Alana Estelle

Circe by, Madeline Miller is a novel about an exiled Ancient Greek nymph and goddess that has typically been portrayed as a supporting character in much larger, more well-known Greek myths. Circe has received a lot of acclaim since its release in 2018 for providing an in-depth interpretation of Circe, from her perspective. There is definitely a trend right now of retelling Ancient Greek myths from the female perspective.  

Miller’s writing style is very reminiscent of how the Ancient Greeks wrote. It’s sparse, not overly flowery, deliberate and a bit “dry”. I’ve seen many readers complain that her writing style is boring, but I’d argue that Miller did this intentionally - she’s paying homage to the Ancient Greeks and I think she does this pretty well. It’s more difficult to be concise. 

Here is an example of Miller’s descriptive language: “From her bridal dais Pasiphae glowed lush as ripe fruit. Her skin was gold and her hair the color of sun on polished bronze.” 

Here is how Homer describes Athena’s sandals in The Odyssey: “…Athene bound on her feet her lovely sandals of untarnishable gold, which carried her with the speed of the wind…”

Edith Hamilton is considered a connoisseur of Ancient Greek culture and writings. This is what she had to say about their style in her book The Greek Way: “It is plain writing, direct, matter-of-fact. It often seems, when translated with any degree of literalness, bare, so unlike what we are used to as events repel.”

I do think that to understand why Miller wrote Circe using this direct style, one has to understand this element about the Ancient Greek texts. Descriptions are comprised of simple similes and metaphors the get the point across, no more and no less. I really like that Miller did this - the style of Circe fits in with The Odyssey, and it gives the novel a feeling of antiquity. It feels old, but somehow fresh at the same time. The style suits the setting of the novel, even though this is a modern take on this mythological character. 

Miller shapes Circe into a character that deviates from the divine, even though she is a goddess. She is the daughter of Helios, a Titan, yet she doesn’t fit in with the others. There is a strong “not like other women/not like other gods” theme here, that I think is a bit played out at this point, in general. However, I didn’t dislike this aspect of the plot, as it wasn’t obnoxiously done. Miller shows us that Circe never quite fits in, instead of telling us. Miller is using Circe’s narrative as a critique of the divine and I think it’s an interesting theme. What better mythological goddess to use as the antithesis of divinity? One can always be more critical and when one is on the outside, looking in. 

Odysseus and Circe are fated to meet. In The Odyssey, he spends an entire year on Circe’s island on his way back to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Once Odysseus enters the narrative, his essence permeates the rest of the narrative, and I’ve seen some critique this, stating that this defeats the purpose of a more “feminist” narrative. I disagree. The tale of Odysseus and Circe is very significant and Circe’s relationship with him has eternal consequences. It is impossible to separate the influence that he has on her out of the plot. It also shows just how much the character of Odysseus has impacted Western culture. Even if you’ve never read The Odyssey, you have a general knowledge of some dude named “Odysseus.” It’s not “anti-female” to acknowledge this and it’s not “anti-female” when the lead female character acknowledges that Odysseus left an impact on her life. That’s just the nature of relationships - they leave an impression on you. 

Miller does attempt to reshape Odysseus’ “god-like” and untouchable status. He’s deemed “The Best of the Greeks” but Miller shows him in a less heroic light - this is a man of contradictions, of rash behavior, he’s mean, callous, ambitious, uncaring and only seems to care about himself and how he can further his own status. I’m not sure this works for me - some of how he is portrayed is too inconsistent with the primary texts. Yes, Odysseus is flawed. He’s flawed in Homer, and that’s part of the reason why he’s considered a tragic Greek hero. We can’t forget this concept of the Tragic Greek Hero, and no one does tragedy like the Ancient Greeks and Shakespeare. Homer portrays him as a a man of dichotomies. The Ancient Greeks also thought very different about gender, war, violence, and what constitutes as a hero, than we do. It’s always a bit off-putting to me when people try to modernize this to fit 21st Century standards. That doesn’t mean we can’t critique them, but we will never be able to make sense of some of these characters from Ancient times because we don’t have the same world view. There will always be elements that will remain an enigma, and to me, that’s part of the charm. I don’t need Odysseus, Achilles, Agamemnon, and Hector to be palatable to how we expect men to act today. I want them as the Ancient Greeks wanted them, so I can better understand how the Ancient Greeks felt about themselves and their heroes. I don’t have to like every element of their culture, but I don’t need to make it “work” for today. That defeats the purpose. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to ancient texts. 

