Anil's Ghost: A Novel

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In his Booker Prize-winning third novel, The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje explored the nature of love and betrayal in wartime. His fourth, Anil's Ghost, is also set during a war, but unlike in World War II, the enemy is difficult to identify in the bloody sectarian upheaval that ripped Sri Lanka apart in the 1980s and '90s. The protagonist, Anil Tissera, a native Sri Lankan, left her homeland at 18 and returns to it 15 years later only as part of an international human rights fact-finding mission. In the intervening years she has become a forensic anthropologist--a career that has landed her in the killing fields of Central America, digging up the victims of Guatemala's dirty war. Now she's come to Sri Lanka on a similar quest. But as she soon learns, there are fundamental differences between her previous assignment and this one:

The bodies turn up weekly now. The height of the terror was 'eighty-eight and 'eighty-nine, but of course it was going on long before that. Every side was killing and hiding the evidence. Every side. This is an unofficial war, no one wants to alienate the foreign powers. So it's secret gangs and squads. Not like Central America. The government was not the only one doing the killing.

In such a situation, it's difficult to know who to trust. Anil's colleague is one Sarath Diyasena, a Sri Lankan archaeologist whose political affiliations, if any, are murky. Together they uncover evidence of a government-sponsored murder in the shape of a skeleton they nickname Sailor. But as Anil begins her investigation into the events surrounding Sailor's death, she finds herself caught in a web of politics, paranoia, and tragedy.

Like its predecessor, the novel explores that territory where the personal and the political intersect in the fulcrum of war. Its style, though, is more straightforward, less densely poetical. While many of Ondaatje's literary trademarks are present--frequent shifts in time, almost hallucinatory imagery, the gradual interweaving of characters' pasts with the present--the prose here is more accessible. This is not to say that the author has forgotten his poetic roots; subtle, evocative images abound. Consider, for example, this description of Anil at the end of the day, standing in a pool of water, "her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day, removing layers of events and incidents so they would no longer be within her." In Anil's Ghost Michael Ondaatje has crafted both a brutal examination of internecine warfare and an enduring meditation on identity, loyalty, and the unbreakable hold the past exerts over the present. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing.

Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past–a story propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka’s landscape and ancient civilization, Anil’s Ghost is a literary spellbinder–Michael Ondaatje’s most powerful novel yet.

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With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. The time is our own time. The place is Sri Lanka, the island nation formerly known as Ceylon, off the southern tip of India, a country steeped in centuries of cultural achievement and tradition--and forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war and the consequences of a country divided against itself. Into this maelstrom steps a young woman, Anil Tissera, born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to work with local officials to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. Bodies are discovered. Skeletons. And particularly one, nicknamed 'Sailor.' What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past--all propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka's landscape and ancient civilization, Anil's Ghost is a literary spellbinder--the most powerful novel we have yet had from Michael Ondaatje.

Customer Reviews:

Searching for meaning in the darkness of the human heart........2007-09-02

"One village can speak for many villages. One victim can speak for many victims" (p. 176).

In its examination of human brutality, this is a powerful novel that searches for meaning in the darkness of the human heart. The horror, one is reminded, the horror. Best known for his Booker Prize winning novel, The English Patient, Philip Ondaatje's (1943) fourth novel, Anil's Ghost (2000), tells the story of 33-year-old Anil Tissera, a westernized native Sri Lankan, who returns to Sri Lanka to investigate claims of international human rights violations in the form of political massacres. The novel is set in the in the 1980s and '90s, while the government, anti-government insurgents, and separatist guerrillas are secretly eradicating the fearful population. With the help of a 49-year-old government archaeologist, Sarath Diyasena, Anil--a forensic anthropologist--attempts to identify skeletal bones (nicknamed Sailor) she suspects are the remains of a recent victim of Sri Lankan governmental murder. "The central truism" of Anil's work is that "you could not find a suspect until you found the victim" (p. 16). As Anil pursues her fact-finding investigation into the mystery surrounding Sailor's death, she becomes intwined in a suspenseful web of politics, paranoia, and tragedy, and it is difficult for her to know who to trust. Even Sarath's motivations are confusing, if not suspect. Through a series of flashbacks, as the title suggests, Anil is forced to confront her own ghosts, which is really the center of Ondaatje's novel. The plot unfolds with the tension of a thriller, and with Ondaatje's characteristic subtle, poetic flourishes along the way. (When he describes the "starkness of the desert" in the rain, you can smell the "toxic quality" of the creosote, pp. 148-49.) It is his stunning writing style that has made me a loyal Ondaatje reader.

