got of large carnivores, keeping instead flocks of herbivores, birds and large cages of parrots. Also, the story of the French naval explorer Nicolas Baudin is absolutely riveting: he had the responsibility of amassing Australian specimens for Josephine’s menagerie and although he died in the middle of his return voyage and his reputation was soiled by a lying rival, his expedition brought many new exotic specimens to France, among them kangaroos, emus and the famous black swans.

The last chapter tells the story of the complex character of William Randolph Hearst. Although there is little doubt the mogul truly cared for the well being of animals (he was vocal against vivisection and passionate about dogs), his ranch at St Simeon seems, in the long run, to align with the flaunting of power so common in men of wealth and more than a little with the craziness associated with hardcore collecting. Hearst, after all, nearly finished off his own fortune amassing works of art – and exotic animals were another hobby. True to his gender he couldn’t stay away from the large cats, but the primates probably suffered the most in their cramped, bare cages.

“The Medici Giraffe” is a book of rare width and breadth – each chapter brings alive the time to which it pertains drawing from many historical sources. Belozerskaya doesn’t just stick to the story at hand but instead brings in all sorts of characters and historical episodes that further illuminate the particular tale. The chapter on Montezuma’s menagerie made something I had never even heard of come alive with detail, and Josephine’s chapter I felt really adds detail to her life. It enchants and tingles the little grey cells – a must for anyone interested in history and animals.

Michael Allin - Zarafa

I was going to review "Zarafa – the true story of a giraffe’s journey from the plains of Africa to the heart of post-Napoleonic France” along with “The Medici Giraffe” which I just started. But having started it yesterday and finished it today I came to believe this little book deserves a review of its very own.

“Zarafa” is elegant in its sparseness (only 200 pages with a nice, big, font), there is nothing extra, nothing tacked on or that feels out of place. From first to last page Michael Allin’s book flows effortlessly, gently bobbing the reader along this fascinating tale.

A pawn in diplomatic relations (as exotic animals tend to be), Zarafa was captured as a baby in Sudan (by cruelly slaying the mother, by the way) and grew up in the presence of men, for whom it was made clear this was a precious cargo they should guard with their lives. The exceptionally friendly Zarafa soon turned into what can only be called a pet (dimensions aside) so easy and trusting was she around humans. She was to be a present from Muhammed Ali, Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, to the French king Charles X – a gesture intended to dissuade the French from helping out the Greeks, involved in a civil war against the Ottoman Empire.

Luckier than previous giraffes who set hoof in Europe (Caesar supposedly had hundreds killed or pitted against predators in his circus, while in Constantinople another died of hunger), and than its mate, a sickly giraffe that would soon die in London, Zarafa grew into a vigorous, healthy animal, only slightly short for her species at 3.6m (12,12ft), which as Allin suggests might have aided her travels.

The trip down the Nile, either walking or by boat, is the part of the journey,Allin had more difficulty in reconstructing historically for lack of written testimonies. However, from Alexandria onwards he found a wealth of documentation that must be many a historian’s dream: documents with carefully outlined budgets, schedules and itineraries regarding the giraffe, letters from the many fans the gentle Zarafa made along the way and newspaper articles documenting her passage and witnessing the enormous curiosity and affection the giraffe brought about in the French people.

Aboard a boat altered with a round hole padded with straw on deck (the giraffe’s head was protected from intense sun or rain by an awning), Zarafa and the Arab and Sudanese handlers that would accompany her to Paris made their way to Marseilles. Her travelling companions were the cows, that not only provided the many litres of milk the animal consumed daily but also served as guides in her exploratory walks.

In fact, watching how docile the animal was and how happily she followed the quadrupeds, the natural historian Ètienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire came to the conclusion that walking her all the way to Paris was definitely feasible. For the first leg of the journey he wrote frequently to the mayor of Marseilles, who had built a special stable for Zarafa’s stay in his own property – a friendship brought on by the mutual tenderness both men felt for the animal.

About halfway to Paris, Saint-Hilaire grew sullen with what he felt was indifference on the part of the royal house with the physical effort of the walk. He had wished to board the giraffe on a boat for the last part of the journey, but received no authorization to do so. At 55 years-old the walk was taking its toll on Saint-Hilaire too. In addition to the daily travel he had to entertain the local bourgeoisie every single day and parade Zarafa for their curious eyes.

The king seems to have felt only a modicum of the wonder and fondness Zarafa had elicited in almost everyone else. She came to be housed in the Jardin des Plants and Atir, the Sudanese, became her private carer, even sleeping in her quarters. The French continued to lavish attention on her by visiting daily until her death.

“Zarafa” is a great book where extensive research doesn’t weigh on the reader. Allin transformed what must have been years of work into a sweetheart of a book.

A Slice of Heaven and A Dip in Paradise

"Getting Wet- Adventures in the Japanese Bath" - Eric Talmadge
"Pizza - A Global History" - Carol Helstolsky

National identity is a strange, elusive subject, best left to boring, long incomprehensible philosophical treaties (the exception being Norbert Elias “The Germans” which is still a heck of a long book). National obsessions however, are more my speed. Anecdotes abound, history is breezy, meaning can be found just about anywhere, be it in a pizza or a bathtub.

“Getting Wet – Adventures in the Japanese Bath” could probably be shorter, but the black and white photographs and illustrations sort of make up for excessive length. The Japanese are crazy about their bath: boiling hot, communal and filled with yummy minerals is the ticket. This particular obsession has nothing to do with hygiene (you thoroughly wash before getting in the tub, whether at the public baths or at home) and everything to do with relaxation and health (and probably a little to do with pain, since a lot of baths are scalding).

As Eric Talmadge expertly guides the reader through the many facets and rituals connected with Japanese bathing, we learn about the antiquity of this custom (a must for any self respecting national obsession), the etiquette of bathing, and its more recent metamorphoses (in ancient Japan themed baths in Tokyo, for example). Japanese culture being what it is (a mixture of extreme politeness and equally extreme perversity) even sex got into the bath-related craziness in the form of brothels named Soapland (the former name Turkish Bath created a diplomatic incident, when Turkish Girls became synonymous with prostitutes, and tourists started calling the embassy to arrange appointments), where clients pay officially not for sex but for a bath.

Of course sometimes a bath isn’t just a bath. For the Japanese it’s about the whole experience which, done well, involves a beautiful natural environment, a very nice meal and a very comfortable night’s sleep. As often happens with pillars of identity, the younger generation doesn’t seem too interested in keeping up with tradition. The biggest Japanese consumers, (single girls 20-30) are not courted by the (dying) industry and the tattooed are barred from entering (a measure first in stored to keep Yakuza gangsters out of the baths).

Tourism isn’t much of a draw either because everything in Japan is so expensive. Now, if you really want your national obsession to conquer the world you need something cheap, adaptable and…edible – like pizza.

Pizza is the complete opposite of the Japanese baths – it’s a national obsession that successfully turned global, and is capable of adapting so seamlessly into so many corners of the world, that it begs the question – is pizza still Italian?

