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The Weekly Wrap: September 28-October 4

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The Weekly Wrap: September 28-October 4

Series Love

Thursday dashed my hopes for my beloved Cleveland Guardians making it to the World Series. But the World Championship of baseball isn’t my only series love. I am a book series lover. Why? It’s simple, when you find an author whose writing and ensemble of characters and plots you like, it is a bonus, when there are twenty or more books beside the one you are reading. It makes the choice of what to read next easier.

I’m fond of saying that Louise Penny got me through the pandemic. And her latest hits the stores soon! I want to be Gamache when I grow up. I dream of visiting Myrna Landers bookstore. I’d like to order a sampler of all the good dishes the Bistro serves. And what can I say about Ruth Zardo…

Thanks to a friend’s recommendation, I’ve been reading William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor stories. I just finished number fourteen. But I won’t buy the new one, Apostles Cove, and read out of order. It will likely have spoilers for books I haven’t read yet.

Some series, like this are best read in order, But others can be picked up just about anywhere. I’ve found that true of Agatha Christies Poirots. Although they are numbered, I just read them as I find them. Likewise for the Lord Peter Wimsey books, although the development of his relationship with Harriet Vane occurs over several books.

Alas, there are also the series I haven’t finished. Some, like the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey-Maturin series I can’t really say why. I even have all the books. In the case of another series, I am a couple short, but I just felt the writer was losing her touch and they weren’t as good.

My latest series project, at the behest of my son, is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series which runs to 41 books. Not sure whether I’ll finish that one (or live long enough to do so!) but I finished #1 and will go on to #2. At least I don’t have to wonder what I read next. Thanks to my son, all 41 are loaded on my Kindle.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Since college, I’ve been hearing about Thomas Pynchon. He’s one I’ve never gotten around to reading. After a hiatus, Pynchon has a new novel out, Shadow Ticket. If you are thinking of taking him up, A.O. Scott offers a reading guide in “The Essential Thomas Pynchon.”

My mom was a Leon Uris fan. And so, I read some of his books that she had laying around the house. And if you are of my generation, you can’t forget the music theme, and perhaps the film version of Exodus. Alexander Nazaryan remembers his novels about Israel in “An Exodus from History.”

One of the more popular prints I’ve seen adorning many walls is The Great Wave off Kanagawa. If Japanese wave and ripple patterns fascinate you, Public Domain has posted three volumes of these from a 1903 work by artist Mori Yūzan. The article is: “Hamonshu: A Japanese Book of Wave and Ripple Designs (1903).”

Although my Guardians season is over my love for baseball is not. But a new development, allowing appeals to “robotic umpires” might take some of the magic away. Each umpire has his or her own strike zone. Managers, batters, and pitchers all make it their business to know and part of ‘inside baseball” are all the adjustments. Take that away for an “objective” strike zone and I think the game will lose something. So does Nick Burns, who writes about “The Disenchantment of Baseball.”

Many of us who were around in 1972 were captivated by Cat Stevens’ rendering of an old Christian hymn “Morning Has Broken.” It was number one in the US that year. Over the years, from rough beginnings, he has explored a number of faiths before landing in Islam and taking the name Yusuf Islam. Now, he has published an autobiography. The Guardian ran a review this week: “Cat on the Road to Findout by Yusuf/Cat Stevens review – fame, faith and charity.”

Quote of the Week

Miguel Cervantes was born on September 29, 1547. He wrote:

“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.“

I wondered if this was the inspiration of the song “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha. It captured the imagination of so many of us in the 1960’s, when many of us dared dream the impossible.

Miscellaneous Musings

Amidst our immigration debates, I’ve wondered why people would leave home, family, community, take perilous journeys, and seek refuge in a country not particularly eager to have them. In The Asylum Seekers, which I’m reading at present, that question is answered. It usually amounts to a life threatened or a family member murdered. It strikes me that the qualities of character such people exhibit suggest the kind of people we’d want to welcome.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine. He wrestles with the wave of technology overwhelming us (did any of us ask for all this AI?). He’s concerned that this threatens something essential to our humanity. Despite the flood of money flowing into this tech boom, it seems to me essential to ask these questions.