Overall, I thought Circe was just “okay”. After the halfway point in which Odysseus enter the narrative, I got a bit bored. I enjoyed the first half of the story from Circe’s childhood and I did like her part with Odysseus, but after that, I had a difficult time motivating myself pick up this novel. I can’t put my finger on why, I was just… bored. 

However, I don’t regret reading this and I like what Miller did here overall. I think this is a perfect cozy read - it’s a slow, insular novel. It’s perfect for the cooler, dark quiet nights, to read while under a blanket. I also think this is a great introduction into Ancient Greek Mythology, for those who want to get into it, but may be too intimidated to start with the some of the primary texts. Actually, I’d recommend reading this and then reading The Odyssey as a companion read, and I think readers will be surprised at just how readable the Ancient Greeks are. Circe is a great point of reference and I will keep this on my shelves. I can see myself rereading this at some point when I want to read something “familiar.” 

I’m a huge fan of the Ancient Greeks and I’ve spent many classroom hours and credits studying them, which is why I’m a bit more critical, perhaps. After reading Circe, I’m not too keen on reading Miller’s Song of Achilles. I feel like how Patroclus especially is portray will drive me insane and I think the Ancient Greeks would be so confused. The only reason I may (it’s a weak “may”) read Song of Achilles is just so I can have a conversation about it after I reread The Iliad (for the third time) at some point. 

Rating: 3/5

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A Little Life by, Hanya Yanagihara is one of those novels that has developed an aura around it - for many it’s too graphic and traumatic to read, it’s the book that makes people cry (even for non-criers), and for some it’s a holy grail novel. Since I announced that I began reading A Little Life, I’ve received several messages asking if it’s “worth it”, How am I handling the content, Has it made me cry yet?”

This post will just be reviewing the first half of the book, because this is an 800+ page novel and it deserves more than one post. And for the record: Yes, this book is worth it, I’m handling the content well (I’m rarely ever squeamish, so take that with a grain of salt. I’m rarely disturbed enough to turn away from content as I’m rarely caught off guard. I have an extremely high and perhaps abnormal tolerance for this type of content), and no, I have not even come close to shedding one tear (again, I rarely cry, so there’s that…). I may not be the best person to gauge your own response to this novel - I’m pretty… stoic, and clinical when it comes to graphic content. That’s not to say that the content is not difficult, I just don’t have a visceral reaction to it. I see a lot of emotional reviews on this book, and my goal is to be a bit more… pragmatic. There are some really interesting themes that I haven’t seen anyone talk about because they tend to be hyper focused on the trauma and abuse, and I feel that’s actually doing this novel a disservice. 

Ok, now that that’s out of the way and you can see how weird I am, let’s get into the “meat and potatoes” of the first half of the book, because I have quite a bit of content that I want to cover. Brace yourselves for an obnoxiously long halfway review.

 A Little Life centers on the friendships between four men - JB, Malcolm, Willem and Jude. Their friendship begins in undergrad and the book covers their friendships through to their middle-aged years. The novel orbits specifically around Jude (can I just say that I adore Jude?) and his vague background. As the novel progresses, more unfolds about Jude’s traumatic and abusive childhood. Yanagihara does not just throw it all out there at once and make the reader absorb and process graphic content in one sitting - it’s peeled back slowly and in layers, in a way that’s really rather elegantly constructed. Jude does not reveal what has happened to him, even though his friends are aware that Jude has had a less than ideal childhood. His friends suffer from guilt, for not pressing the issue further.