In “Pizza – A Global History” Carol Helstolsky sort of proves it isn’t. The pizza we mostly enjoy today (take-out pizza, or pizza with lots of toppings, some very exotic) bears little resemblance to the original pizza that the XVIII century Naples lazaroni (beggars and poor men generally) bought on the street to fool hunger – an unleavened bread with a little olive oil, mozzarella cheese and some tomato. Pizza, of course is an ancient dish, so much so that several Mediterranean populations ate variations of thin bread covered with whatever else was available regionally and seasonally.

In that sense, it can be argued that pizza wasn’t specifically Italian to start with (Italy itself being a fairly recent construction) and in that sense very well equipped to become the most popular fast foods ever. It even started out as a fast-food – something to be consumed in the street, while walking.

Helstolsky follows the path of pizza from Naples to the east coast of the USA, to the Midwest where two different sets of brothers founded Pizza Hut and Domino, companies that would alter the dish forever. Softer crusts, more cheese, pineapple and barbecue chicken – you name it, if there was a craving for it you could translate into pizza. If there is a dish that can adequately satiate young and old, carnivore and vegetarian, pizza is it.

While Italy is fiercely protecting the “real” pizza, the author, introduces us to a polish pizza-hut favourite (Indian toppings), gourmet concoctions with truffles and the like, and even regional variations such as “Japanese pizza”, (now if only I could have one after indulging in scalding bath).

“Pizza – A Global History” is from the Edible Series of Reaktion Books – they are small, hardcover books filled with colour photographs, and everyone who likes food will probably want to collect them. “Getting Wet” I got from a sale bin – at 2 euros it was quite the bargain even if the dustcover is torn –in that sense it is great value for money, otherwise it’s more of a gift for Japan enthusiasts.

Barbara Weisberg - Talking to the Dead

It was in 1848 that sisters Maggie and Kate Fox, then fourteen and eleven years old respectively, were first in the presence of mysterious sounds, “rappings”, as they came to be known. Soon they would be catapulted into the sort of hysterical teenage celebrity we might easily equate with our own times and would both help to establish the new belief in Spiritualism. Were they teen con-artists or the real deal? As the famous and wealthy gathered around them, two girls from humble origins, it soon became impossible to determine who was using who.

As neighbour after neighbour was called into the Fox home in rural Hydesville, state of New York, to witness the strange sounds, it quickly became apparent that there was some sort of intelligence behind the knockings for they could – more often than not, correctly - answer questions.

At first, the answers could only consist of numbers (ages, dates, how many etc) but soon, someone came up with the nifty plan of saying the alphabet out loud, so the spirit could rap on the appropriate letter (how exhausting it must have been), and say his peace.

The spirit belonged apparently to a murdered man buried in the cellar, but as the girls were sent to Rochester to stay with their older sister Leah (34, at the time) the rappings followed them and would soon adopt a multitude of spirit personas.

For many, (Maggie and Kate included) Leah would be seen, in hindsight, as a scheming opportunist, pimping the young girls to advance her own standing. There is little doubt she was ambitious – she even sent her own little girl away to live with her estranged husband, when she said out loud she wished the awful sounds would silence for ever.

It certainly would not be unreasonable for Leah to see Maggie and Kate as a possible sort of income. As Weisberg clearly enumerates there was no shortage of would be mediums, seers, founders of new religions (Joseph Smith of Mormon fame lived nearby when he received his visions) and revivalists in the region. The area came to be known as the “burnt-over district” for there was a hardly a soul left to convert. Between the shakers throwing themselves around, the circus side-shows coming through the region and science looking more like magic (and often performed as such) than anything else, the world must have looked very mysterious indeed. Who was to say those who had passed could not be reached? And in a time of high infant and general mortality what better gift than to receive messages from the dearly departed?

Shrewd as Leah was she could have definitely have seen that the demand was present for a service the girls could easily perform – that they were young and pretty didn’t harm the cause either. Ok, just to make it clear, this is me talking now, all right? I am not channeling the author, because one thing Barbara Weisberg does not do is pick a side regarding the veracity of the Fox sisters’ “performance”. And kudos to her because I think it’s nearly impossible to write a book on these girls without making apparent what you really think.

One thing is clear: Kate and Maggie’s real or otherwise spirit communications allowed them to live very different lives than they would have otherwise. They sold-out public venues wherever they went; travelled extensively (Kate would eventually go as far as Russia), met with numerous personalities of their time (artists, political activists, writers, scientists, captains of industry other celebrities such as James Fenimoore Cooper, the abolitionist Amy Post and Frederick Douglass– Maggie would meet and secretly marry the Arctic explorer Elisha Kane); were wined and dined (to the end result that they would both become alcoholics); spent months as guests in comfortable and beautiful homes they could hardly have known otherwise.

But, there was the reverse too, because for every fan there seemed to be two adversaries, and some went so far as to dedicate years to the pursuit of unmasking the sisters’ “fraud”. In order to silence their critics the sisters endured many a humiliating trial: groups of “scientists” would go so far as to place the girls in various positions (some probably not very decorous), touch their knees and feet (hardly acceptable) and make rude remarks as they attempted to establish if the raps were produced by their own bodies. Several times they conceded to be completely undressed and examined by “Ladies’ Committees” searching for hidden apparatus.

No-one ever found proof of their scam but when, in 1888, Maggie came out publicly and confessed to deception, and proceeded to demonstrate how she snapped the articulation of her big toe, many a critic felt vindicated.

Just a year after, however, Maggie recanted her confession. The reasons for her false confession (if indeed it was false) could have been manifold: she desperately needed the money the confession brought in (a fee payed by a reporter and tickets for the public “outing”) and even more importantly she badly wanted to get back at her sister Leah, whom she saw as the culprit for her failed marriage with Kane (After Kane’s death his family never acknowledged the marriage and withheld the money Kane had left for Maggie, largely because of her outcast status as a celebrity medium – how lucky you are to have been born later, John Edwards). She presented Leah as a manipulator who had basically forced the girls to put on the show.

A year later she died in poverty as would Kate. Ironically, only Leah was able to make the final transformation into a respected upper middle class matron through her successful marriage.

Of all the historical characters we might wish had left personal journals filled with information, Kate and Maggie are surely up there on the list. As Weisberg concedes there is scant information regarding their thoughts, beliefs and even personalities. Especially in the beginning when they were both little more than children, hardly anyone even distinguished between the two. Later on they would go on tour separately, and it seemed as if they were interchangeable. Rich patrons would invite them to stay over and often treat the girls as entertainment, something to be gawked at and envied by equally well-to-do friends. Only die-hard spiritualists seem to have really cared about the girls individually and to have protected them. How ironic it would be, if it turned out these kind souls, desperate for contact with dead sons, daughters, wives and husbands had been duped by Kate and Maggie.

They were seen as enigmas by their contemporaries and so they’ll have to stay. Yes, they probably were complete frauds, but the reasons, the motivations to endure so much – the hatred of some, the suffocating attention of others, the complete disruption of their personal lives – the stuff we tell ourselves but know is not true, that would be the real Fox Sisters story.

“Talking to the Dead” felt a bit long winded at times (sort of like this review…yikes!) it didn’t have any peaks of excitement, it’s very…even. Some of it might be attributed to the carefully impartial tone of the author, some of it to the lack of written material by the girls. Some days I despaired of ending it, but I’m still very glad I did stumble across it (in the blog A Garden Carried in the Pocket - thanks again jenclair!), because it’s such a fascinating story. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that some grad student or home renovator might come across a box of old journals by the sisters … but I wonder if that would answer questions or pose some more?

