Book Description
Introducing Isabel Dalhousie the heroine of the latest bestselling series from the author of the
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Isabel, the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and an occasional detective, has been accused of getting involved in problems that are, quite frankly, none of her business.
In this first installment, Isabel is attending a concert in the Usher Hall when she witnesses a man fall from the upper balcony. Isabel can’t help wondering whether it was the result of mischance or mischief. Against the best advice of her no-nonsense housekeeper Grace, her bassoon playing friend Jamie, and even her romantically challenged neice Cat, she is morally bound to solve this case. Complete with wonderful Edinburgh atmosphere and characters straight out of a Robert Burns poem,
The Sunday Philosophy Club is a delightful treat from one of our most beloved authors.
Download Description
With The Sunday Philosophy Club, Alexander McCall Smith, the author of the best-selling and beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels, begins a wonderful new series starring the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie.
Isabel is fond of problems, and sometimes she becomes interested in problems that are, quite frankly, none of her business. This may be the case when Isabel sees a young man plunge to his death from the upper circle of a concert hall in Edinburgh. Despite the advice of her housekeeper, Grace, who has been raised in the values of traditional Edinburgh, and her niece, Cat, who, if you ask Isabel, is dating the wrong man, Isabel is determined to find the truth-if indeed there is one-behind the man's death. The resulting moral labyrinth might have stymied even Kant. And then there is the unsatisfactory turn of events in Cat's love life that must be attended to.
Filled with thorny characters and a Scottish atmosphere as thick as a highland mist, The Sunday Philosophy Club is irresistible, and Isabel Dalhousie is the most delightful literary sleuth since Precious Ramotswe.
Customer Reviews:
Not bad, just not great.......2007-09-04
THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB is pleasant but middling company that has three problems. For the debut in a mystery series, it does not provide much establishment detail. More than once I checked to see if this was indeed the first volume, not several books down the line when a character's circumstances are taken by granted by a writer and not developed for a reader. Not the least of the details that has gone missing is the organization of the title, to which our heroine, an editor of a scholarly philosophy journal, belongs. She works through the mystery--did a young man fall or was he pushed from the nosebleed section of a symphony hall--largely on her own.
The second problem is that for those who like their puzzles with lots of switchbacks, deceptive red herrings and the like, the plot is pretty wispy. The third problem is, we have come to expect much from the author of the First Ladies Detective Agency series and this does not measure up to that achievement. That series creates an airtight and thoroughly realized world in modern Botswana, whereas The Sunday Philosophy Club moves around the contemporary, professional class of Edinburgh, Scotland without digging into history or culture to any degree. The Botswana stories have Mma Ramotswe, not perfect but thoroughly lovable. Isabel Dalhousie is not as funny and can be a tad judgmental, especially about her niece's love life. Isabel's housekeeper, Grace, steals all the scenes she's in.
The book does have its good moments. Philosophy is laid out rather accessibly and conversationally and the author pokes fun at scholarship that takes itself too seriously. I suspect the BBC could flesh this out into a nice television series.
Yes, philosophers can be fun!.......2007-06-08
This series is not likely to have the wide appeal of the Precious Ramotswe books, because Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher and an intellectual, and given to rumination on moral philosophy in particular. This will either irritate or delight you - it delights and interests me if I'm in the right mood and is only occasionally a bit much. Isabel's allusions to poetry, art and music are often thought-provoking, witty, and sometimes just plain fun! But if your desire is a good clean plot with no such clutter, these books will probably not be your cup of tea.
Isabel witnesses a young man's fall from the balcony of a concert hall and is driven by the memory and her sense of moral obligation to investigate the story behind his death, with the sometimes reluctant aid of her housekeeper Grace, her niece Cat, and her bassoonist friend Jamie. Along the way we meet a variety of characters - Cat's new boyfriend Toby, the young man's flatmates, an insensitive journalist, an investment fund manager, a predatory merchant banker who is compared to Lady Macbeth - and we observe the Edinburgh art scene as well as the world of insider trading. Many false leads develop, but at the very end the person responsible confesses the truth to Isabel and her persistence turns out to be a blessing.