“But although he was a man who kept his promises, there was a part of him that always wondered why he never raised the issue with Jude…” 

The concept of happiness appears quite frequently in this novel. What is happiness? How is it obtained? Are we entitled to happiness? Jude particularly strives for happiness in an effort to make up for and mask what’s happened to him, as well as to ensure that his current and future life is nothing like his childhood. 

“There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.”

My favorite theme of the novel, thus far, is the idea of morality and law. I haven’t quite formulated all of my thoughts on this element, it’s still percolating. Jude becomes an attorney and he uses his profession as a way to control his life. He hasn’t received justice in his own life for what’s happened to him, but his command of the court room, his ability to apply the law and achieve justice for others (even for those who may not deserve it), not only challenges him intellectually, but is his way of projecting his own lack of justice, especially since what’s happened to him was highly immoral, unethical, illegal, and downright disgusting. It also gives rise to the question: Just how many grievances go unpunished, leaving the victim left to deal with the damage?

“…what happens when we forsake morality in law for social governance? What is the point at which a country, and its people, should start valuing social control over its sense of morality? Is there such a point?

“It is morals that help us make the laws but morals do not help us apply them.”

Lastly, for this half of the review, we can’t talk about A Little Life without talking about the gorgeous portrayals of friendship. Even though there is a lot of challenging content in this novel, Yanagihara balances this out with illustrating unconditional love. Jude is surrounded by people who care for him deeply and will do anything for him, though he feels he can never repay this kindness, or that he wholly deserves it. These illustrations are in stark contrast to the segments that are heartbreaking, but this dichotomy represents how life is a blend of light and dark.

“The only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are - not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving…” 

By the point of this Halfway Review going live, I’m definitely past the halfway point. In the second review, I plan to draw some comparisons between this novel and Lolita, along with whatever else I pick up on. 

About 100 pages into A Little Life, I knew this would be one of my top reads of the year. Before I got to the halfway point, I knew this would be one of my top reads of all time. This book is gorgeously written. The style of writing has a cadence to it and once I get into it’s rhythm, it flows and reads quickly, putting me into a lucid-like trance. People have claimed that its traumatic for the sake of being traumatic, but I disagree and find it to be rather realistic (a point I’ll get into in the second review). This is one of those novels that I don’t want to put down. 

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As I’m reading, I tend to annotate passages that I find funny, thought provoking, perplexing, things I may have questions about, quotes I like, themes I recognize, in short, anything that personally stands out to me. I may write a few words in the margins to help me remember why I highlighted that passage, or any thoughts I may have about that passage. 

Most of the time, I’m just using symbols to mark passages:

• A quote I really love:  🖤. 
• Something I find funny:  “LOL”. 
• Something I find thought provoking: “!!” 
• Something I don’t understand:   “?”. 

Often times, I don’t have additional thoughts at the moment, and just keep reading. If I have elaborate thoughts that will not fit in the margins, I write them on a sticky note and then put it at the end of that chapter, with a reference to which page I’m referring to. 

I always put a page flag on any annotations I make so I can find them easier. I used to not do this, but when I wanted to refer back to a passage, I had a hard time finding it, especially when it comes to writing my reviews. I don’t color coordinate my page markers to mean different things; I just pick which flag is nearest at hand. My symbols and notes help me to decipher what was going through my head. 

I used to only use a pencil to underline a passage. However, that began to get on my nerves because I find that it’s too light for me to see. Now, I like to use the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner marker pens. The tip is fine enough that I can produce a precise line, that is still bold enough to stick out to me on the page. I still use a pencil to draw a bracket around the passage I’m highlighting/annotating, and to write any symbols or thoughts in the margins. 