G. Merritt

The human face of the news we don't want to hear..........2007-06-29

In order to maintain our sanity, we live on the very margin of our conscience, barely conscious of the world around us. If we want to step deeper inside this world, the revelations will ruin us for the lack of solutions for the ever existent human crises. A mere glimpse into the world will make us longing for the peace of mind we once had, to find an easy solution or forget the truth of life altogether. The absent minded happiness and peacefulness of the middle class is the healthiest/least self-destructive of all available ways to ignore the world. This book is about the people who can't escape the truth, either because they live in the midst of it or because they were thrown in and forced to face it.

Whatever is lacking here in the quality of a solidified prosaic form is irrelevant due to the immediacy of the human tragedy that is happening in Sri Lanka and other countries. Read it just to become part of the real world, nor for any other reason.

A stark, beautiful, raw novel.......2007-05-16

I read this book over two days, and I could hardly put it down. Ondaatje's prose is lyric and clear, evoking so many emotions at once. He creates pictures, and I could feel the environment of his characters. It makes me want to go to Sri Lanka and discover this culture. Yet I also understand that all of us are in the human experience together, with the love we share with one another, and the pain we use to control one another. A gorgeous novel. Thank you Mr. Ondaatje.

MEDIOCRE.......2007-02-09

Some parts of the book weren't bad and it tells something about the war in Sri Lanka then flashes back to the skeleton man named Sailor that was found. Too vague and too much flashing back and I didn't care for the end. Some parts I really got into and were interesting but other parts were boring. I was dissapointed somewhat in this one. Didn't care for the plot. Would I read it again, NADA.

A review from someone not interested in plot or Sri Lankan affairs.......2006-12-09

I came across "Anil's Ghost" more or less by accident. An acquaintance of mine gave me the book, I sat down with it and found myself rattled. Not, however, by the brutal and monotonous descriptions of wounds and traumas the author uses to drive in his anti-war message - if you read, expect to spend plenty of time in hospitals. Nor by the loose plot: many of the very greatest novelists (Musil, Cortazar, Kundera, to name a few) wrote books "about nothing," although there is a difference between not going for plot and trying but failing. The characters, by the way, did not intrigue me, even the ones, Palipana for instance, with a little depth.

But it was the style that bothered me, the style and the praise heaped on it by authorities no lower than The New York Times Book Review. The prose of "Anil's Ghost" is simple. Too simple. Now we know, of course, an entire range of lauded simplicities in literature, from the noble harmony of Lord Dunsany to the gruff brevity of Hemingway. Come to think of it, Ondaatje's is somewhat like the latter - minus the concentrated, stored energy, where the durable power of a phrase stands in inverse proportion to the length of it. Ondaatje tries to speak of war and mutilations and fear with the terse language of a medical investigator, which is, of course, exactly who Anil herself is. Yet, having left Sri Lanka long before the civil unrest, Ondaatje is the sort of Hemingway who knows bulls by hearsay. There is no sense of a close, lived-in familiarity behind the lush exotics. The simplicity of sentence structure ("She went, he did not think" etc.) reveals in this case a sort of poverty rather than a need to pack experience tightly.

After all, Ondaatje tells very little of the actual situation in Sri Lanka. Others have already noted how the book leaves us in the dark as to the particulars, the "beef" of the conflict: the who, the where, the why. Ninjas all of the fighters, looks like. It may be "poetically" appealing to think that war begets war, and something like this Ondaatje says, yet it is true only on the level of personal vindictiveness. A novelist is in position (perhaps it is a unique position) to take a broader view, rise over the grief and pain of those actually involved and extract, with the necessary cruelty, some meaning out of the mess - not a prediction or an easy recipe but at least a diagnosis. Then, perhaps, the suffering of Sri Lanka would present itself in terrible colors to us - something that mere gruesomeness of gore can no longer achieve. It is a cliché that we have all been anesthetized by violence on the TV screen, and a novelist must turn journalist to bring back the sense of dreadful reality. To do that in earnest, however, would require a different eye and a longer book.