The emotional fallout from Isabel's failed marriage and the subplot of her attraction to Jamie, a most attractive younger man (unfairly rejected by Cat because he is too eager to please, hence unexciting), continues into the second book in the series, Friends, Lovers and Chocolate, and provides romantic interest. Descriptions of Edinburgh institutions, fictional or actual, are fun -- the Really Terrible Orchestra (which is a real orchestra to which McCall Smith belongs!), the fictional articles which Isabel edits for the Review of Applied Ethics (i.e. "Truth Telling in Sexual Relationships"), the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (this could be real...) Edinburgh is almost a character in its own right - Isabel describes it as having become "synonymous with respectability...[which] was such an effort though...the story of Jekyll and Hyde was conceived in Edinburgh...and made perfect sense there." Isabel intends to write an article "In Praise of Hypocrisy" but had not gotten around to it by the end of the second book. Will it turn up in the third?
Isabel Dalhousie is not Precious Ramotswe in a kilt.......2007-05-11
Isabel shares some traits with Mma Ramotswe. She is a single woman of independent means who values the cultural traditions that she sees being eroded all around her. "The Sunday Philosophy Club" is also like The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Today Show Book Club #8) in being an unusual type of mystery story. However, that's only the similarities. There are many differences.
Unlike any of the Botswana stories, "The Sunday Philosophy Club" begins like a traditional detective story, with a accidental death. Isabel Dalhousie sees a young man fall to his death from the top level ("the gods") at the opera house in Edinborough and can't get it out of her mind.
Isabel is in her early forties (not old these days) but has the affect of an older woman. Her best friend seems to be her full time housekeeper, and their favorite subject is how things are going to hell in handbasket.
But beneath Isabel's slightly dotty, eccentric exterior boil some strong human feelings that would be foreign to Miss Marple or Mma Ramotswe. It's Isabel's inner life that keep this from being a genteel set piece.
I also very much enjoyed seeing Edinburgh through the eyes of a lifelong resident. Based on what little I know about McCall Smith, this would seem to be his most personal series in the sense of his own habits and habitat.
Although I still prefer the No. Ladies Detective Agency series, I will look for the sequels to "The Sunday Philosophy Club". As a strange, non-spoilerish footnote, the club never actually meets during the course of the book. We never even find out who the members are, only that Isabel is the organizer and that they have trouble getting together. Perhaps all will be revealed in the next instalment.
Great Insight into Human Behaviour.......2007-05-10
While McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie mysteries are not quite a gripping as the Ladies #1 Detective Agency Series, they provide the same keen insights into the human psyche. Not your typical murder mystery, the books actually challenge the reader to think forward to human actions and reactions. I enjoy reading these books because they stretch my brain far beyond the entertaining, if somewhat thin, mass market mysteries that I often read. I highly recommend all of McCall Smith's books!
A Good Read.......2007-04-22
I'm not disappointed with The Sunday Philosophy Club, but it is difficult not to compare it to The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, a series I adore. Isabel is her own character, more internally focused than Precious. The story had more telling of events instead of experiencing the events first hand through Isabel. I like Isabel, but I'm hoping to like her more in the second installment which I also own.
Book Description
The delightful second installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s already hugely popular new detective series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, starring the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie — editor of the Journal of Applied Ethics — and her no-nonsense housekeeper, Grace.
When Isabel’s niece, Cat, asks Isabel to run her delicatessen while she attends a wedding in Italy, Isabel meets a man with a most interesting problem. He recently had a heart transplant, and is suddenly plagued with memories of events that never happened to him. The situation appeals to Isabel as a philosophical question. Is the heart truly the seat of the soul? And it piques her insatiable curiosity: could the memories be connected with the donor’s demise? Grace, of course, thinks it is none of Isabel’s business. Add to the mix the lothario Cat brings home from the wedding in Italy, who, in accordance with all that Isabel knows about lotharios, shouldn’t be trusted . . . but goodness, he is charming.
That makes two mysteries of the heart to be solved — just the thing for Isabel Dalhousie.
Customer Reviews:
The Isabel Dalhousie series.......2007-10-06
The series of Isabel Dalhousie books is a most enjoyable read. As I am a nosy female, she is most easy to identify with, and her actions are most understandable to me.