At one point, I was using a ruler to draw really precise lines as I was underlined the text, but I stopped because I personally don’t really care if my lines are that perfect. Yes, it produces a very aesthetically pleasing, perfect line, but it’s not that deep to me. 

And that’s it! I like to keep it simple. Any more complicated that this and I wouldn’t be able to keep it up and I feel that the process would become more about how I’m annotating than what I'm actually reading. 

How do you annotate your books?

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This month I’m back with my second installment of “Under the Radar” books. These are the novels in my collection that were either really popular at one time and seem to have been forgotten, or that just don’t have much attention around them at all. 

“Thou shalt get kings though thou be none.”

Katherine by, Anya Seton is not necessarily an obscure novel. Published in 1954, it is actually considered by many to be a benchmark for historical fiction. However, I rarely see many people reviewing this novel, even if they’ve heard about it. There is something about it that is very 1950s - the way that Seton writes her male and female characters, especially the protagonist does come across a bit dated, but to me that is part of it’s charm. There is something vintage about the way this novel reads. If you’re a fan of historical fiction that takes place in cold damp castles, with elaborate the gowns and romanticism, then this may pique your interest. Also, if you’re a fan of Tudor historical fiction, this can be seen as a type of “prequel.” Katherine is about the affair between Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Their affair played a direct role in establishing the Tudor line. Much of this plot is fictionalized because we don’t know much about Katherine, but it’s still fun read. 

“‘For your own good’ is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction.” 

When people think of authors who were famously institutionalized, people typically think Sylvia Plath of Virginia Woolf. However, many people don’t think about Janet Frame. Faces in the Water is a semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman describing her experiences in mental hospitals. Frame herself spent 8 years of her life being institutionalized for Schizophrenia, though it was eventually acknowledged that she was misdiagnosed. Faces in the Water is one of those novels that is difficult to forget after you’ve read; it’s haunting, appalling, intense, and heartbreaking. Frame’s writing is poetic and evocative. Fans of The Bell Jar would really appreciate this novel. 

“Why should life be so hard for me, why am I alone, why did I yield to the temptation to drink, why, why has it all happened like this? 

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by, Brian Moore initially caught my eye because of it’s striking cover. I’d never heard of this book before last year and when I was searching reviews, there were some, but not a lot. Judith Hearne is a single woman in Ireland in her 40s. She came from a well-to-do family, but she’s come down in the world, living alone, barely making ends meet, and still holding on to the hope that she’ll get married and have a family. This book is bleak, there’s no way around it. What makes a novel like this so, disturbing in some ways, is it’s realism. Judith’s loneliness is the type of loneliness that develops over time, after years and years of hoping and praying but never getting one’s desires. This is not a cheery novel, but for those who are interested in realism  and novels that don’t give you what you want, because that’s not life, this one may be for you. 

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The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 1978. The novel is centered around Charles Arrowby, a recently retired and somewhat well-known theater director/actor. He leaves London for a remote area by the sea, living in a dilapidated house where he can live in solitude and write his memoirs. However, his acquaintances still track him down and he unexpectedly is reunited with his first love. 

The initial plot of The Sea, The Sea sounds a bit like a soap opera, but Murdoch expertly weaves in greater themes such as love, guilt, idealized memory and romance, and a bit if existentialism/phenomenology into a very dramatic plot. 

The witty, sarcastic style was the first thing that caught my attention. Even as the narrative gets darker and at times, rather absurd, Murdoch maintains a bit of humor throughout the story. There are these little sentence here and there that made me chuckle and this helps to keep the mood of the novel a little bit lighter, even though there are some really twisted elements. 

Charles would loathe that I consider meal time the most optimal time for reading… There are so many descriptions of the ridiculous things that Charles eats throughout the novel that one could make an entire list of his meals. I found this rather entertaining. 

One of the major themes of The Sea, The Sea is this concept of “life” being the grand theater that art imitates. 