A slight detour

The Parrot Who Owns Me – Joanna Burger
The Philosopher and the Wolf – Mark Rowlands

I got slightly off track with these too, but I could hardly help myself. When “The Parrot Who Owns Me” arrived I just had to start immediately, and then it seemed natural to read “The Philosopher and the Wolf” right after.

Actually, the two books have a lot more in common than I could have guessed: both tell of strong relationships with wild animals kept as pets; both writers are academicians (Burger an ornithologist, Rowlands a philosopher) and both found their theoretical work very much influenced and changed through the vicissitudes of sharing their days with a parrot and a wolf.

Large parrots and wolves (the latter much more so, of course) are unusual pets and with good reason. Most people are simply not able to accommodate the needs of such animals, nor are they willing to. The result where vanity and stubbornness persist, are bald parrots who pick their own feathers out frustration and boredom, and big, aggressive dogs tied away in backyards.

Rather, as both authors soon discover it is you who must provide the company for your wild pet, sacrificing many things as you go along. Rowlands turns himself into a marathoner in order to keep Brenin, the wolf, satisfied in terms of exercise and stimulation, while Burger has to warn hapless dinner guests not to open the fridge if they want to avoid the attack of Tiko, the parrot. (Only she was allowed to open the fridge).

In fact, the bite of Tiko the amazon parrot, though infrequent is painful and scarring. Everything must be negotiated, and the amazon can never be pushed, only persuaded. And yet what clearly shines through Joanna Burger’s book is the absolute joy, the privilege of being trusted, respected and loved by such a magnificent wild animal.

For the privilege of Tiko’s affection the scientist must cut frequent research trips to a minimum absence of three weeks (the amazon will get aggressive with the sitter after that time), forfeit any other animals in the house (as Hester the chicken found out, Tiko will not stand any rivals around), and curb any demonstrations of affection from her husband (they send Tiko into a jealous rage). On the other hand observing his behavior sends Burger’s research into new and exciting paths, into vigilance, mating rituals and habitat conservation.

The saddest thing about large parrots, to my mind, is how they generally outlive their owners (they can live into their seventies). As the book closes, Tiko is approaching fifty and still fit as a fiddle (Tiko had been previously owned by two elderly sisters). Can parrots understand death?

And can we? That is more the type of question Mark Rowlands poses himself in “The Philosopher and the Wolf”. Professional deformation, and all that, but it’s understandable since after all, it was Brenin who turned Rowlands into a published author. Sort of.

I loved Brenin’s story as will anyone with a love of animals, Rowlands tone however, is another story. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when by page 85, he states “If people don’t think of me as arrogant – perhaps they do – that’s only because I’m good at hiding it.” Weeelll, have I got news for you…!

Brenin was a big teddy bear who quickly grew into a big, nice wolf. However, since he could not be left alone for more than a minute (his powers of house wrecking were truly prodigious), Rowlands soon begun to take him everywhere with him, including university lecture halls and rugby matches. Slowly it was Brenin’s company (although I would argue it was also the author’s move from rowdy, happy-go-lucky Alabama to sullen Ireland, plus the six months mandatory quarantine for Brenin) turned him into something of a misanthrope, ergo, a prolific philosophy writer.

I disagreed with a lot in this book, but hey, philosophy as far as I can understand it (not much taking from my grades in high-school) is nothing but a matter of opinion and of how elegantly or forcefully you can state your theory. There is no scientific method to it, at least not when you’re talking life, love and death. Rowlands has this whole theory about how apes are deceitful, ungraceful and simply mean creatures and that we as their descendants are just about the same, no matter how much we try to hide it. Wolves on the other hand are loyal, graceful and know no fear – they are pure.

Yes, I can just about hear Konrad Lorenz’s applause coming from the hell to which are consigned scientists who jumped on the nazi bandwagon. He too preferred dogs with wolf blood because they were braver (you meant more Aryan didn’t you, you old coot?) while the dogs descending from coyotes were submissive, even false.

As shamanic and spiritual as it is to equate certain qualities or defects with certain animals I don’t think it stands any real chance as serious theory, philosophical or otherwise (A great book on the subject is Boria Sax’s “Animals in the Third Reich”). Anyone who lives closely with animals knows that personality is an important factor.

If animals are not just archetypes who can only live fulfilling lives by living exactly as they have always done; if, on the contrary they can adapt and enjoy new experiences, including sharing their lives with respectful humans, as Rowlands states, and I agree, then it hardly seems possible to ascribe to them an immutable nature or temperament.

I did enjoy his discussion on evil, which ran closely with my own opinions, but I really wish he didn’t take so much pleasure in frightening dog owners with Brenin off leash all the time.

Both are great books on animals. I preferred Burger’s because right now birds and parrots are more fascinating to me than wolves, but also because the steady drip of hemingway-like machismo (now there’s a guy that should have owned a wolf…) was a bit tiresome in Rowland’s (though I did feel like crying in the end which means…that I’m a submissive, morally bankrupt ape, I guess).

If I wanted to get all philosophical I’d say this: while Rowlands takes pride in the way he successfully trained Brenin to walk in our world, Burger takes pride in the way Tiko allowed her to enter his world. And that, friends, to quote one of our great simian poets, made all the difference.

Joanna Burger & Tiko

Mark Rowlands & Brenin

Jane Glover - Mozart's Women - His family, his friends, his music

A wonderful, intimate, biography of Mozart and the women who surrounded him.

Although it might be argued that Wolfgang Mozart’s most important formative and even adult relationship was with his tyrannical father (even while trying to escape his control), Jane Glover has found a very interesting, almost cozy, angle in order to explore the great musician’s life.

The book is divided in four parts: in “Prelude” the author explores Mozart’s childhood and adolescence taking special care with the portrayal of his mother, Anna Maria, and his sister, Maria Anna, known as Nannerl. To me, Nannerl, ended up being close to a second protagonist in the book. For even if Constanze, Mozart’s wife, turns out to be a very likeable character, Nannerl’s life was, to my mind, so tragic, it almost upstages that of her brother.

An equal to Mozart’s musical interpretation and no stranger to composition, Nannerl was in every way her younger brother’s partner as their father paraded them as prodigies across European royal courts. In fact, she was more impressive than the little boy for some onlookers. There is no doubt she had a great curiosity for the world at large as well as great talent and, having spent her childhood and early teenage years as an accomplished performer, travelling from England to Italy, experiencing the culture, fashion (a great love of hers) and conversation of the best company in the Continent, her confinement in provincial Salzburg must have been particularly painful.

After a brilliant beginning which could have easily steered her into an adult career, Leopold Mozart (a miser, if there ever was one) decided that it would be more economical to travel Europe accompanied solely by the boy. It probably allowed him to experience a more vicarious pleasure, as they travelled alone, little Mozart a mirror (so would Leopold flatter himself, undoubtedly) of his father’s genius.