The author is a favorite of mine. Always a good read.
attractive title but boring story (if any).......2007-06-18
I was attracted by the storyline: after a heart transplant, a man had some "new" memories, and suspected that the transplanted heart carried with it the memories of the donor. Attractive story, isn't it? But I'm sad to find out the story unfolded was quite boring *_*
Something almost happens.......2007-05-11
I have to admit that, although I enjoyed reading this book, I was disappointed when I reached the end and realized that nothing much had really happened. There was the prospect of a juicy hit and run murder, perhaps the question of questionable transplant ethics, perhaps something supernatural and outside the realm of rationality - but, no - nothing really comes of any of it. It reminds me of Virginia Woolfs 'To the Lighthouse' with much internal rumination and complex social mores and not much actual action. I would prefer if there were even a small crime or mystery, such as those solved by the Botswana detective lady in the midst of her gentle African ruminations. This was more just leaping about to wrong conclusions, and Ms. Dalhousie is much too intelligent for that.
A Lesson in Moral Obligation.......2007-05-10
I really enjoyed this second installment in the Isabel Dalhousie Mystery series. The book is frought with moral dilemmas and observations regarding human behaviour related to organ transplants and the concept of "cellular memory," May-December romance, and unrequited love.
Does a recipient of an organ donation have the ablity to remember the last moments of the donors life? Also, should the family of the organ donor be made aware of this, or even know who received the organ? What if the donor died under suspicious circumstances? Or perhaps we are all jumping to conclusions?
This is a great read that makes the reader question the morality of each situation, turning the reader into an armchair philosopher!
A GOOD READ!.......2006-11-10
AS BOOKS IN A SERIES GO, 'FRIENDS. LOVERS. AND CHOCOLATES' WAS EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS 'THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB.' PERHAPS THEY WERE NOT QUITE AS MUCH FUN AS THE 'NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE' SERIES BUT MORE INTERESTING THAN 'PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS' TRIOLOGY ALL BY ALEXANDER MC CALL SMITH.
THE CHARACTERIZATIONS WERE VERY GOOD, THE NIECE, THE HOUSEKEEPER, JEREMY, AND ISABEL ALL LEAPED OFF THE PAGE AS LIVING, VERY REAL AND INTERESTING.
IT WAS A QUICK READ, I KEPT TURNING PAGES WANTING TO REACH THE CONCLUSION, BUT VERY MUCH ENJOYING THE STORY ALONG THE WAY. I ALSO ENJOYED THE PEPPERING OF W.H. AUDEN QUOTES THROUGHOUT!
Book Description
The delectable new installment in the bestselling and already beloved adventures of Isabel Dalhousie and her no-nonsense housekeeper, Grace.
When friends from Dallas arrive in Edinburgh and introduce Isabel to Tom Bruce – a bigwig at home in Texas – several confounding situations unfurl at once. Tom’s young fiancée’s roving eye leads Isabel to believe that money may be the root of her love for Tom. But what, Isabel wonders, is the root of the interest Tom begins to show for Isabel herself? And she can’t forget about her niece, Cat, who’s busy falling for a man whom Isabel suspects of being an incorrigible mama’s boy. Of course Grace and Isabel’s friend Jamie counsel Isabel to stay out of all of it, but there are irresistible philosophical issues at stake – when to tell the truth and when to keep one’s mouth shut, to be precise – and philosophical issues are meat and drink to Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. In any case, she’s certain of the ethical basis for a little sleuthing now and again – especially when the problems involve matters of the heart.
Customer Reviews:
Needs More Substsance...........2007-10-03
I've read McCall's entire #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the first of The Sunday Philosophy Club series and now this. His books are repetitive, with constant allusions to what was written about in previous books. Please, in the future, write a prologue for those who haven't read prior books in a series, so those who have, don't have to be reminded of what they know.
The protagonist in this series is Isabel Dalhousie, who edits a journal of applied ethics. She fancies herself to be a philosopher, and constantly rambles on and on ad nauseum about defining her duties to other people.
She, like Mms Ramotswe, in the detective series, longs for a more gentile time, where people were connected to others, and polite to everyone; is a woman who was left money; starts out being single; unwinds with tea; and has an assistant whose first name is Grace. Although this series is more substantive than the first, there isn't enough meat in it for me.
Should Isabel have an affair with Jamie, or shouldn't she? Will it affect her friendship with him or not? Will her niece be upset (since her niece had an affair with him in the past)? Does her niece have a right to be upset? Is their age difference a problem? What will her housekeeper think? Does it matter if others approve. Get the picture.