“This is why all the world is a stage, and why the theater is always popular and indeed why it exists: why it is like life, even though it is also the most vulgar and outrageously factitious of all the arts.”

Charles sees the theater/the arts as a way  manipulate the people in his life. He is constantly maneuvering the people around him for his own purposes and goals. This actually makes him a rather deplorable person, and yet this greater philosophical question arises: Don’t we all do this to some extent? Are we all playing roles and moving things and people around us to fit into the roles we want them to play, in the story of our choosing?

“…is one of those who have a strong concept of the life they want to lead and the role they want to play and lead it and play it at the expense of everyone, especially their nearest and dearest. And the off thing is that such people can in a sense be wrong, can as it were miscast themselves, and yet battle on successfully to the end, partly because their victims prefer a definite simple impression to the pains of critical thought.”

The Sea, The Sea also hones in on the idealization and memorialization of people, especially people from one’s past. Charles writes a lot about the people in his life, but he is an unreliable narrator; often Charles will discuss a person in his life, whether it’s his cousin James, his previous romantic partners, or his theater colleagues, but when these characters are introduced in the novel, their behaviors don’t line up with Charles’ descriptions. 

“Ask yourself, what really happened between whom all those years ago? You’ve made it into a story, and stories are false.”

As I mentioned, Charles is not a likable character, however he’s quite self aware and he does have a bit of a character arc, which I can always appreciate. Charles is not supposed to be likable and I believe that Murdoch tends to have main male characters that are just the worst. I find it interesting that most of Murdoch’s novels consist of her writing from the perspective of men. I would like to explore this concept more after I’ve read more of her work. 

Murdoch’s writing is also fantastic. The dialogue is quick and snappy, but there are also these gorgeous passages describing the sea and landscape. There are countless descriptions of the sea and references to The Odyssey (something else I’d like to go back and dive a bit deeper into), images of eels, sea monsters and reference to seals. All of these things mean something. This book is worth reading for the scenic descriptions alone. 

The Sea, The Sea is an enjoyable and dramatic novel. Murdoch’s writing is descriptive, relatable, and evocative. This is a chunkier book, but it’s not too heavy or dense, even though she is weaving in some more philosophical concepts (which makes sense, as she was a philosopher…). There were times I felt the plot was a bit repetitive, but it didn’t ruin the book for me and I look forward to reading some of her other novels. I also look forward to revisiting The Sea, The Sea and really diving into the imagery, because it’s all deliberate. 

Rating: 4/5 

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Chanel No5 L’Eau was launched in 2016, with the goal to have a version of the original and iconic Chanel No5 appeal to younger generations. It’s appropriately called the “Water of No5,” bringing to mind a fresher, airier twist to the original. I’m a fan of the original Chanel No5, it just really works with my body chemistry, so I snatched this one up immediately after it launched. 

Notes:

• Top: Aldehydes, Lemon, Neroli, Mandarin Orange, Orange, Bergamot, Lime
• Middle: Ylang-Ylang, Jasmine, May Rose
• Base: White Musk, Orris Root, Cedar, Vanilla 

The aldehydes and citrus notes at the top are vibrant, light, effervescent, airy, youthful and sparkling. The aldehydes, which are artificially formulated fragrance notes, combined with the citrus notes are bubbly, reminiscent of champagne bubbles. The citrus fruits here are sophisticated and do not remind one of household cleaners, but rather fruits that are slightly sweet, bright and clean. Think of the dried rind of an orange, rather than fresh zest. The middle florals are not overly heavy or cloying, rather they are soft and a touch powdery. It’s hard to decipher which floral is which, as they are blended together well. Lastly, the base notes are smooth; a little musky and a touch warm, almost skin-like Again, the bottom notes are very balanced and one isn’t over powering the other. Like the original Chanel No5, it’s a bit difficult to describe this scent, because it has so many notes and everything is so well layered and balanced. No5 L’Eau is soft, sophisticated, luxurious, elegant and feminine. If you know what the original Chanel No5 smells like, take that and water it down, but place an emphasis on the lighter, brighter qualities of it. Musks and florals dominate the original, where citrus leads the way with L’Eau. 