In fact, Mozart senior succeeded only in making the both of them a nuisance in many royal courts. His lack of subtlety and his arrogance, assuming every king and queen should fall over themselves in order to hire Wolfgang, probably did more harm than good. Whereas the practical, even-tempered Anna Maria would establish long lasting friendships wherever she passed, Leopold’s exit was probably met with sighs of relief. Mother and daughter could have done much to find Mozart a suitable position sooner. Instead, they were both confined, anxiously awaiting letters from the Mozart men.

Over the course of many European ramblings Wolfgang probably picked more than a bit of his father’s haughtiness, at least where it concerned his employers (for talented musicians he never showed less than full allegiance), so it is not very surprising he soon caused his own dismissal from Archbishop Colloredo’s employ. A free lance composer was something of a rarity and Mozart was, after all, of marrying age.

In Vienna, Mozart will all but loose contact with his sister, who will scarcely ever again leave the province of Salzburg. Only at 32, after having refused a suitor (maybe on Leopold’s order), will she marry a twice widowed man with five children from his previous marriage. This would be no “Sound of Music” matrimony either. Poor Nannerl endured an increasingly cold and hostile husband and hateful stepchildren. Of her own three children, one would die at one year of age and another at sixteen. In her final years she would endure a progressive blindness and frailty that kept her from her beloved piano.

Mozart, meanwhile, would become deeply involved with the Weber family, a relation Jane Glover explores in the chapter “Mozart’s other family”. It was first Aloysia, who would become a celebrated opera singer (a career that slipped through Nannerl’s fingers), that captured young Mozart’s furious passion. Some time apart, however (the four Weber girls also toured Europe) , rather cooled the girl’s affections. Depressed, Mozart could not wrest himself from the warm, artistic family, and would end up taking lodgings with them in Vienna. Slowly, it was Constanze, a more discreet beauty with a balanced temperament, that would win his heart until the day of his death.

For all the penury, frustration and humiliation Mozart would live professionally until his untimely death at 35, it’s safe to say that with Constanze he enjoyed a truly happy marriage. She would eventually take up a role evocative of his mother and sister’s: part personal assistant, part accountant and part public relations.

“Mozart’s women” explores in depth Mozart’s operas describing the plot and especially the biography of each original female singer – how their singular strengths, figures and personalities would inspire Wolfgang into composing arias that were essentially “made to measure”.

Finally, “After Mozart” ties back the loose ends of the surviving women. It ends as it begins, in Salzburg, the place Nannerl never left and where Constanze, her younger sister Sophie (who was with Mozart in his last moments) and the older, Aloysia, came to live their final years. As neither of Mozart’s boys by Constanze left progeny or additional works it wouldn’t be off base to see these two women (sister and widow) as his true heirs. It was, after all, their conjoined effort that would assure the wealth of biographical material available today. “Mozart’s Women” takes a potential “been there, done that” historical biography into something very different: an enlightening and moving book.

Michel Pastoureau - Black: the history of a color

“Black” is a big book, with shiny high-quality paper and filled with beautiful reproductions of works of art. It screams coffee table book but it’s actually a work of erudition that spans the cultural meanings of this mesmerizing color from antiquity to modern times. It’s not a book you’ll want to read in bed or even in the couch (this puppy is heavy), but it will more than compensate you for the time you have to spend sitting at a table or desk (preferably propped up against something – the book, not you).

From holy men to Satanists black spans the width and breath of human history as a color most often associated with extremes: a princely color in the XVII century, synonymous with morality and integrity, it became the color of everyman in the end of the XIX, (after being rejected in the colorful haze of the XVIII, in French court fashion) and then the color of transgression and rebellion in the beginning of the XX century.

Black proved a tricky color for dyers – before the XVI century it was almost impossible to obtain a durable, deep black in fabric – but meaning already abounded around the color long before you could build your wardrobe around it. In antiquity it had been the color of darkness both in its life-forming, fertility and metamorphosis aspect as well as the frightening equivalent of death or evil. It was a complex shade filled with different, sometimes antagonistic meanings, which only became slowly equated with sin, Satan and suffering in the centuries after the Bible made the rounds in Europe.

Slowly it became the color of God’s nemesis and pulled into its evil realm just about anything that shared the color including cats, crows or the realm of the night such as wolfs and owls. The exceptions were monks who wore – not so much actual black but mostly dark habits - equated with humility.

As Pastoureau explains color is only color in opposition or combination with other colors and meaning is also (or always) tied in with these combinations. For instance, in medieval times the most often worn combination of colors was red and green, not a high contrast pair then. For a long time “black and white” was not the striking opposition we have seared into our minds today (white and red, was the most contrasting pair), a cultural modification that came about with the advent of the printing press and subsequent reproduction everywhere of black ink on white paper.

Is black even a color? I remember being excited learning in a “visual education” class (that’s what they called drawing/painting/geometry classes when I was ten) that black and white were not colors – rather the first was absence of color and the second the combination of all color. In fact, in mankind’s history this is a very recent theory imported from the Newtonian discovery of the light spectrum (the demotion of green from a primary to a secondary color also came about very late) and when you think about it quite silly.

Because colors, primary, secondary or whatever are cultural constructions first and foremost. Science must follow suit as Pastoureau demonstrates when he explains how black became a coveted color by kings and princes in the XVI century before dyers had found the best method of imprinting the color onto fabric – here, as in others instances, demand spurred on technology.

Today, black is the closest thing to a neutral shade – according to Pastoureau it is neither the most popular (blue) nor the least popular (yellow) hovering somewhere in the middle – it’s a safe color to wear, considered elegant and yet conservative, that retains only a whiff of its rebellious past . A teenage crush rather than an actual torrid love affair – isn’t black almost a naïve color in our days?

I think cultural perceptions of color are a fascinating subject but “Black” is a book that might please even those with only a marginal interest in color (who are those people?!). And you’ll keep going back just to look at the illustrations.

Patrick Wilcken - Empire Adrift

A page turner it is not. This history book business is really cramping my style, because books like “Empire Adrift – the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro 1808-1821” make me read s-l-o-w-l-y. They make me ponder, and wonder, check stuff on the internet and think a lot – and that’s Not why I got into this book reading gig, man!

Because – small parenthesis here – it is hard to find the motivation to keep a tiny blog alive and sometimes, ironically, good books are just the thing that completely throws you off. Why bother?

Especially as a descendant of a people who, as every anglo-saxonic historian will stress, are poor letter writers and even worse at keeping journals. Seriously, could the Portuguese be less helpful? Thank God there was always a British consul or merchant around or else fact checking would be impossible.

Just kidding. Actually Patrick Wilcken is Australian which might still qualify him as anglo but obviously makes him totally lacking in the most annoying qualities of the british. The proof? I never once, during the whole book felt that he looked down even slightly on his main subject, the Portuguese royal family, and boy could he have!

D. João VI : fat, slothful, severely lacking in the personal hygiene department and chronically indecisive – yet Wilcken portrays as somewhat endearing, not quite as guileless as everyone around him seemed to think. D. Carlota (who was actually Spanish): scheming shrew and power hungry man-eater or a feminist before her time, struggling to have a say so in the kingdom she felt (and who can say otherwise) she was more fit to reign?. D. João’s mother the queen Maria I was certified insane and…well that’s that really.