The backdrop of William Kent Krueger’s Windigo Island is the trafficking of young girls to satisfy the sexual appetites of men on lake freighters and in oil boom towns. The book underscored the moral unacceptability of this practice, even among billionaire playboys. Whatever comes of the Epstein fiasco, I hope we will determine to be a society with zero tolerance for such crime, which is what it is, and no leniency for traffickers, procurers, and perpetrators.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Kristin M. Colberg and Jos Moons, SJ, The Future of Synodality

Tuesday: Ross Douthat, Believe

Wednesday: David McCullough, History Matters

Thursday: Randy S. Woodley, Shalom and the Community of Creation

Friday: Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for September 28-October 4.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

The Reviews: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series

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I recently finished Louise Penny’s The Madness of Crowds, the seventeenth in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and the most recently published. [Updated 12/13/2022: Number 18 in the series, A World of Curiosities has been published and a review for the book has now been added.] For the moment, there are no more Gamache novels to read, unless I go back and re-read the series. This has quite simply been one of the best series I’ve read. While Penny’s books are often favored by women readers, I’ve found myself drawn by the strong male characters, especially Armand and Jean Guy. Particularly, I want to grow up to be like Armand! Equally, I find myself deeply appreciating the strong and diverse female characters–Reine Marie, Clara, Myrna, Isabelle Lacoste, and of course, Ruth (and Rosa!). Like so many readers, I want to live in Three Pines, or foster the kind of Three Pines community where I live (perhaps one of Penny’s hopes). I also have been provoked to thought, and not a little self-examination, by Penny’s insight that a murder often begins many years before with a nursed grievance allowed to fester. Finally, there are Gamache’s four sentences that lead to wisdom:

I don’t know.

I need help.

I’m sorry.

I was wrong.

The older I get, the more I find myself saying these things and I find myself looking back at my younger self and wish I’d learned this wisdom sooner.

I thought it would be fun to create a page with all my Gamache reviews. While I try to avoid spoilers in the reviews, those of subsequent books may give away plot details you’d rather discover for yourself if you haven’t read the previous ones. But if you are like me and want to go back and remember, this might prove helpful. I’ve just included publication info, a brief summary, and a link to the full review.

Still Life (Chief Inspector Gamache #1), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2005.

Summary: The suspicious death of Jane Neal a day after her painting is accepted into an art show brings Gamache and his team to Three Pines, and to the grim conclusion that someone in this small community is a murderer. Review

A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache #2), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2006.

Summary: An unliked but aspiring author comes to Three Pines and is murdered in front of a crowd at a curling match yet no one sees how it happened. Review

The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Gamache #3), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2007.

Summary: Gamache returns to Three Pines to solve a murder during a seance at the old Hadley House while forces within the Surete’ (and on his team) plot his downfall to avenge the Arnot case. Review

A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Gamache #4), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2008.

Summary: The Gamache’s getaway to a peaceful lodge is interrupted, first by an unloving family reunion, and then by the death of one of the family, crushed under a statue. Meanwhile, the naming of a child forces Gamache to face his own family history. Review

The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Gamache #5), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2009.

Summary: The body of an unknown man is found in the bistro of Gabri and Olivier, and Olivier is the chief suspect! Review

Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Gamache #6), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2010.

Summary: Gamache and Beauvoir are on leave after an attempt to rescue an agent goes terribly wrong. As each faces their own traumas they get caught up in murder investigations in Quebec City and Three Pines. Review

A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Gamache #7), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2012.

Summary: The vernissage for Clara’s art show is a stunning success with glowing reviews only to be spoiled when the body of her estranged childhood friend is found in her flowerbed. Review

The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2013.

