Book Look: City of Light, City of Poison, by Holly Tucker

 A very well-crafted recounting of "The Affair of Poisons" - a period during Louis XIV's reign when over 400 people were imprisoned and over 30 executed for alleged involvement in poisoning, witchcraft, abortion, and fraud. Seriously, some of the tales recounted here are so shocking - gruesome murders, infant sacrifices, black masses, serial poisoners - that gothic novels pale in comparison. And who knew that arsenic could be administered so many different ingenious ways? (Hint: beware bouquets from loved ones, letters from strangers, and freshly laundered shirts!)

One forgets the extent to which witchcraft, in 17th century France, was still mainstream. People genuinely believed in the existence of love potions that would help them secure affection, that the ashes of the placentas of babies would cure all manner of diseases (including impotence), and that fortune-telling was a real thing. And if you had an inconvenient spouse or lover hanging about? An inheritance coming your way, but not quickly enough? There were people with "potions" that could help you with that too.

All of which might continue to have been tolerated, if only a growing investigation into a cabal of particularly nefarious poisoners/extortionists/"black magic" practitioners - conducted by Louis XIV's scrupulous new Chief of Police - hadn't turned up allegations that members of Louis XIV's own court - to include at least two of his mistresses - might be entangled in the web.

To be clear, this isn't some sensationalized retelling of an otherwise rather lame affair. Quite the contrary, Tucker takes pains to sticker *very* close to the source material - all events and conversations are drawn or paraphrased from actual documents - and there are extensive footnotes at the end for those interested in learning more. It's the historical events themselves that are sensational. (TIP: You might find it helpful to maintain an informal glossary to keep track of the cast of characters, as I did, because there are a lot of them; alas, real life is seldom as tidy as fiction.)

If anything, Tucker deliberately eschews drawing inferences that become increasingly obvious as the details unfold. She's right to point out that there's no way to be sure what actually happened, given the gaps in the records that have survived, the profound unreliability of the testimony of those who were questioned (especially those testimonies given under torture), and potential political machinations designed to muddle the truth.

However, she does loosen up a little in the Epilogue, acknowledging the preponderance of evidence suggesting that later phases of the investigation may have been tainted by the political and personal aspirations of one of Louis XIV's most powerful advisors. An apt reminder that politicians exploiting social hysteria to suit their own ends isn't a new phenomenon. But then, neither is human perfidy! Plenty of which is on wanton display in this thoroughly researched and entertaining read.

Book Look: Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys

Spoiler alert: Mr. Rochester definitely comes off as the selfish, arrogant, self-pitying villain in this Jane Eyre prequel that imagines the events leading up to his wife Bertha's madness and attic confinement. But he's not the only villain in the piece: colonialism, sexism, racism, greed, and misogyny also play roles in this heartbreaking tale of a woman traumatized and betrayed to her ruin.

First things first, she's Antoinette in this tale - Bertha being a cruel nickname that Rochester assigns her after he, Othello-like, allows himself to be convinced by an Iago stand-in that he's been tricked into marrying a madwoman. Humiliated, he lashes out at Antoinette as the source of his disgrace, seeking revenge: first by humiliating her, then betraying her, then labelling her as mad before finally ripping her away from her beloved tropical island and whisking her off to England to live the rest of her life as his prisoner.

But who gets to define madness? At what point do the combined impacts of grief, disenfranchisement, betrayal, and profound social isolation cross over into madness? Rhys paints an aching portrait of a woman whose only crime is loving too deeply. Perversely, even her passionate nature, the result of having grown up in the lush and sensual tropics, is construed as evidence of madness - lust in a woman being, in those Victorian times, a sure indicator of mental dissipation.

Rhys's storytelling is elegant, inventive, and evocative. Her character sketches are as artfully brutal as her descriptions of Jamaica are exquisitely sensuous. Sweeping in its themes (pride, greed, love, grief) but explicit in its tragic examination of female agency, I get why this continues to show up on "Greatest Works of English Literature" lists.

Book Look: Satchmo, by Louis Armstrong

This was fascinating, both as an autobiography and as uniquely filtered socio-economic essay of New Orleans circa 1900-1921, encompassing the 21 years that Louis Armstrong spent growing up in the city.

The first thing you notice is that this doesn't appear to have been edited in any way - not for grammar, not for consistency, and certainly not for "political correctness." Louis tells his story in his own words, stream of conscious-style, through the lens of the morals and ethics he learned growing up in the seediest neighborhoods of New Orleans. His casual acceptance of such things as institutionalized racism (cops who would knock blacks in the head with their "licorice sticks" if they were foolish enough to talk back), domestic violence (which went both ways - in Louis's world, the women were as dangerous as the men), prostitution (his mother and his first wife were working girls; he himself "ran" a girl for a while), and abject poverty (scavenging through trash for food and things to sell) are as important a part of the story as the events he is retelling.