Season: Chanel No5 L’Eau is one of those fragrances that can be worn all year round. It’s light and airy enough to not be cloying during the spring or summer. I do feel this would be a bit more appropriate to wear on summer evenings, perhaps in a more formal setting, due to the musks in the base notes. If this is applied with a slightly heavier hand, it’s a warm and cozy fragrance for fall and winter. Even though it has a “lightness” to it, it’s present and won’t get lost in layers of clothing. In fact, this scent frequently reminds me of a soft, ivory cashmere turtleneck - soft, luxurious and effortless. 

Sillage & Wear Time: Chanel No5 has a low to medium projection from the body, depending on how heavy it’s applied. Because it’s not loud and in your face, it’s appropriate for office settings. It creates a soft, clean cloud of scent around the body, that again, isn’t overpowering or cloying. This is the type of scent that will make people say, “You smell nice” VS “Your fragrance smells nice.” I find that the wear time of this fragrance is decent. I can definitely smell it lingering on clothes for hours and hours. It fades on the skin a bit after maybe 5-hours (on my skin, anyway), but I don’t mind topping this up midway through the day.

Recommended for: This is definitely a feminine fragrance, so if you are a fan of soft, delicate, extremely feminine scents, this may be for you. If you are a fan of the original Chanel No5, and want to a version that can be worn more versatilely, then this may interest you. If you don’t like the original Chanel No5, but like lighter musks, this may work for you. Also, people who are a fan of aldehydic scents - this one is definitely for you. At the risk of sounding pretentious - if you like to smell elegant, sophisticated, dainty, and luxurious and dare I say, expensive, this has you name written all over it. Pair this with a soft ivory cashmere turtleneck, a pair of black or grey slacks, a pair of velvet smoking slippers and a long camel-colored wool coat and … *chefs kiss* you’ve stepped right out of a Vogue spread. Hmmm, may need to actually wear this outfit … This is one of my favorite scents and I will always have it in my collection, along with the original Chanel No5. 

Do you give the books you read final numerical ratings? I do and I can understand why some people do not. It is difficult to quantify and sum up how you feel about a text using the Likert scale. Reading a book is such a subjective experience - what one reader loves, another may loathe.

I prefer to numerically rate what I read because I’m a person that likes things to be concrete - lists and scores help me to order and make sense of the things around me. Even though I consider myself to be a creative and even artistic person, which requires quite a bit of free-following, whimsical thought, I also like things to be logical and to the point (Hi. I’m a creature of dichotomies). I use scales and lists to help ground the creativity in my life, or else I’ll be all over the place. Having ratings attached to the books I read also helps me when I look back over what I’ve read over the year, to determine my top reads. 

• A Little Life - this will be my main focus this month and I plan to do at least two posts about it, meaning at least a halfway review and then a final review. This is one of those books that needs to be discussed is segments.
• The Silence of Scheherazade - a family saga during the fall of the Ottoman empire. I’ve seen excellent reviews on it this far, but I’ve heard it’s quite intense and rather sad - which it actually right up my alley.
• Crime & Punishment - My friend and I are still making our way through this. Perhaps I’ll be able to finish this month. I’m enjoying this one, but I’m still favoring The Brothers Karamazov.

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“But how Shelby, who could have had the best of breed of her own race, could marry outside her own race, of her father’s profession, and throw her life away on a nameless, faceless white man who wrote jazz frivolous occupation without office, title or foreseeable future, was beyond the Oval’s understanding…”

“Her mother blew the trumpet of praise for marriage to her own kind, if not color, the right color being preferable but not as mandatory to the right class.” 

We see marriage portrayed in a way that is very common across all societies - as a business arrangement and status symbol, rather than two people coming together because they connected. However, West uses the generational structure of the novel to highlight how the younger generations deviate from this mentality. Shelby and her sister Liz marry men that are outside of their family’s expectations. 