In "Anil's Ghost" the Sri Lankan conflict comes across as a plot device for a plot that doesn't exist.

One alternative to journalism is, of course, character and textual study, a careful management of all levels of one's writing. From novel to novella and across the genres, there is space for allusions, for breaking sentences up, for humor and idiosyncrasy. Sarath, Anil, even Sailor could be actors in a drama. War or peace, the human mind is a fine and inept thing, bloated and full of itself, ironic, branching into minute obsessions, habits and rituals, not random, but bound and indebted to each other by history. The way someone ties his shoes can speak volumes... but not this volume. Ondaatje does not choose this second path, nor a third one - he builds dialogues and chooses mannerisms according to rules of symbolism. As a result, even quirks such as Anil's past as a "swimmer" and her dance in the rain much later in the book begin to MEAN something - embracing her heritage, in this case. Everything fits a little too smoothly into Ondaatje's general plan. When characters spell out some kind of message, it is a sure sign that the writer lacks interest in them for their own sake. The war in "Anil's Ghost," then, is not a backdrop for character study. But if Sri Lanka is neither scenery nor, in its total vagueness, the subject of the novel, what is it?

Something is wrong, something is lacking, and I'm searching here for that missing element. Why is it, I ask myself, that I only give it 3 stars (which it deserves, not being a "bad book")? How did Ondaatje annoy me into reviewing? And the best I can come up with is the following: there is something monstrous about writing, something involving a re-arrangement of consciousness into new forms, something similar to re-making a world. To write fiction is not to simply to tell what happens or might/would have happened. It is to trap with words, to draw into a realm that breathes and moves in a kind of unsettling semi-independence. A novel is a cat of hidden and delicate tastes - where it goes, no one knows, and it starves on a diet of INTENTIONS - especially on the thin milk of ideology. This is all quite generic, not too helpful and, of course, whether an attempt to breed a world succeeds cannot be seen in advance. Yet, if successful, the true masterpiece more fairly deserves, and more easily carries, the accusations of solipsism and density than the sort of insufficiency that gasps on these pages.

To conclude, I was reading Bytov's "Pushkin House" the other day. (Aside: it's funny how mediocre novels get 169 reviews - 170 with this one, and counting, but one of the most magnificent pieces of Russian literature has received exactly -1- comment. At least it's five stars.) This phrase of Bytov's drew my eye: "...The writing was plain, but with occasional lucky finds, which he seized on, developed and so nearly approached artistry..." I remembered it now in connection with the "lucky finds" of Ondaatje, who has put out thirteen books of poetry. Beauty frequents "Anil's Ghost": the vigor that Ondaatje's prose is missing bubbles in his metaphors. He should have assembled them into a fourteenth collection instead.

This contrast between prose and poetry in "Anil's Ghost" is bewildering. What is more, the figures are more often than not superfluous - not to say excessive, but they do little for the rest of the scene. Frequently they are inappropriate for the context or just make little sense, Ondaatje being too preoccupied with the "lucky find" itself to examine it. I quote from page 101: "She had one arm up, holding on to the rafter above her head. She herself felt like a whip that could leap out and catch something in its long finger." Feeling like a whip, ready to catch, is intuitively correct and understandable, but comparing a whip to a finger is, I think, "wrong." It does not work - the things compared operate in completely different ways. Both are long already, granted, but a whip lashes out, and even when it snatches (think Indiana Jones), it is flexible, tail-like or, perhaps, trunk-like.

A finger, on the other hand, is thicker, can snatch nothing by itself and bends only one way. Then there is the dubious grammar of "catch IN the finger." Ondaatje bravely takes these risks, but the two images, juxtaposed side by side in a reader's imagination, are not likely to mesh very well, or all that well. In short, the metaphor is so-so. Yet in this instance and always Ondaatje seems to be of the opinion that the more, the merrier, and that better a random figure than none at all. He is not aware of the silent crowd-like presence of the surrounding text, whose approval is the rite of passage for a sentence.

At other times he simply does not know when to quit. Consider the quote from the Amazon review: "...her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day, removing layers of events and incidents so they would no longer be within her." Beautiful, yes, although there is something with perspective here (reading, I never knew whose voice I heard, it seemed neither the author's nor the characters'). And the question of fitness remains. No sentence is an island: what does this one aim to do, what does it follow, in what does it result, are these all important in the overall melody and in the melody of the scene... the author never shows a sensibility for looking that far.