I believe authors should "show not tell" and this author tells from every angle possible. Repeatedly.
Why the book is considered a mystery, is the only mystery one will encounter.
A little more introspective.......2007-08-27
Not as jolly fun as some of Mccall Smith, this book deals with fall summer romances and other topics on love and life after forty. Certainly not a mystery. No corpses in this book
Isabel Dalhousie takes a new direction.......2007-08-22
This is a wonderful, meandering story that gives the Isabel Dalhousie series a totally new focus. Isabel comes to the fore as a central character instead of her accustomed role as an observer of others. To be sure, the reader still gets the benefit of her ongoing philosophical mulling of virtually everyone and everything that happens in her life, but in this book, she actually HAS a life. And it's a life that has real emotion and serious romance. Throughout this book (and the rest in the series), the author, Alexander Mccall Smith, uses his characters so well to demonstrate the unceasing zig-zagging that marks everyone's interior lives and ultimately serves up a continuing story full of human foibles, generosity, uncertainty, warmth and love of all kinds. Like virtually all of Mccall Smith's books, "The Right Attitude to Rain" leaves the reader feeling better about human kind and reflective on how to better deal with life's fellow travelers.
I finally love Isabel Dalhousie.......2007-08-18
I was not sold on Isabel when I read the beginning portion of this series (I preferred 44 Scotland Street), but I loved this book. Isabel in particular came alive for me in this book. Smith is so amazing -- even a classic fiction ploy comes as a surprise at the end of this novel.
Interesting and fun characters.......2007-08-17
In another installment in the Isabel Dalhousie mystery series set in Edinburgh, Scotland, we see the wealthy philosopher in a different light. In previous books she was described as a middle-aged spinster, but in this novel Isabel has a suitor. Who cares that he is her niece's castoff? Or that he is fourteen years her junior? Isabel ponders these sticky details as she continues to fall in love with Jamie.
Isabel isn't an innocent; she has been married before and has seen much in her life. She is aware of how fortunate she is to have inherited a house and enough money to keep her in good stead for life. She enjoys a good relationship with her niece, Cat, and is hosting her cousin and spouse, Mimi and Joe, on vacation from America.
It is through Mimi and Joe that she is introduced to another couple from America. Tom and Angela were observed by Isabel in an Edinburgh museum before she met them. She noticed things out of kilter with their relationship on first view, and those things are only reinforced when introduced. Why is Angela with the older man whose face is partially paralyzed? Is it love? Of him or his money? Should Isabel tell Tom of her suspicions about his fiance? Always a philosopher, Isabel feels the need to think and talk these questions out with Jamie. Here lies my biggest, maybe only, problem with the book. Jamie seems to agree with her every spoken thought and seems to have no opinions of his own. He comes across as too malleable. It's hard to feel sexual tension in the story when he has so little personality.
But this series is about philosophical judgments and how they apply to everyday life, and this book is no different. Isabel Dalhousie is an intriguing, fun character. The other characters in the book are interesting and the dialogue is entertaining. The lack of strong mystery doesn't detract from the diversionary amusement value.
Alexander McCall Smith always makes the reader aware of the gentle nature of humans, and a genteel way of life. This book becomes more difficult to put down after the halfway point.
Armchair Interviews says: You can count on this author making you think about human nature.
Average customer rating:
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El Club Filosofico de los Domingos (The Sunday Philosophy Club)
Alexander McCall Smith , and
Enrique Alda
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Lecciones Para Chicas Guapas / Morality for Beautiful Girls
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Escuela Kalahari
ASIN: 8496284220 |
Book Description
Isabel Dalhousie es una filósofa de mediana edad que no necesita trabajar para vivir gracias a su herencia. Su existencia transcurre tranquilamente en Edimburgo, entre sus colaboraciones con una revista filosófica semi desconocida, sus clases en la universidad y su sobrina de veintitantos años, quien es su más querida compañía. Sólo tiene un pequeño defecto: meterse en aquéllo que no le importa. Una noche, tras asistir a un concierto de música clásica, ve como desde el palco situado encima del suyo, un hombre se precipita al vacío. Por curiosidad, se empieza a interesar por la identidad de este chico y va descubriendo demasiadas cosas sospechosas como para que ella se pueda creer que se trata de un simple accidente.