Summary: While solving a case involving the murder of a prior in a remote monastery, Gamache must confront his arch-nemesis Chief Superintendent Sylvain Françoeur. Review

How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Gamache #9), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2013.

Summary: The murder of the last Ouellet quintuplet, a former client and friend of Myrna’s brings Gamache back to Three Pines which serves as a hidden base of operations as Sylvain Francoeur’s efforts to destroy Gamache comes to a head. Review

The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Gamache #10), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2015.

Summary: Gamache’s peaceful retirement is interrupted when Peter Morrow fails to return as agreed a year after his separation from Clara and they embark on a search taking them to a desolate corner of Quebec. Review

The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Gamache #11), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.

Summary: A young boy from Three Pines, prone to fantastic tales, reports seeing a big gun with a strange symbol, and then is found dead, setting off a search for a murderer, and an effort to thwart a global threat. Review, Second Review

A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Gamache #12), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.

Summary: Gamache returns to the Sûreté as Commander of its Academy, and finds himself at the center of a murder investigation of one of its corrupt professors. Review

Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Gamache #13), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2017.

Summary: A mysterious figure robed in black, the murder of a woman found in those robes, a confession, and a trial, during which Gamache has made choices of conscience that could cost lives and save many. Review

Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Gamache #14), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2018.

Summary: Gamache, Myrna, and Benedict, a young building maintenance worker who hopes to be a builder are named as liquidators of the estate of a cleaning woman while Amelia Choquet, caught with drugs, is expelled from the Academy to the streets as a powerful and lethal drug is about to hit. Review

A Better Man (Chief Inspector Gamache #15), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2019.

Summary: Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacoste are together again, searching for a missing girl amid rising floods and a flood of social media attacks against Gamache and the art of Clara Morrow. Review

All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache #16), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2020.

Summary: A family visit of the Gamaches to children in Paris suddenly becomes an investigation into the attempted murder of Stephen Horowitz, Armand’s godfather, and the murder of a close associate, and will put the Gamaches in great peril. Review

The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache #17), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2021.

Summary: A Christmas assignment to provide security for a professor proposing mercy killing leads to a murder investigation in Three Pines. Review

A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2022.

Summary: The arrival in Three Pines of a sister and brother involved in a murder case that brought Armand and Jean Guy and the opening of a sealed room and the strange painting found within confront Gamache with two of his greatest fears.

The most recent novel in this series envisions what it is like to emerge from the pandemic. One thing I would say is that this series has been one of the things that got me through the pandemic. My review of the first volume was posted on April 2, 2020, less than a month after the world locked down. The most recent posted June 13, 2022, a bit over two years later. Pandemic has morphed into endemic and the new normal is a scarier world of war in Ukraine, inflation, gun violence, and political discord stretching from Sri Lanka to the United States. Amid all the murders (both in the real world and the books), the Gamache series reminds me of the goodness that remains, a goodness worth fighting and resisting for as well as celebrating in our daily lives. And there is one more goodness, at least…Louise Penny is still writing and book 18, A World of Curiosities, is expected in late 2022. When I get the chance to read it, and any subsequent numbers, it and they will be added to the list!

[Updated 12/13/2022: The review of book 18, A World of Curiosities is now included in this list.]

Review: The Eye of the World

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the eye of the world

The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time #1), Robert Jordan. New York: TOR Books, 1990.

Summary: Following an attack of trollocs and a Myrdraal on Emonds Field, Rand and two friends, joined by several others, flee when they realize that they are the object of the attack, and somehow at the center of a web of destiny that may either thwart or aid the rise of the Dark Power.