The story also provides some fascinating insights into New Orleans culture at the time, from the institutionalized vice of Storyville (deliberately maintained by the city as a profit center) to the seedy honky-tonks that serviced levee workers, pimps, and whores; from the railroad tracks where his mom harvested herbs to combat TB and lockjaw (tetanus being a constant presence in a neighborhood where no one could afford shoes), to the turpentine factories that ripped away the linings of workers' lungs; from the "Colored Waifs Home" where Louis was incarcerated (no trial, no conviction - just an indefinite sentence until such time as his family could manage to round up a white person to vouch for him), to the endless stream of funerals, picnics, balls, and street parades that gave birth to a generation of brilliant jazz musicians.

Seriously, if you're interested in learning more about the life of Louis Armstrong, this should be included in your "must read" pile. While this self-serving autobiography almost surely sugar-coats or omits all manner of traumas, you won't want to miss out on this opportunity to hear Louis tell his story in his own words, though his own chosen filters.

20 Novels, Described Poorly

How many of these famous tales can you identify based on these extremely inept summaries? 

1.       There are men and several rabbits but, puzzlingly, no mice.

2.       A girl learns never to run around in the woods dressed as a ham

3.       A boy goes off to a wizard school where he becomes a jock

4.       It’s the best of times because the two lovers get to live happily ever after, but it’s the worst of times because a lot of people get their heads chopped off

5.       A guy inherits a ring that brings people really bad luck

6.       A gold-digging Southern belle spends the Civil War marrying up

7.       A guy buys a painting that doesn’t age well. At all.

8.       A white whale tries to escape from an obsessive stalker

9.       A guy throws parties for friends but never attends them himself because I guess he’s an introvert?

10.   A psychotic candymaker uses his chocolate factory to lure children to their death

11.   Four sisters find ways to keep themselves busy until they land husbands

12.   A town decides to assign each female a letter, which they have to wear sewn to their dress, but they never get past the letter ‘A’

13.   A guy who’s just trying to live his best life in an African village gets dragged away by a nosy sailor

14.   Society finally achieves a utopia where everyone owns large screen televisions, but some guys who likes books can’t stop complaining

15.   A successful capitalist is tormented by communists ghosts until he agrees to share his wealth

16.   A group of mean girls create drama in a Puritan community (hint: rhymes with “bitches”)

17.   People travelling on a luxury train have their vacation ruined by a murder

18.   A group of kids on an island survive by hunting pigs

19.   An old fisherman refuses to adopt modern fishing practices

20.   A house that is already architecturally unsound finally collapses due to the added weight of a woman who has risen from the grave

____________________

1. Of Mice and Men; 2. To Kill a Mockingbird; 3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; 4. A Tale of Two Cities; 5. The Lord of the Rings; 6. Gone With the Wind; 7. The Picture of Dorian Gray; 8. Moby Dick; 9. The Great Gatsby; 10. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory; 11. Little Women; 12. The Scarlett Letter; 13. Heart of Darkness; 14. Fahrenheit 451; 15. A Christmas Carol; 16. The Crucible; 17. Murder on the Orient Express; 18. The Lord of the Flies; 19. The Old Man and the Sea; 20. Fall of the House of Usher

Book Look: TransAtlantic, by Colum McCann

Make no mistake: this is an impressive work of research. However, there’s little source material for Schiff to work from (almost all of it the work of enemies or published decades after the events unfolded), and the author is cautious to remain within the confines of the evidence when drawing inferences about Cleopatra’s attributes or motives – all of which makes for an excellent work of scholarship, but not necessarily a riveting read.

Not saying I didn’t learn a lot of interesting information about Egypt under the rule of the Ptolemaic kings and Roman politics during the Caesar/Mark Antony/Octavian era – especially given that my only background knowledge was Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra. Parts of this I found genuinely compelling: the stark contrast between the rights of Egyptian women vs. Roman women (attributable to the fact that the Egyptian pantheon was headed by a female – Isis – rather than a male?), the elaborate civil service put in place by the Ptolemaic kings, the somewhat scary parallels between the events that led to the fall of Rome and events happening in the world now.

But am disappointed that, after 300+ pages, I don’t feel like I know much more about Cleopatra then when I began. Was she ever genuinely in love with Caesar and/or Antony, or were these relationships merely political gamesmanship by a shrewd and calculating politician? Was the prosperity experienced by Egypt during her reign due to her masterful leadership, or merely luck? Did she care about preserving Egypt, or were her decisions primarily intended to secure her own safety and pleasure? A less ethical “historian” might have provided answers, thereby crafting a less authoritative text, but perhaps also a more interesting read.

Definitely not downplaying Schiff’s accomplishment here: this is a masterful biography. Just trying to make sure potential readers know what they are getting: lots of interesting history, plenty of juicy political scheming, but not a lot of new insight into the titular queen as a daughter, a woman, a lover, or a ruler.