Isabel Dalhousie is a middle-aged philosopher who doesn't need to work for living thanks to her inheritance; her existence passes by peacefully in Edinburgh, with her classes at University. She only has the bad habit of poking her nose into other people's business.
Customer Reviews:
An absolute delight!.......2007-03-28
Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher living a genteel life in Endinburgh, Scotland. She edits a journal of Philosophy, chats with her opinionated housekeeper and frets over the love life of her beloved niece, Cat.
She also feels that she has an obligation to consider the rights and wrongs in society, and when she observes a young man falling to his death at a local theatre, she feels an irrestistable compulsion to investigate.
This is just delightful - intelligent, witty writing, with our Isabel and her fellow characters entirely believable, and her musings on the murder also very entertaining. It doesn't work out quite as one would wish though - this is no standard murder mystery, but just what fans on Mr McCall Smith have come to expect from his lovely books about Precious Ramotswe.
This is only a relatively small book, but it is a gem, and well worth an afternoon of Sunday Philosophy!
Download Description
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of more than 50 books, including the delightful 6-volume No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Born in what is now Zimbabwe, McCall Smith was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He now lives in Scotland.
From the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
The first three books in the delightful Edinburgh-set Isabel Dalhousie series.
Customer Reviews:
A good book with its own storyline, unrelated to MTG........2006-04-18
Part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much was that McLaren ignored the mold of MTG books and developed her own original setting and rules. If the book didn't say MAGIC on the front, you wouldn't be able to tell it was based on the card game by reading it. Free of the constraints that writing a theme-based novel presents, this story was fun and exciting. The land of Cridhe was wonderfully vivid and the storyline progressed at a good pace, never becoming too slow, but still have enough meat to make the reader feel some attachment to the characters.
By assuming a certain amount of freedom in her writing content, and not really trying to get elements from the MTG card game into the novel, McLaren produced a better and more unique work. Just as the writers and artists for the cards themselves have the ability (and neccessity) of creating new creatures and places, authors of these books should be allowed to expand the world of Magic the Gathering. There shouldn't be any limitations on the possibilities of MTG.
You will NOT buy this book!.......2002-07-08
This book has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the game (Magic the Gathering). The only thing that relates to the game that I could find in this book is the word 'mana'. But then again, you can find the word 'mana' in many other non-MtG books.
I guess that the other people that gave this book a positive review are not Magic the Gathering players. This book is a total ripoff.
If you want to buy this book anyway, make sure you read it BEFORE great MtG books such as Arena, The Thran, the Artifacts cycle's, etc. That way those books will only be greater!
A Good Way to Escape the Story Behind the Card Sets........2001-07-16
Teri McLaren's The Cursed Land is a brilliant book. However, there are just far too many characters to memorize, thus, restricting me to rate this four stars rather than five. The story may get boring at times but there is lots of action to make up for it. The writing is also good enough to keep you interested. If you want to take a break from all that Urza, Yawgmoth, Weatherlight, Dominaria stuff but you still want to read a Magic the Gathering book, The Cursed Land is for you. Just don't give up on looking for it even though it is out of print.
Aylith is the real thing!.......2000-06-26
this book was great! it had alot of suspense. lots of unexpected events too. i suggest you buy this book and read it as fast as you can.
This book is awsome.......1999-11-04
This book, like Song of Time, is freaking awesome. If you like books in the fantasy genre, you should read these 2 books.
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Cry the Cursed Land: Ireland's Holcaust
Louie Byrne
Manufacturer: Premier Books
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Another entry in the ongoing rush of Asian-American novels about experiences in a world-not-Asian is A Long Stay in a Distant Land. Author Chieh Chieng was born in Hong Kong and moved to Orange County, California, when he was seven. He has cultivated an absolutely deadpan wit and sense of irony, and in this novel, at age 29, has made an auspicious debut.