“You’re not that blind, you’ve just got a blind spot … Maybe past generations had color prejudice, but my generation has color appreciation.” 

Shelby comes to the realization that “color” and race really have no bearing on a person’s character. Society boxes people into categories, base simply on their outward appearance. West blatantly makes the statement tat both black and white people do this and this ultimately is a disservice. West does not sugar coat the realities of slavery, being black in the north or south, and the mindsets of those who were slaveholders, however, she allows for nuance and doesn’t lump all black people together and all white people together, just because they have their skin tone. 

“Because you don’t know someone all that well, you react to their surface qualities, the superficial stereotypes they throw off like sparks. Lute equals black, Meade equals white.  But once you fight through the sparks and get to the person, you find that, a person, a big jumble of likes, dislikes, fears, and desires. Trying to figure what a man is going to think or do based on the color of his skin will tell you as much about you was it will about him.”

"Color is a false distinction; love was not.”

In The Wedding, West provides interesting commentary about the rise of the black middle and upper class, as well as the important and often forgotten role that single, white women played in this. 

“She was the hand of God who had plucked him out of the Jim Crow riddle south and into a new life. So many whites has done do so much to make the colored man’s life miserable that it was all too easy to forget the miraculous migration of white spinster school teachers, women … who flocked to the south giving up everything they had to teach a generation of newly emancipated children…”

One question main question came to my mind when reading this novel and this last quote was the lightbulb moment. How does this novel, published not that long ago in 1995, challenge the thesis of books like White Fragility? People are people and all groups of people have issues because all groups of people are comprised of fallible human beings. It’s when people with a conscious and a desire to do good, regardless of what they look like, come together is where good change happens. I know personally, I assess people as individuals and avoid making broad, sweeping statements about a person based on how they look because, that just makes no sense. And sometimes people are jerks, just because they are jerks, not because of the color of their skin. But that is conversation for another day. 

Overall, I really enjoyed The Wedding. It was a quick read that packed a punch. I appreciate that West tackled these topics in a detailed and nuanced manner, however I was still hoping to get more into Shelby and Meade’s relationship. In fact, we never meet Meade at all. I understand that wasn’t the point one of the novel, but this did leave me feeling a bit disappointed. I really enjoyed West’s writing style - it’s descriptive and at times quite witty. Her writing is more descriptive than Barbara Pym’s, but the sarcastic humor did remind me a bit of Pym.

Rating 3.5/5

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I’m an avid reader of the classics, but I do love historical fiction. Every now and then a new release comes out that excites me and I need to squeeze it in.

Kaye Publicity kindly sent me The Silence of Scheherazade by Defne Suman, before it’s September 1, 2021 launch. The synopsis:

At the heart of the Ottoman Empire, in the ancient city of Smyrna, a devastating moment determines the fates of four families.

On an orange-tinted evening in September 1905, Scheherazade is born to an opium-dazed mother in the ancient city of Smyrna. At the very same moment, a dashing Indian spy arrives in the harbour with a secret mission from the British Empire. He sails in to golden-hued spires and minarets, scents of fig and sycamore, and the cries of street hawkers selling their wares. When he leaves, seventeen years later, it will be to the heavy smell of kerosene and smoke as the city, and its people, are engulfed in flames.

But let us not rush, for much will happen between then and now. Birth, death, romance and grief are all to come as these peaceful, cosmopolitan streets are used as bargaining chips in the wake of the First World War.

Told through the intertwining fates of a Levantine, a Greek, a Turkish and an Armenian family, this unforgettable novel reveals a city, and a culture, now lost to time.

This novel may particularly intrigue fans of Pachinko and The Eighth Life, both of which I own and are in my TBR.

I’m really excited to read The Silence of Scheherazade this fall and report back with a review!

Do you plan to pick up this new novel?

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