Assuming no conflicts there, how I wish Ondaatje had STOPPED after the word "day"! "Her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day." Nothing more: one could end a paragraph, an entire chapter with this. The second half of the sentence adds nothing new. And while something can be said for "layers," the glorious expression "undressed the day" comes just before it, leaving the reader no respite, no two-second break to catch his breath, climb down from the height of admiration for "stripped" into the quiet gulf between it and "layers." There he could combine the two figures, observe them together for double the fun. But the tropes blend, overreach, and the result is begging for excision.

And yet it is considered "quite well-written"... Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

On the other hand, I suppose it is good to know that someone can still produce imagery, even if he does not know what to do with it. Better misplaced poetry than another Grisham - that unhappy sentiment, I would guess, usually funds the praise reviewers heap on the countless books they must sort out. The bar has been seriously lowered... Near the beginning I mentioned a few of the literary giants. It is hard to say how they would fare with today's critics. Would "The Man Without Qualities" earn "acclaim," when a book such as this earns it as well? Is there some greater badge of merit, some superlative award and reward? Even the Nobel Prize falls into odd hands sometimes. Really, what kind of fame can the most talented writer on Earth (let us imagine him) hope for in the year 2006 or 2007? But, perhaps, the hour is too late for the label "great literature" to be assigned.

Bookclub in a Box Discusses Anil's Ghost, the Novel by Michael Ondaatje

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Bookclub in a Box Discusses Anil's Ghost, the Novel by Michael Ondaatje
Marilyn Herbert
Manufacturer: Bookclub-In-A-Box
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Anil's Ghost: A Novel

ASIN: 0973398426
Release Date: 2005-11-29

Book Description

Ondaatje's novel, Anil's Ghost, presents readers with a human face to a complicated political event, the civil war in Sri Lanka, in the last century. Although a cease-fire was declared in 2002, this war continues in many ways. Ondaatje presents an intimate and detailed picture of the costs and pain of civil war as uncovered through the novel's main character, Anil, a Sri-Lankan born, American trained forensic anthropologist. Bookclub-in-a-Box will guide readers through the timely and timeless questions that Ondaatje poses about the nature of war, a topic which is extremely relevant to today's troubled world.

Meditations, good & bad.(Review) (book review): An article from: New Criterion

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Meditations, good & bad.(Review) (book review): An article from: New Criterion
Brooke Allen
Manufacturer: Foundation for Cultural Review
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on May 1, 2000. The length of the article is 3874 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Meditations, good & bad.(Review) (book review)
Author: Brooke Allen
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2000
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 18 Issue: 9 Page: 63

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

From popular author Donna Fletcher comes an intriguing romance about a man who must chose between identical twin sisters.

When Fiona of the MacElder clan is told that she must wed Tarr of Hellewyk so the two clans can unite, she is furious that she has to marry a man she does not love. Fortunately, Fiona's identical twin sister Aliss also cannot imagine a worse fate than a forced marriage and the two boldly concoct an outlandish scheme –– to become indistinguishable to the groom –– and it works.

Tarr, frustrated that he cannot tell the difference between Fiona and Aliss, nevertheless finds himself drawn to a particular twin. Unfortunately, as soon it becomes clear to him that Fiona is the one who has captured his heart, Tarr must battle with an unexpected enemy to keep his newfound love.

Customer Reviews:

The Daring Twin .......2007-07-24

Although her laird has arranged a marriage for her, the high tempered Fiona MacElder refuses to marry a man she doesn't love. When Tarr of Hellewyk arrives to claim the bride that will create an alliance between their two clans he finds not one bride but two.

Fiona and her twin sister, Aliss, refuse to diviulge the identity of Tarr's intended bride. Tarr's solution is to take both sisters with him until he can decide which is his future wife. The more time they spend together the greater Fiona's desire for Tarr grows as does his for her. But is Tarr falling in love with the right twin?

I love a good Highland romance and couldn't wait to read The Daring Twin. I spent a delightful day at the lake thoroughly enjoying every word. Tarr and Fiona's love story was a pleasure to read! Fans of historical romance, especially those that love a hot highland hero, will want their own copy of Donna Fletcher's The Daring Twin.