The Lums, the Chinese-American family Chieng writes about, have a peculiar history. Too many of them suffer an untimely demise: Mom, 51, collision with a car driven by Hersey Collins; cousin Connie, 12, ate a bad cheeseburger; Aunt Julie, 29, stomach cancer; cousin Will, 16, heatstroke; Uncle Larry, 40, fell off a cliff; Grandpa Melvin, 62, struck by an ice cream truck. Louis, the narrator, knows why all this has happened. His Grandpa could have avoided going to WW II, but he saw a Popeye cartoon and was inspired by Popeye's bravery to enlist. "Grandpa had violated the fundamental law that one should not kill another. He'd had a choice. He could have chosen not to join the war and not to shoot people. For every man Grandpa had killed, Death had designated a Lum to be picked off." Who knew where it would end? And now, with the death of Louis's mother, his father, Sonny, is calling him daily to say that he wants to "run down Hersey Collins with his car, or crush his skull with a brick." Louis moves in with his father to keep an eye on him and discovers, in some of the funniest episodes in the book, that his father is a gansta rap-obsessed cuckoo.
One day Grandma Esther calls to tell him that Bo, Louis's uncle and her favorite son, has disappeared in the labyrinths of Hong Kong. Uncle Bo has absented himself for many years, but always kept in touch by filling out a check-list sent by his mother. Now, even that has stopped. Louis goes to Hong Kong to find Bo and, during his search, finds pieces of family history as seen through the eyes of three generations. Every family has stories, true and false, that become part of the dogma passed on to the next generation. In the last chapter, "The Dance of Good Fortune," Chieng leads us to believe that the Lum curse of early Death might be over and that story will become myth. --Valerie Ryan
Book Description
In this funny and inventive novel, the Lums are a death-stalked Chinese-American family living in Orange County, California. Ever since Grandpa Melvin was inspired to join the U.S. Army after watching a Popeye movie and—as family lore has it—unleashed a "relentless rain of steel death" upon the Nazis, Lum after Lum has been doomed to an untimely demise, be it by tainted cheeseburger or speeding ice-cream truck. Now young Louis must move back home with his father, Sonny, to prevent him from enacting the revenge he promises. But soon Louis finds himself searching for his long-lost uncle Bo Lum in Hong Kong. As Louis's search progresses, the tragicomic story of three generations of Lums in America is revealed through the eyes of Louis, Sonny, and Grandma Esther.
Customer Reviews:
For plot synopsis, read another review.......2005-11-06
If you are used to reading Tan and Jen, Chieng will seem short on character development and heavy on symbolism. (The Grand Inquisitor came immediately to mind during a character's dream about a boxing match between Death and Jesus.) The theme here is fear of death, and, hence, fear of living, a rather heavy load for a short novel which has so many story lines treated in such cursory fashion. I feel as if I've just finished reading a collection of sound bites.
More than one reviewer has used the term "quirky" to describe the characters. I think the reviewers must lead extremely sheltered or unimaginative lives: A conversation with almost anyone will yield "quirks" no more bizarre than those found here. The interesting thing is not the novelty of idiosyncrasy, but the motivation. Chieng gives us the quick chuckle of the former, but not the satisfaction of latter. Too bad: His prose is competent and clean. I just wish there were more of it.
Full of complex relationships but easy and entertaining read.......2005-09-29
I enjoyed this book immensely. I bought it because it was recommended in the NY Times book review and am glad I did. Mr. Chieng's characters are complicated but presented simply. His novel has both tragedy and comedy. I am always fascinated by chinese/american culture and this book made me realize how similar the immigrant experience is no matter where one comes from originally.
Breakout novel from a new talent in fiction.......2005-08-14
Chieng's novel is a family saga, but it is no thousand page tome. Through short, funny vignettes than span decades, the reader comes to know the Cantonese Lums of Orange County, CA. In this short book, the reader gets to know three decades of the Lum family in surprising detail.
Chieng's timeline jumps around. It opens with Louis, the protagonist, adrift and barely thriving in his post-college job as a magazine fact checker. He is forced to move in with his gansta-rap loving dad, Sonny, to keep Sonny from trying to kill the man who accidentally killed his wife in a car accident. When Chieng fills in the backstory of Sonny's boyhood, Sonny's marriage to Louis's mom Mirla, uncle Bo's relationship with Grandma Esther, and the relationship between Granpa Melvin and Esther, the story truly comes alive. The family is unintentionally hilarious on all levels, from Louis's attempts to speak Cantonese with the correct inflection, to Sonny's love of rap, to Grandma Esther's famously dreadful turnip cakes.
This book comes highly recommended along with the other Breakout Books of 2005.