Rand and his two friends Mat and Perrin, along with Egwene, the innkeeper’s daughter seem ordinary youth in a remote village, Emonds Field. Egwene is apprenticed to Nynaeve, the Wisdom (a kind of healer) of the village. The greatest excitement comes at Bel Tine, a feast at which Thom Merrilin, a gleeman or storyteller arrives. All this changes when it turns out that a strange, dark figure (Myrdraal) each of the boys sees leads a fist of trollocs to invade the village. Tam, Rand’s father is nearly killed and bequeaths his heron-mark blade sword to Rand. A regal woman, Moiraine heals Tam, and then helps the young men see that they were the object of the attack, and one or all are at the center of a web of destiny in a battle against good and evil. To save Emonds Field from further attack, they must flee and make their way to Tar Valon, where Moiraine is part of an order of Aes Sedai, women who have been trained to channel the One Power to resist the Dark Power as well as to “gentle” men who cannot wield the power without becoming insane.

This results in a desperate flight by the boys and Egwene, Thom, Moiraine, and her warder Lanb, pursued physically and even in dreams by the powers of evil. Nynaeve, concerned for her villagers, tracks them and joins the company. Mat is compromised and nearly lost when he steals a dagger from a hoard in an abandoned city. The party is separated, and except for Thom eventually make it to Caemlyn, where they are reunited. Thom, who was with Mat and Rand, sacrifices himself so they can escape, although there is a question of whether he really died. It is here that Moiraine understands the true threat of evil to the Eye of the World, a pool thus far untouched by evil, and Rand understands that he is at “the heart of it all” a ta’veren or a person around which the Wheel of Time weaves surrounding life threads, forming a Web of Destiny. The company, joined by Loial, an Ogier, pursue desperate ways through the Blight to confront evil, and for Rand, to confront his destiny.

Jordan’s work has been likened to The Lord of the Rings. Except in sheer length of the fourteen volume series, I do not think he surpasses him, and there are elements that are at least parallel to, if not derivative of, Tolkien–a remote people, ordinary figures caught up in a great conflict, a company, dark riders, a desperate flight and quest against the rising of a Dark Power who threatens the world.

That said, Jordan has also created a richly textured world with a history, a unique vision of time, and a seemingly different way of thinking about power that seems more eastern than western. Light and dark seem two sides of the same coin. It turns out that only women who have been trained can wield the One Power as a force of Light. Men are turned insane by it or to instruments of the Dark Power, something that will become an issue for Rand. Time symbolized by the Wheel with an intertwined snake swallowing its own tail brings past, present and future together and weaves a fate for individuals. Instead of “God works in mysterious ways” it is “The wheel weaves as the wheel wills,” which is repeated near to the point of becoming tedious. As in real life, forces of good often are at cross purposes–different orders of Aes Sedai, the Children of Light, and the various kingdoms, all at some point becoming threats to the quest as much as the Dark Power.

Jordan creates strong female characters. Aes Sedai Moraine leads the party and wields great power. Nynaeve the Wisdom and even Egwene have their own power, Moiraine seeing them as Aes Sedai in training. Caemlyn is ruled by a strong queen, Morgase, to be succeeded one day by her daughter Elayne. I can’t think of an evil female character in this volume. Not so with the men, such as Padan Fain, the evil peddler and Dark Friend. Yet there are both strong and delightful male characters from some of the innkeepers to Thom, the gleeman, who lays down his life and most of all Lan, the warder, descended from kings (one thinks often of Aragorn).

So the question is, will I go on? I can say that I will not be binge-reading the series. Yet the writing held my attention, and I find myself caring about what will happen to Rand and the others. I wonder if the Dark Power will be defeated and I’m curious why it takes fourteen books. It is clear that Jordan’s plots take many twists and turns, only some of which resolved in this book. I wonder how patient I would be with this over such an extended series.

Some friends have told me that the middle books do seem to get bogged down at times. I’d be curious what others think. Was it a slog, or did you not want it to end? Did you read straight through or read another volume periodically? Did you finish the series or give up? As you can tell, I haven’t made up my mind. This was a great summer read. Maybe that’s what I’ll do, except that this would take until 2031. Wheel of Time fans, I need some encouragement here…