Annmarie reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

A cute warm-hearted love story.......2007-01-29

Being forced into marriage with a neighboring clan's Chieftain isn't on Fiona's list of things to do today. To ensure that she isn't forced into this marriage she enlists the help of her twin sister, Aliss and together, they confuse everyone, including the prospective husband, Tarr.

Due to his father's death, Tarr of Hellewyk has recently become the chieftain of his clan. He's twenty-nine years old, and has decided he needs an heir to carry on his family name. In order to beget heirs, he needs a wife. Uniting his clan with the MacElders clan through his marriage would be a bonus. Setting his sights on the unattainably stubborn Fiona proves to be a delightful challenge, if he's up to the task.

Fiona is furious with her cousin, Leith. Leith, as chieftain of the MacElders clan is attempting to force her into marriage with Tarr. Fiona will not marry out of duty, she wishes to marry for love, and will wed for no other reason. Fortunately for Fiona, she has a secret weapon in the form of an identical twin sister, together they plan to frustrate Tarr into giving up on his marriage plans.

Fiona's refusal to marry the neighboring clan chieftain, Tarr is ignored by all the MacElder clan members, and it appears she will be forced into a loveless marriage. Frustrated and angry, she enlists the aid of her identical twin sister, Aliss, in order to confuse and befuddle Tarr into giving up and looking for a wife elsewhere. What they haven't counted on is Tarr being just as stubborn, and instead of backing down he insists on taking them both back to his home at Hellewyk. He plans to determine each twin's true identity, marry Fiona, and send Aliss back to the MacElders. The twins refuse to be separated, and Tarr's edict only makes them more determined to continue with their ruse.

The twins ability to switch places so completely that nobody can tell them apart is extremely funny. I was able to sense Tarr's frustration at being unable to determine one twin from the other. Every time he thought he had figured out which one was Fiona, she'd say or do something and he'd be thrown off track again. Twins and their special bond have always fascinated me, and I loved having the opportunity to share in that bond through the pages of THE DARING TWIN. I could just imagine this big strong Scottish warrior attempting to force these two equally determined women into some semblance of obedience. It isn't going to happen, and they do not hesitate to let him in on that little fact.

Chrissy Dionne (courtesy of Romance Junkies)

Not A Good Example Of What This Author Can Do!.......2005-12-27

Normally a large fan of Ms. Fletcher I looked forward to reading the first in her twin series "The Daring Twin. Sadly this read was not what we normally expect from this talented writer.

Fiona MacElder has been betrothed against her will to Tarr of Hellewyk in order to bring two powerful Highland clans together. Fiona dreams of finding love and thinks the last place she will find this emotion is with the barbarian she is forced to wed. Together she and her twin Aliss hatch a daring plot. Perhaps the rogue won't marry Fiona if he can't tell the two sisters apart. Too bad Fiona under estimates him.

Tarr will marry and cares not which twin it is. Their daring only proves that they are both strong and determined lasses, and either will make a good solid marriage. Now he finds himself in the battle to beat all battles. Two lovely lasses, but he can marry only one. Will Fiona and Tarr finally come to terms with the growing attraction between each other or will stubborn pride ruin all?

Fiona was a very unlikable heroine. She was too stubborn, too spoiled, too pig headed...she was just too everything. These character traits are fine in a strong heroine but when all are present it makes the character difficult to like let alone care if she's going to find her true love. Aside from that, the "conflict" of twins changing places also began to wear a bit thin the further one gets into the read. In the beginning it was as good a vehicle as any but...too much is not a good thing. Ms. Fletcher has a very talented way to tell a story but this time around she created a character that was difficult to like therefore difficult to care about. This is not something you want in a romance read.

The worst book ever read.......2005-10-29

This is quite possibly the worst book I've ever read. If I could give it a minus 5 star, that would even be too good!!! The plot is a mess--characters show up with little or no reason and the ending is vague at best. I thought the hero and heroine were two of the most obnoxious characters ever--they deserved each other! This book is a huge disappointment from this authour--I hope to God there won't be a sequel with the other twin. I certainly won't be buying it!

It was ok.......2005-08-16

I generally enjoy novels by this author but this one disappointed. I thought the heroine to be too much of a shrew and the sister to be clingy. The hero is a good guy with an abundance of patience to put up with the antics of the sisters. This story was laden with too much prose but if you could get through it, it was ok. Not her best work just ok.

