REVIEWS: BOOKS THAT DIDN'T QUITE FLOAT MY BOAT

I try to give every book the same consideration, particularly when it's in the review pile.  As a (wannabe) writer myself, I can understand the toil that an author went through.  I respect that.  But there are still some books, that no matter how much I should have liked, and thought I would enjoy, I just can't get excited about it.  It stinks.  It's a disappointment to me as an expectant reader, and I'm sure as an author and publisher.

But with a New Year quickly approaching, I feel it is as good a time as any to slough off some of the titles that have straggled on my nightstand...

ASK ALICE by DJ TAYLOR

I loved Taylor's previous work, Bright Young People, about high society in 1920s in London.  That book was nonfiction.  Ask Alice once again draws on Taylor's encyclopedic knowledge of the era but in novel form.  The heroine, naive but learning, goes from beguiled to ingenue to jaded.  

The opening pages of the book, told from Alice's point-of-view, were completely riveting.  Once Taylor introduces a London character who has a pigpen in his back garden, the whole thing falls apart.  The narrative voice loses its way.  Even when we return to Alice on the London stage, Taylor cannot regain the balance or the verve of the early pages.

To his credit, Taylor is an excellent descriptive writer.  His sentences are well-formed and packed with elegance.  In this case, it is the over-arching story that is weak. 

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Language: English ISBN-10: 1605980862

BRIGHT AND DISTANT SHORES by DOMINIC SMITH

Here again is a book from one of my favorite authors.  The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre left me in tears and The Beautiful Miscellaneous was quite touching.  My penchant for his writing coupled with my downright obsession with the 1893 World's Fair should have been a no-brainer.  

What was lacking here was Smith's usually extraordinary narrating characters.  Rather than feeling their adventuresome spirit in the vivid colors of the South Pacific, it reads more like a monochrome manual for gathering archaeological samples.  I desperately wanted to like this book, but I just can't recommend it.  

Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Language: English ISBN-10: 1439198861

INDIGO

IN SEARCH OF THE COLOR THAT SEDUCED THE WORLD 

by Catherine E. McKinley

Indigo is my favorite color; it always has been.  It was the color of my bridesmaids' dresses and plenty of decor at my wedding.  I'm also always a fan of books that take a small idea or item and uncover vast histories about it.  I thought this is what I would find between the covers here -- a surprising and insightful look at a stunningly beautiful color.

Indigo is less a history and more a personal diary.  The author embarks on a journey to Africa in order to discover more about indigo, but she is sparing in her details about the history that brings her there.  Rather than intertwining the old and the new, the old becomes abandoned for her own adventures.  There were also glaring historical errors like her mention of "the invention of the cotton gin in 1974," (page 4) that made it hard to enjoy.


Hardcover: 256 pp


Size: 5.5 x 8.25 in

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1608195058

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In all cases, I sincerely wish to thank the publicists for providing the review copies.  I hope they will not find me unfair in my assessments.

REVIEW: MAD WORLD by Paula Byrne

Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead

"Thorough" is the first word I would use to describe this biography.  Intense, assured, incisive. America had Hemingway and Fitzgerald, while England had Waugh and Wodehouse.  

Wodehouse found the whole scene rather silly and made hysterical fun of it.  Waugh, on the other hand, had a more complicated view.  

The Great War had left aristocratic families in tattered remnants.  Elder sons were dead, or maimed.  A heavy tax was levied against the very wealthy, forcing many to close up or sell manor homes.  A few found themselves forced to take jobs.  The younger siblings of these wayward families felt they had their own marks to make and became known as the Bright Young People.  Waugh, for his part, was a member of the club, but not to the manor born.  His inclusion was based solely on his friendships with various hosts of the ongoing party. He felt distinct self-loathing both for participating in their debauchery, and in desiring to be a part of it.  

It seems his cynicism ebbed and flowed, depending on his mood (or more likely, his standing within an important family).  But his wit remained intact and was employed in varying thicknesses upon all of his writing.  

This biography chooses the writing of Waugh's most famous work, Brideshead Revisited,  as its ultimate target, but as I mentioned before, it is nothing if not thorough.  At times, it can see a little too tangental.  For instance, the chapter exploring the secret scandal of the Lygon family is a bit to muddled, although it makes for good gossip.  

All in all, the author has approached her subject with supreme respect, and bravely included even the unsavory bits for her readers. 

Many thanks the folks at Harper Collins for the review copy.  The paperback will be available March 8, 2011.  Hardcover available now. 

REVIEW: BRIGHT YOUNG PEOPLE

Considering my obsession with this period in history, and some of its tenants, I cannot believe it took me so long to find this book. I have heard, anecdotally, of the Bright Young People but I knew little about their specifics. Even with this marvelous history as a guide, they are still a fluid, amorphous bunch. Which I suppose was the point.

After WWI, the French turned to surrealism. America turned to jazz. The English, it seems, turned to their aristocracy-turned-high society. The inception of exorbitant inheritance taxes burdened the landed gentry -- their parents. Older siblings returned from the war broken and confused. This lost generation needed an outlet, an escape, and above all to be heard. The result was stunning.

These fabulously wealthy twenty-somethings knew that time was fleeting, and made the most of it. Champagne flowed at parties that lasted until dawn. Scavenger hunts zigzagged the players all across London. And yet there was a deeper sadness that permeated their carousing. A sort of nostalgia in their own time.

Besides, it was not all frivolity. The great writer Evelyn Waugh was a bright young person. So too was the fantastic portrait photographer Cecil Beaton. This frenzied time produced self-assured artists.

This book chronicles the soirees and the stories of those who gave them in sparkling, sepia-toned perfection.

Bright Young People
The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age
D. J. Taylor
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks, January 2010

ISBN: 978-0-374-53211-6, ISBN10: 0-374-53211-7, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 384 pages, 16 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations/10 Illustrations in Text/Appendix/Notes and References/Index