So the court fled because that disgusting dwarf Napoleon wanted to get his greedy paws on…everything really, and ended up in Rio de Janeiro which was at that point basically a big outdoors slave market bearing to resemblance to any European city fit to host a king – it was just as well D. João preferred country air and the company of a selected few (but then not everyone had the stomach to watch him eat three whole chickens with his hands for lunch ) Funnily enough, Wilcken says the Spanish court also considered at some point decamping to Mexico. Just imagine the different world history we might have today.

One of the things I really appreciated in Wilcken’s book is that, while he follows the royal family (and entourage of thousands) as they escape the incoming Napoleonic Invasion and flee to Brazil, he never abandons the continent (unlike the king), and keeps the reader updated into what was happening in Portugal and indeed Europe.

His best quality as a history writer might be that he travels from the particulars of everyday life and singular characters to global events effortlessly, even elegantly.

Best factoid in the whole book? Palm trees are NOT indigenous to Brazil – they were first brought over by escaped Portuguese sailors from the island of Mauritius (insane isn’t it? – who can think of Brazil without palm trees?)

In the first and last monarchy in the tropics, the Portuguese reversed metropolis-colony dynamics and blindsided Napoleon. Portugal and Brazil’s history was altered forever – set on courses whose consequences are still felt today. It’s a fascinating piece of history and I doubt there’s a better or more readable account out there.

Lucy Moore - Liberty

Liberty – The lives and times of six women in Revolutionary France

Liberty kept me submerged for almost a week. It’s a slow starter, granted, but it almost had to be since there are so many characters and the French Revolution is such a complex event. The first chapters are short which sort of kills the mood – I was already into Germaine de Stael when pow! It changes to Pauline Léon and so forth.

However, it more than pays off when the heads start rolling. Awful as it sounds the appeal of the French Revolution besides the hardcore (or, to our eyes, naïve) idealism is the sheer carnage. At the height of the Terror hundreds were guillotined everyday and then, as alliances shifted and Robespierre was executed, the henchmen started loosing their heads too. One month you’re exiled in shame, a few months later you’re welcomed back in arms. It was heady, violent, fuelled by the most abstract of theories on human nature and political philosophy on one side, poverty and hunger on the other, and an overwhelming sense of social injustice.

Women were there every step of the way, engaged in political discourse, public manifestations and violence. And while they weren’t given the opportunity to contribute in an productive manner, many were contributing: some, like Germaine de Stael, offering their salons as places were ideas and courses of action were first drafted, while gently leading opinions to their way of thinking; others, such as Manon Roland, going so far as to dictate their husbands political choices (Roland also wrote most of her husband’s lauded speeches); Thérésia de Fontenay used her wealth and influence to help the persecuted escape, as a sort of XVIII century Schindler of the aristocracy and royalists; working class Pauline Léon and poor girl turned courtesan Théroigne de Méricourt actually took to the streets, the first participating in the popular uprisings and establishing the first political society for women while Méricourt in a tragic twist of fate would first be admired, in her male riding suits, sword unsheathed as a new icon of the Revolution, finally reviled, mocked, humiliated and stored away in an insane asylum, convinced to very end it was still 1795; Juliette Récamier was too young to actually take part in the events, but she appears here as a sort of conclusion: after all was said and done she became Napoleonic France’s sweetheart – dazzlingly beautiful and with no involvement in politics whatsoever (except that she refused Napoleon’s advances (as did Fontenay), which contributed to piss him off further and probably kill more people).

Roland was the only one of the six actually guillotined, and the diaries she kept on her last days must be very moving – the excerpts Moore looks at are enough to make you cry. Roland, who starts out all self-righteous and kind of annoying turns, faced with execution (and having fallen in love for the first time) into a very dignified character. Moore’s description of the whole environment of prison life, where detainees were waiting around for their turn under the blade, yet trying to keep their chins up (some indulging, even behind bars in impressive “Dangerous Liaisons” antics) is impressive.

Except for Pauline Léon all the six have already been subject of biographical accounts (several for Stael, but others only in French, or out of print). Leon having remained working class all her life (from a family of chocolatiers) didn’t leave much of an official trail, certainly no letters or diaries, so she is the least fleshed out character in “Liberty”. Still, it’s a credit to Lucy Moore she included her in the book – when you read about those gangs of women going around in droves around Paris kicking ass or shouting (sometimes obscenities) from the galleries of the Convention, you can’t help but want to know their point of view. The historical record doesn’t help – no-one painted their portraits and they didn’t have much time, or inclination, to put their thoughts on paper – but they were there, hundreds of them to each sophisticated sallonière.

In short – “Liberty” is a great book, and I’m in awe of the kind of research and organization that goes into a work like this, weaving together not only six biographies but also a whooper of an historical event. I’d say I’d want to be like Lucy Moore when I grow up – if only I weren’t so damn close in age.

James Gaines - Evening in the Palace of Reason - Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment

Two men who stood for two very different worldviews met in 1747: one was the musician Johann Sebastian Bach the other the king of Prussia Frederick the Great.

In his sixties, Bach illustrated the hard life of a professional musician in the XVIII century, shuffling between court appointments and working for town councils (teaching at the local school and composing), profoundly imbued in the teachings of Luther and Protestantism; Frederick was a newly appointed king (1740) in his thirties and a poster-child for Enlightenment.

James Gaines takes this meeting as a starting point to explore and intertwine the two biographies as well as the collapse of religion as the axis of everyday life and the rise of philosophy in its place.

I like music but I don’t play an instrument. Most important I don’t read music. I’d say that if you don’t have some foundations of musical theory, large chunks of “Evening in the Palace of Reason” are going to fly over your head. Counterpoint, canon, fugue, cantata, sonata, chromaticism – if these terms mean absolutely nothing to you imagine how you’ll feel confronted with notions such as passus duriusculus and quodlibet. Even if the author was able to convey these terms in a simple way (which to my mind, he doesn’t, because they aren’t simple) it’s still like being colour-blind and having extol on the richness of Impressionist painting.

Yes, many of the passages on Bach left me feeling very stupid, which is never a good feeling especially while reading something aimed at the general public. In fact, I planned to start reading more musical biographies but this one already scared me stiff. I quit.

Also, Bach never really came alive to me. He always seems distant, impenetrable and aloof. Gaines himself said in an interview (included in the book) that he was surprised in his research to find Bach “such a crab”; he also concedes he came to find him frustrating and irritating. His life was sad (he became orphan at an early age, lost many infant children, brothers and first wife) and seems to have had quite a nitpicking temperament. Not much fodder for empathy maybe, but I hoped for more.

Frederick the Great on the other hand is a very magnetic character and it’s almost impossible not to become mesmerized by his life. A hair-curling, flute-playing, French-loving, hypothetical homosexual or bisexual, his personality is so complex it’s no wonder he has inspired many biographies and enjoyed cult status with many political and literary figures (including, infamously, Hitler). His father, Frederick William, was a bully who enjoyed insulting and beating him in public. He hated everything French, effeminate and arty and soon in Frederick’s life they came to blows. To his father the most important values were those of the military life and economic strategy.

