The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger

I found this book on an old booklist of mine, so I'm not sure who recommended it to me. The ending of this book came out of nowhere and I really disliked it, so overall I'd say that I didn't like the book. However, there were aspects of the experience of reading the book that I did enjoy. I just wouldn't recommend it.

The book is about a Chinese artist named Yuan Zhao who comes to the United States for a year-long experience. He is sponsored by a local university who expects him to exhibit his work in two shows during the year. Zhao lives in Los Angeles with an American family, the Travers, and teaches art at an all-girls high school.

Freudenberger could have written a book exclusively about the Travers and the high school, which the mother teaches in and the daughter attends. There were complicated relationships within the family, as well as between family members and other characters. The situations these characters faced, and their decisions, were compelling and well-crafted.

However, the book also covers Zhao and his life, both currently in Los Angeles and in a burgeoning artists' community in China in the early 1980's. Zhao's difficulty in adjusting to his role as a guest at the Travers' and a teacher is palpable. The descriptions of the artists' colony he becomes a part of in China are clear and evocative. It was a window into a time and place I had never seen or even thought about.

Where the author veers off course a little is in her insistence on having her characters grapple with existential questions like "what is art" along all the other things going on in the book. I think she is trying to make some statements about art but I don't know what they are. A struggle with identity is one thing to cover in a novel like this; comments around performance art are better suited for an editorial in a weird magazine that I don't read.

However, I would have forgiven her the detours into art critique because I liked the characters (or at least how well-developed they were) and enjoyed learning about art in Communist China. The ending of the book, though, superseded its appeal. Most of the characters' resolutions were satisfying but Zhao's was neither satisfying nor what it should have been: a confirmation of the themes throughout the book.

ps: I just learned that this blog has at least one loyal fan, and she shares a first name with the author of this book. Hello and thanks for reading!

Intuition by Allegra Goodman

Mer A. cornered me in a bookstore and told me I HAD to buy this book. Knowing that she and I don't always agree but feeling like treating myself to a book, I bought it. It was okay, not great, but held my interest well enough. I'd try something else by this author but I wouldn't necessarily recommend this particular book.

The story is interesting enough; a researcher at an institute in Cambridge makes a shockingly good discovery in a cancer-related rat experiment. The results become public, then publicly challenged. As the events unfold, there are life-changing consequences for him, his ex-girlfriend, and the two people who run the lab, one of whom is highly political the other of whom is a true scientist.

The best part of this book was not the story, although the plot was good. The best part of the book was undoubtedly the characters and character development. Close to ten characters were incredibly well-developed, their motives and fears believable and mistakes forgivable. It was almost the inevitability of the plot that made the characters shine. Since what was going to happen with the investigation was reasonably predictable, what became interesting about the book was how the characters reacted and more so what they were thinking and feeling.

The writing was not great. (In fact, I haven't read much lately that has had great writing although I've liked the plots of a lot of books lately.) There were, however, a few passages that were noteworthy. Goodman's ability to capture her characters' essence with small, efficient notes was the main reason I would try another book by her.

Of Cliff, the main researcher, she writes, "Gently he put the book down and threw away the cardboard wrapping. Wilde's tale of the beautiful young Dorian and his dissembling might have been the last stake through Cliff's heart, except that, fortunately, he was unfamiliar with the novel."

Of Robin, his ex-girlfriend, she writes, "Clutching her black pen tightly, she bent over her journal and wrote, He actually asked if I would stay and keep him company tonight to watch him work. Then when I said no, he was surprised. She might have written more. She could have ranted on, but for Robin that was a rant. She'd wrung those few sentences from her heart, and grieved every word."

I loved how you could learn so much about the characters from such short passages.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

This was a fun and easy book, set in France and thus perfect vacation reading this summer. The Kirkus Review said it was "of higher literary quality than the Da Vinci Code, to which it will inevitably be compared." I didn't find the writing much better than that of DVC, although I did think the story was incredibly well-researched and well-crafted. Web was surprised that I picked it up to begin with, claiming it seemed to be more his speed than mine, but I think my tastes are widening a bit.

The story follows Alice, who is on an archaeological expedition in France and finds something unusual there. For reasons she does not understand, she is drawn to ignore the protocol of working with a partner and alerting the people who are running the dig to her findings. This item ends up putting her in danger , and we follow her through France as she tries to solve the mystery associated with this item and subsequently regain her safety.

Several hundred years earlier, we meet Alais, also a strong woman who lives by her own rules in an otherwise male-dominated world. Alice's modern day discovery is a result of Alais' membership in a secretive society, the continuation of which is still being sought by other characters in the book, some good and some evil.

While I did not find the writing exceptional, I did enjoy both stories. That is unusual; usually there is one time that holds my attention more than the other. The scenes in the past were well-described and evoked a very clear picture of the times. There were some exceptionally sad scenes that have stayed with me that occurred when Alais' town was attacked during the Crusades. Both Alice and Alais were strong, well-developed characters. As the book unfolded, and the connections between the time periods became clearer, I was anxious to know what was the resolution would be.