A Long Stay in Orange County, California.......2005-08-09
In this fine debut novel, Chieh Chieng explores the off-beat characters of a Chinese-American family through three generations living in Orange County, California. Louis Lum is a recent college graduate working as an underpaid fact-checker at a hot rod magazine, not the kind of position his mother Mirla had hoped for him. Louis once reveled in rebelling against his mother; however, Mirla has recently died in a car accident, brought on when an overworked medical student, Hersey Collins, fell asleep behind the wheel, and Louis feels guilty at having disappointed her. Louis's father Sonny calls Louis every night and threatens to murder Hersey to avenge Mirla's death. Because Louis does not know how serious his father is about his intentions, he moves in and stays up late with his father, listening to his father's rap records, keeping him from stabbing Hersey, and trying to figure him out. Meanwhile Louis's feisty grandmother Esther is worried about her youngest son Bo, who moved to Hong Kong years ago and who recently has severed all communication with her. Eventually, Esther convinces Louis to travel to Hong Kong to track down Bo to see if he is really "alive and in good health" while Esther watches over Sonny to make sure he doesn't follow through on his threats.
The narrative weaves multiple points-of-view throughout the generations to give a full portrait of this quirky family. The Lums are an eccentric, unintentionally hilarious lot, caught up more in their American life than in their Chinese ancestry. After all, Sonny is more adamant about blacks respecting their culture by listening to gangsta rap than he is about the truths and myths about his own. Louis speaks Cantonese so badly that, for his whole life, he has been unintentionally calling his father "Old Bean" instead of "Old Man." Esther makes the worst turnip cakes ever cooked, botching the traditional recipe so badly that everyone ends up with stomach aches. The story leaps backward and forward in time, from character to character, in a collage that coalesces around Louis, the youngest surviving member of a family prone to premature deaths.
Chieh Chieng brings all this together with a dry wit and an eye for the absurd. The understated humor never demeans his characters and instead makes them more lovable. The result is an entertaining, heartfelt book about one family's oddities and how those quirks come to define them.
Engaging, clever, but a bit disorganized .......2005-04-21
Chieh Chieng's "A Long Stay in a Distant Land" is written with a structure reminiscent of Faye Myenne Ng's "Bone", jumping between acts or scenes scattered over many years, but it doesn't have the same narrative flow, the sense of inevitability as Ng's teller decides what more needs to be said at each point, peeling away layers of incident and family history, circling in on the central event of her sister's suicide. Though the chapters here are all related as part of the Lum family story, they are almost independent short stories, vignettes or even sidebars, without a similar central organizing question.
Formally, the main character is young Louis Lum, and the book revolves around two problems in the "now", 2002. Louis's mother Mirla recently died in an accident caused by a sleepy driver, whom his father Sonny is threatening to kill, so Louis moves in with Sonny to prevent his doing something foolish. Also, Sonny's brother Uncle Bo moved to Hong Kong years ago and married there, but after his wife died Bo, never a great communicator, dropped totally out of touch, refusing contact; halfway through the book, Louis volunteers to go to HK and look for Bo.
Scattered in among these threads, and at times overwhelming them, we are given snapshots of family history going back to the courting and marriage of Louis's's grandparents, Melvin Lum (long dead) and Esther, now the family matriarch. Melvin's decision, much to the dismay of his family and new bride, to enlist in the army in WWII not only forms a chapter, but is part of the family gestalt.
"Long Stay" is written with humor and a cast of quirky, quietly bizarre characters. Louis is convinced that a personalized Death is stalking his family, unleashing a string of unexpected deaths (listed on page 20) as revenge for the "steel rain of death" Melvin himself had unleashed during the war. Sonny is an ardent fan of gangsta rap, and a man of "unclear livelihood."
The writing is fun, but overly clever and self-conscious, striving too hard for effect. E.g., "That night, Louis dreamed of Jesus in the corporeal form of Max von Sydow standing in one corner of a boxing ring. ... The Son of Man unleashed a spin kick that landed square on the left side of Death's face...." It's a little too obvious that Chieng "graduated from a creative writing program" (UC Irvine) as the bio says.
Still, in all, it's an excellent freshman effort, and Chieng is an author worth watching.
Product Description
5 massmarket paperback Titles in Magic the Gathering Series - The Cursed Land - Ashes of the Sun - Song of Time - And Peace Shall Sleep - Dark Legacy
Average customer rating:
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The Cursed Land
Teri McLaren
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000K6PRX4 |
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