Interestingly enough after his father nearly had him executed for treason (and hanged his best friend, or to some, lover) Frederick came to follow in his father’s footsteps. In a feat of compartmentalization he managed to have both a rich, artistic court life, put into practice Enlightenment values such as freedom of speech and religious tolerance, and the most disciplined and best prepared army in Europe. Not surprisingly, he became an abuser (not a physical abuser though) regularly insulting everyone and anyone around him, just like his father before him.

On the whole this book was a slog to read, Frederick’s amusing (and tragic) episodes notwithstanding. If you have no musical training it’s probably best to skip this one.

Maybe Baby - Edited by Lori Leibovich

To breed or not to breed, that is the question!

Okay, so it’s not a question for many. The majority does breed in a wanton and carefree (in certain cases too carefree) manner. Their genes, instincts, family and friends tell them to go ahead, and ahead they go with the dubious task of ensuring that the world is full to the brim with human beings. Am I giving myself away?

A small, small minority has known from childhood or teenagehood (not an actual word – yet) that parenting was not in the cards for them. For this group a few will fall along the way, victims of unplanned pregnancies, and whatdayaknow? Some learn to enjoy the hand fate dealt.

Ah but there is a most interesting, growing, sneaky group of people who manage to avoid stray bullets for most of their twenties and arrive at their late twenties, early thirties (and even early forties) with the nagging doubt: “should I or shouldn’t I?”.

Well the common sense answer would probably be “If you have to think that much about it, don’t”. Yes, but every new parent says it’s sooo great, the absolute best experience in life, the one thing that will finally give meaning, continuity, focus, altruism, happiness etc, etc, etc.

And here lies the conundrum – for the first time in history the last decades have freed women (and men) of developed countries from this particular biological destiny and yet never has western culture been so babycentric than these past ten to fifteen years. Just as the choice became widely available so did the pressure grow to join the baby camp.

“Maybe Baby – 28 writers tell the truth about skepticism, infertility, baby lust, childlessness, ambivalence and how they made the biggest decision of their lives” (phew!) explores under the headings “No”, “Maybe” and “Yes” how a few writers came to deal with this important decision.

There are many different life stories here, and if for nothing else “Maybe Baby” fosters respects for other people’s choices. I was just as awed by Lionel Shriver who first proclaimed she would never have children at 8 years of age, as by Amy Benfer who decided to raise the daughter she had at 16 and by Joan Gould who, already mother to two teenagers decided to have a third child in her forties.

Some thought they would have children somewhere along the line but it never happened, some never thought much about it and embraced parenthood as it unexpectedly appeared, some felt an urgent, sudden need to be mommy or daddy just as it became too late and everybody just tried to make the best of it, none more so than Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez whose child was erroneously diagnosed with autism.

My favorite tale is “One is enough” by Neal Pollack who tells of his wife and his decision to stop at one child and how that unexpectedly brought them under criticism (really folks? Haven’t they given enough to the cause?). On the other hand Lauren Slater who had always meant to have only one child, came to the conclusion that a second one was indeed very needed in her family.

“Maybe Baby” is probably aimed at those ambivalent or seeking support for their choices - (which would be all of us then, wouldn’t it?) even if the “Yes” tales far outnumber the “Nos” and “Maybes”- a lot of parents could probably learn something here. I recommend Amy Reiter’s “Mama don’t preach”.

And I really, really like this Joseph Campbell quote found in Larry Smith’s “The daddy dilemma”:

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

Like all the best quotations, there are several ways to interpret it, and any of them could be right – for each of us.

Non-fiction I never reviewed last year and now it's too late

The best of the bunch is "Bottomfeeder - How the fish on our plates is killing our planet". Each chapter has a theme that is both a location and a dish, such as "New York City - Pan-roasted Monkfish" and which Taras Grescoe takes as a starting point to instruct us on what's going on under the waves.

Increasingly, not much, because the fishing fleets of the world (that seem to behave as modern time pirates)are depleting the fishing stocks to such a length that many species such as monkfish, cod and tuna are actually being pushed to extinction.

I was very proud to see the Portuguese lauded since our love of sardines (fish that are plentiful, nutritious and lower in the food-chain)even if it seems to have escaped Grescoe's attention that probably the third most popular fish dish in this country (after cod, also endangered) is monkfish rice (probably the stock nearest complete breakdown). Anyways, highly recommended - very readable, full of interesting information and advice on choosing fish (and seafood) with an eye on both the sustainability of stocks and health.

"Coral - A pessimist in Paradise", was also interesting but not as compelling. Coral reefs are dying, are not be able to rebuild as fast and if you think it only affects the quality of under-water scenery for scuba-divers, guess again. Coral set the stage for our own emergence on the planet and if they go we might soon follow.

Sad as it is to admit it the science part was a bit to thorough for my taste. There were chapters I read avidly and others that were really slow going. On the whole, I'm glad I read it because it is an important topic, but as a reader I was less than enchanted by Steve Jones's prose.

I read "The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer - Close encounters with strangers" almost a year ago so I don't remember it very well, except to say that when I finished reading I couldn't shut up about it and told every chapter (spent on different exotic locales with eccentric characters he meets) to my husband over lunch. So I guess it's thumbs up.

Of "To See Every Bird on Earth - A father a son and a lifelong obsession" I really can't recall almost anything, nor did remember being particularly impressed (or repulsed by that matter). Some birdwatchers can only get a kick out the hobby if they compile these huge lists of sighted birds, and spend absolute fortunes travelling to remote locations on the off chance of adding a couple of names to their roster. The way birdwatching brought together an estranged father and son is nice, but the whole list thing is kind of incomprehensible to me. I think Dan Koeppel admits somewhere in the book (or at least I think it was implied) that for many of these hobbyists its more about the list than the actual pleasure of birdwatching. Once you spot a bird (or hear its call) you move on looking for the next. Seems a bit sad to me.

"Choice - True stories of birth, contraception, infertility, adoption, single parenthood & abortion" I finished last month and its an impressive collection of stories shared by women who made different choices when faced with (sometimes) similar situations. It explores how important it is to have options available for women to make their own path whether it means having children when everyone urges you not to, or not having them when everyone wants you too. Should be required reading for teenagers and young men and women.

Edward Paice - Wrath of God

In the Richter Magnitude Scalearticle in Wikipedia only three earthquakes surpass the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Two took place in the XX century (Alaska 1964 and Chile 1960) and the third in the XXI (Indian Ocean 2004). In fact, the earliest earthquake recorded on this list is 1906, San Francisco.

But the place Lisbon occupies in the list is calculated by approximation – the scale was invented in 1935 and in the XVIIIth century scholars were still trying to guess as to what caused earthquakes – underwater explosions, magnetism etc. However, that a scientific reason was being sought, already attests to the fact that the Age of Enlightenment was dawning upon Europe.

“Wrath of God”, though, is a title that hints at what, up until that point and for a majority still, was seen as the cause of the great earthquake – divine punishment. Edward Paice’s book looks at the tragic date through the eyes of English merchants and diplomats who lived in Lisbon at a time when, through the megalomaniac ambitions of King João V, the greatest part of the riches coming from the Portuguese colony of Brazil, were finding their way into British coffers.