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the daring twin
donna fletcher
Manufacturer: avon books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0739455567

Product Description

a historical romance set in scotland

The Daring twins;: A story for young folk,

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The Daring twins;: A story for young folk,
L. Frank Baum
Manufacturer: The Reilly & Britton co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Phoebe Daring - A Story for Young Folk. Illustrated by Joseph Pierre Nutyens. Part of The Daring Twins Series

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Phoebe Daring - A Story for Young Folk. Illustrated by Joseph Pierre Nutyens. Part of The Daring Twins Series
Lyman Frank (1856-1919) Baum
Manufacturer: Chicago; Reilly & Briton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UFO14Q

The Secret of the Lost Fortune: A Daring Twins Mystery

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A Different L. Frank Baum

The Secret of the Lost Fortune: A Daring Twins Mystery
L. Frank Baum
Manufacturer: Hungry Tiger Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1929527136

Book Description

Half the house is sealed off--and weird noises emanate from the creepy old housekeeper's room. No one can even get in to see Gran'pa anymore! There's a mystery to be solved and the five Daring kids and the ones to solve it!

The mystery come to a head in the cemetary at midnight in a chilling and thrilling conclusion!

This period page-turner is full od suspense and excitement--and about kids growing up in a small southern town in 1908 America.

Originally published in 1911 as The Daring Twins this L. Frank Baum novel has always been among his rarest works--until now! Beautifully repackaged and reprinted, our new Pawprint Adventures imprint will make Baum's series books live again!

"While we are living in an eminently practical and scientific age, these romantic adventures still prove fascinating . . . a quality to thrill our stagnant blood!"

--L. FRANK BAUM
Don't miss out on this rare chance to own and read one of L. Frank Baum's rarest Works!

Customer Reviews:

A Different L. Frank Baum.......2007-01-03

The Secret of the Lost Fortune is one of many forgotten novels by L. Frank Baum that Hungry Tiger Press is reprinting. While the Oz novels are definitely Baum's finest works, these non-fantasy novels have much to recommend them.

The story itself is nothing spectacular. It is typical of the plots and characters of these turn of the century novels, written in the style of Louisa May Alcott and her imitators. I have to admit, I thought Phoebe's solution for clearing her brother's name was a bit far fetched, but the ending scenes in the graveyard were quite exciting as the mystery of the lost fortune is solved.

What is remarkable about these novels is the strict moral codes that they represent--not remarkable in their day, and rather old fashioned in ours, yet they shed light upon the period and who L. Frank Baum truly was--someone very practical and good, as well as a fantastic writer. This book in particular is also interesting because it is set in the South, although it could have been set anywhere--the setting has nothing to do with the plot, yet there is a black mammy in the book, for which the publishers put a forewarning in the book that it contains "a number of racial and ethnic stereotypes that may be considered offensive today". Yes, but any reader with common sense would realize that, and they were also probably offensive in their own day, although Baum meant no harm by them--even a gentle good man had his faults.

I don't think this is Mr. Baum's most successful non-fantasy novel, but it is still entertaining and satisfying to read, and as the start of the Daring Twins adventure series, I am curious to see what followed it.

Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of Iron Pioneers and The Queen City, available on Amazon

2 Donna Fletcher bookset: THE BEWITCHING TWIN and THE DARING TWIN

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2 Donna Fletcher bookset: THE BEWITCHING TWIN and THE DARING TWIN
Donna Fletcher
Manufacturer: Avon Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000RJ1MQK

2 Donna Fletcher TWIN book set: THE DARING TWIN and THE BEWITCHING TWIN

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2 Donna Fletcher TWIN book set: THE DARING TWIN and THE BEWITCHING TWIN
Donna Fletcher
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000QB04NG

Central convictions ... daring deeds: An address given to the Twin Cities Association, Minneapolis, October 1955 at the invitation of the churches ; a reply to Dr. Douglass

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Central convictions ... daring deeds: An address given to the Twin Cities Association, Minneapolis, October 1955 at the invitation of the churches ; a reply to Dr. Douglass
Henry David Gray
Manufacturer: s.n.]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007HLLIG

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The Daring Twin
Donna Fletcher
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEXSCY

Phoebe Daring;: A story for young folk (His: The Daring twins series)

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Phoebe Daring;: A story for young folk (His: The Daring twins series)
L. Frank Baum
Manufacturer: The Reilly & Britton co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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