Their opinion of the Portuguese was, not surprisingly poor: already the country was seen as a “has-been” resting on the laurels of maritime exploits of the XV and XVI centuries, squandering resources on an opulent noble class that was forever craving more luxury items, lead by a King more preoccupied with his mistresses and endless monumental building of palaces, convents and monasteries, with zero industrial infrastructures (with England happily picking up the slack and exporting everything from shoes to matchsticks) and few roads crossing the country outside the main cities.

Lisbon for the most part didn’t cause a good impression – the largest slave population in Europe, gypsies, orphans and vagrants roaming the streets didn’t much impress travelers, while the Portuguese women – although considered very fine (but don’t the British consider all foreign women beautiful? Says more about British women, really) were kept inside rather too much.

Paice first sets the stage explaining the ongoing (and very important) relation between the nations of Portugal and England at the time, describes the city as it stood before the earthquake, introduces his characters (British subjects who later put their experiences of the earthquake to paper) and follows them through the day of the earthquake (the 1st of November, All Saints Day), then he goes back to a wider perspective and explains how and why the earthquake became so important (not only because it was news-worthy but also because it challenged the reigning philosophy of optimism) and what happened to the city in the next decades.

I liked “Wrath of God” very much, but then I might be biased since I’ve always lived in Lisbon – a great part of the interest to me, was reading about my neighbourhood and those around it and understanding how different they were (and how different they would look today if not for the earthquake). Paice writes in a very engaging style that really captured my imagination. There were a few orthographic errors in Portuguese words, a place-name I don’t think actually exists, and by the way, a Sintra queijada is not a small goat cheese, but a sweet pastry. Otherwise, to my un-historically trained eyes it seemed a great piece of research.

Nicola Upson - An Expert in Murder

I love Josephine Tey. I’ve read all her mysteries. How excited was I to find out about a new crime series featuring the writer as character? Very excited.

Did “An Expert in Murder” live up to my expectations? Not even a tiny bit. I swear I was skimming the last 20 pages and didn’t even understand the big revelation in the end, that well. It didn’t seem very likely but what’s even sadder is that I didn’t care enough to go back a single page to try and understand it.

Personally I find “An Expert in Murder” has many faults the first being its length – for a period crime novel (and the first in a series no less) certainly it could do with less than 288 pages, many of which are rambling, rambling, rambling. The characters suffer from the same problem being too many and sharing the characteristic of having little substance.

I detested the part where Upson has her Tey state to friends that she only uses physical characteristics to support personality traits when she’s stuck in her writing – really, if that were the only reason couldn’t she have some up with another gimmick? Considering she uses it in almost every book and all…

Very, very disappointing.

Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot and The Pedant in the Kitchen

Since “An Expert in Murder” is turning out to be a disappointment I stopped reading it and picked up Julian Barnes’ “Flaubert’s Parrot” (1984) and liked it so much I immediately started “The Pedant in the Kitchen” (2003) which I just finished.

“Parrot” and “pedant” are two very different books – the first a novel that, until about half way through reads like pure non-fiction, and the second a collection of columns on food, cooking, recipe books etc.

“Parrot” delves into the life of Flaubert in various ways as our protagonist attempts to solve a biographical puzzle: which one of two surviving stuffed Amazon parrots is the actual one which sat at Flaubert’s desk while he wrote “Un coeur simple”?

A bit pedantic, do you think? To spend so much time around a tiny bit of trivia regarding a book not even considered one of the author’s most important? But then Barnes is a self-proclaimed pedant – in the kitchen and elsewhere.

“Pedant” is much lighter and funnier in tone – maybe because as Flaubert himself affirmed each subject calls for a specific style – and makes much of the ways in which cookbooks toy with our amateur aspirations, providing unrealistic photos, vague quantities and plain crazy instructions.

Olga Grushin - The Dream Life of Sukhanov

I was going to write a great review for this book. It would start something like this:

“1985 was the year the Russian painter Marc Chagall died. It is also the year we meet Anatoly Pavlovich Sukhanov, the year when his waking life as the successful editor of the Soviet publication Art of the World, married to the daughter of the most revered national painter and father of two, starts slowly to mesh with a series of increasingly vivid dream-memories, triggered by long-lost faces, newly discovered relatives, the colors and streets of Moscow.

In these waking dreams Sukhanov comes to remember a time when he first (despite himself) loved art –a time when Botticelli and Dalí were not examples of decadent capitalism but magicians that made him dream as a child and strive to open new doors as a young artist; when his own father was in real life striving to discover the science that would make some of the last paintings of Chagall come true in the shape of men with wings and when the iconic paintings of Andrei Rublev stood for proud spirituality instead of feeble-minded belief.

As the daydreams become more intense and prolonged Sukhanov’s waking life starts to crumble – with Perestroika round the corner, old party dinosaur’s such as himself were no longer wanted around - and the irony that he has become expendable precisely because he has forced himself to embody the Soviet official view on art does not escape him. Midlife crisis can be painful enough without the aid of a regime disintegrating around you.”

But never mind all that. What I really want to say is that “The Dream Life of Sukhanov” is my favorite book of the year. I confidently state it today, the 17th of December. Beautiful language, a good story, food for thought and further reading, it has it all. Wonderful.

Gory in Gotland

Unseen - Mari Jungstedt

This is a huge spoiler, so don’t go any further if you are considering reading "Unseen".

If you were 32 years-old and had, at age 12, spent some months brutalizing a shy school colleague going so far as to shove his underwear in his mouth while kicking him, would having your best friend (who participated in the attacks) brutally murdered and found with her underwear stuck in her mouth, ring a bell?

Maybe not. Maybe it would take two other bodies and 300 hundred pages more for you to connect the dots. Maybe it sounds to you like it could happen – after all we bury so much of our childhood that we don’t particularly want to remember.

To me it sounded unthinkable and a little impossible, although it did explain why Jungstedt made us follow this female character throughout the book, her struggle with her marriage and adultery with a reporter sent to idyllic island of Gotland to cover the initial brutal murder. Throughout the book I kept thinking “what does this character have to do with anything?”, “why do I have to read about her? and also “why is she such a whiner?”.

I has high expectations for "Unseen", and let me say the first chapter is great. It’s great because it made me care about the victim and want to know more about her, her boyfriend, her life and, of course find out why she was murdered. But "Unseen", strangely, moved completely away from the characters and ambiance it so successfully created in the first pages. It becomes convoluted, pushing and pulling between the chapters focusing in the police inspector, the childhood friend of the first victim (mostly concentrating on her failing marriage) and first person discourse of the (unknown) killer. I felt Inspector Knutas didn’t receive the attention he deserved. There are many characters introduced throughout the book, with a level of detail that made me believe they would be important to the story, instead they are summarily dropped after one appearance – the victim’s boyfriend, the circle of friends, the man who finds the body, the tv station editor and others.

I do appreciate I writer who isn’t afraid to up the body count and press the gore button, but Unseen never captured me, there were too many characters, too little focus or intention in the plot which seemed to flutter around. And the ending…maybe I’m being too harsh, but honestly when I read it I went “what the ?!#$?” and not in a nice way either.

I described the ending to my husband and asked him whether it sounded believable to him. It did not. So there you go – in our house we remember every stinkin’ kid we ever kicked around and left crying, underwear shoved in mouth, and know they’re out to get us.

Insane in Iceland

Last Rituals - Yrsa Sigurdarsdottir

In “Last Rituals” a German student is found murdered in Reykjavik University. More than murdered actually, because someone has seen it fit to remove his eyes. Harold Guntlieb had a life-long fixation with witchcraft a subject dear to his grandfather who, in the confused times that ensued the II World War, was able to procure numerous artifacts and documents related to the German Inquisition.

Tracing the origins of the infamous “witch-hunting manual”, XVII century Malleus Malleficarum, has somehow led him to Iceland, the only European country, where men, rather than women were persecuted as witches.

Since the Guntlieb family has difficulty believing such an horrific crime was committed by a drinking / drugging buddy of Harold, they decide to send their private security/ trouble-shooter to the Island (yes, they are filthy rich). Matthew Reich daunted by the obvious problem of navigating a foreign police and law system not to mention the language issue, hires Thóra Gudmunsdottir, a lawyer and divorced mother of two as a guide and aide.

The verdict? Hmmm, it’s a nice book, very readable; the historic subplot was very well thought out, the investigation in itself quite interesting. I really liked Thóra’s character very much. What I didn’t like were many of the chapters spent following Harold’s University friends – they were very silly, very blair-witchery 2…boring!

So let me put it this way, when a new Sigurdardottir book comes out – if it features Thóra I will definitely get it. If not, I’ll still consider it.

Ann Fessler - The Girls Who Went Away

This book changed my opinion on adoption forever.

I grew up thinking that adoption was the ultimate altruistic gesture, and could never make sense of people who spend absurd amounts of money trying to get pregnant (or get someone else to be pregnant for them), when there are so many children needing homes. However, I have to say I never (knowingly) met anyone who was adopted.

Then, in the last couple of years I started reading more on international adoption. First off, I was absolutely chocked at how expensive it was – but it seemed like a wonderful idea to rescue children of poorer nations.

But a couple of thoughts started creeping in – like, if the birth mothers had even half of the money prospective parents pay for these adoptions wouldn’t they choose to keep their babies; is it ethical to pay pregnant teenagers in developing countries (an amount irrelevant to the adoptive parents, but very significant to the girls and women) – I mean, isn’t that the same as basically encouraging them to serve as incubators?

And what of the ethnicity of the child – at what cost do they grow up estranged from their culture, surrounded by different values and obviously to all not the biological children of the couple parenting them?

Harsh as it may sound I believe there is a component of vanity in international adoption – because if a baby is obviously not related to you, then everyone down the street can come to the conclusion that you adopted. In some ways, it seems like it puts parents on a pedestal.

Even with these questions floating around in my mind, I must admit, I never gave much thought to birth mothers. For some reason (because that’s the image society has enforced over the decades in order to maintain the unassailable social acceptance of adoption) I believed that the majority of girls and women who surrendered these children, went on with their lives, except maybe for some melancholy on the baby’s birthday.

“The Girls Who Went Away – the hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade” changed that perception completely – Ann Fessler (an adoptee herself) provides tens of first person testimonials of American girls between 14 and 22 years old who gave up their babies for adoption in the fifties and sixties – their lives were absolutely thrown off track by this traumatic event.

Their stories are eerily similar – most wanted to keep the baby, some, more mature, were quick to understand that, since absolutely no-one was willing to give a helping hand this was the best option – they convinced themselves they were making a choice where society made sure there was none.

These girls were pushed towards giving up their babies, by parents, boyfriends, priests and social workers who made them feel as if the only right thing to do in order to save their families social standing, good name, their own future etc was give up the baby. They were made to feel as if they alone (boyfriends were never held accountable) were to blame and as if the only thing to do was to yield power to someone else. They were, gently in some cases and violently in others, led to the only socially acceptable path – pretend it never happened: go away on vacation or to visit relatives (in reality to horrible institutions for “unwed mothers”, were they were routinely abused and brainwashed by seemingly inhuman nuns and social workers) when the pregnancy started to show, give birth, sign the papers surrendering the baby, loose the weight, go back to school or work and never speak of it again.

One reoccurring testimonial tells how social workers made the girls write on a piece of paper what they could offer the baby and on the back what the adoptive parents could provide. The social workers always spoke of prospective adoptive parents who were college educated, frequently a doctor and a housewife with lots of disposable income who were desperate for a child. When some of the women came to meet their surrendered children decades later, it was not always what they found. Mostly, they seem to have found normal, loving families, but there are more than a few sad stories were the adoptive parents did not properly care for the children.

I was very interested to learn that the very rich and very poor seldom had their teenage girls put the babies up for adoption: in the first case they arranged for abortions and in the second they helped the girls raise their babies or they were adopted by close family members.

I already knew that African societies, for the most part, do not approve of adoption and Fessler states that for African-Americans the adoption rate was consistently very low in the fifties and sixties. I think the only testimonial of a black girl in the book is one were the father was white, so I guess for the most part black teenagers were helped and protected by their families in these cases.

For the girls and women who surrendered their babies it was the first step in a life of psychological anguish, psychosomatic illness, low self-esteem, many bad relationships. Most speak of incapacity to connect - even when they were married or had other children or attained high-profile careers – they seem to live in a sort of suspended animation. The trauma is so deep that often, reunion with the surrendered child is not enough to make these women forgive themselves.

That is the bottom line – no matter how privileged a life their child has led – these mothers never let go of the fact that they didn’t keep their child. Forget the fact that there was no way for them to do it – still, in their minds they are mothers who abandoned their babies.

This a very moving book, that I honestly recommend to everyone - we all have mothers and can all empathize with the sad and brave stories of these women.

One good way to honor their suffering would be to take a good, hard look at adoption. Everything comes at a price and we have to start figuring out how much we are, collectively, willing to pay.

Patrick McDonnell - Mutts Shelter Stories

I love the Mutts series!
This book takes Mutts strips (some previously published)and adds photographs of adopted pets and short testimonials by their forever families. Lovely, snuggly and christmasy.

Karin Fossum - Don't Look Back

I thought this was Inspector Sejer's first appearance, but I just checked Wikipedia and I was mistaken - it's actually the second.
Anyway, it just reiterated the feeling that Fossum is one murder mystery writer I want to follow - I plan to read the whole of Sejer's series and at least a couple of her other mysteries.
This one starts with a brilliant diversion maneuver…or is it? And then, the naked body of a 15 year old girl is found. An introverted athlete, passionate about children, and indifferent to most of what captures the attention of teenage girls, Ann seems an unlikely victim of assault – fast, strong and clever. So who could have gotten her to that isolated spot by a mountain lake?
What I really appreciate in Fossum's writing is that she doesn't shy away from the most taboo crimes in our society (against children) and doesn't spare us the horror and confusion of parents, friends and community either. She also goes after what lies at the root of abusive behavior, often more abusive behavior.
Don't Look Back is very addictive - I read it in two days, but it's definitely not one of those murder mysteries you can read for comfort.
I think anyone who reads it will feel very uncomfortable in the end - because corpse or no corpse - abuse of the most fragile among us goes on all the time and just being part of society is enough to make us feel like accomplices.