Archeological Mysteries

This past Tuesday my husband and I went on a King Tut extravaganza: one afternoon at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology to see the Amarna exhibit and then the next day to the Franklin Institute to see the traveling King Tut exhibit. Both were glorious and well done. The Penn museum in particular had a timeline that was extremely well done--it listed all of the dates of major Egyptian activities as well as a footer that showed what was going on elsewhere in the world. For example, it placed the building of the Mayan pyramids in a similar timeframe to King Tut and one tends to thing of the Mayans as being active in a much later timeframe.

All of this made me think about international archeological mysteries. Elizabeth Peters has done an extraordinary job with her mysteries featuring the Victorian archeologists Amelia Peabody and her husband Radcliffe Emerson. Peters herself is a trained Egyptologist so one gets adverture as well as excellent information about archeology and Egyptian history.

Lyn Hamilton has an archeological mystery series featuring Lara McClintock, an antiques dealer. Rather than focusing on one area, Hamilton sends her character around the world which allows Hamilton to discuss the archeology of different places and peoples. Her books so far include such far flung sites and peoples as the Mayans, the Etruscans and the Moche.

Simon Levack writes mysteries set among the Aztec people. Unlike the other books discussed above, these are actually set during the Aztec era of Montezuma featuring a slave named Yaotl. Archeological mysteries are an excellent way to communicate history as well as tell a great story.

Seasonal Reading

This past Sunday, my husband and I were looking forward to watching the Inspector Lynley Mysteries on PBS, but they were not carried on our local station. My husband surmised that it was because they were reruns of the season last year--just two episodes from last year to set the viewers up for the new season. It is a good strategy on the station's part, but not for us, because we did not watch it last year. And, the reason, we did not watch it last year is that they were shown early in the summer.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries are not summer watching--they are complicated mysteries, with dark crimes and struggling characters. And the landscape they depict is a rainly, dark one not a land filled with sunlight and warmth. In other words, they are perfect for that end of summer season when you are moving on to the fall and its cooler weather and increasingly shorter days.

I change my reading during the seasons--in the summer you may want something lighter or a book that is set in a warmer climate, in the fall I want to enjoy the season so I pick books that complement the weather. Scandinavian mysteries are particularly good for the fall and the winter. There is such a strong sense of place and nature in these books. I was struck when I read my very first Henning Mankell book how much the landscape adds to characterizations and the atmosphere. That book was set during the Midsummer festival and it seemed so fascinating to be celebrating a holiday because of the placement of the sun, coming from a country where all of our holidays seem to relate to our history or religious festivals. There is simply a sense of differentness in celebrating the arrival of the longest day of the year, that sense of being let into a strange and different world hooked me right into Mankell's writing. This is a great contributor to why I love international mysteries.

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

Grotesque is Natsuo Kirino's second book to be translated and published in English after Out. This is a very dark book made more so by the narrator's dispassionate delivery. The narrator is unnamed, the daughter of a Japanese mother and a Swiss father who is always aware of her differentness. And, differentness is often not good in this society (or any society). The narrator has a sister who is described having beauty that is nearly perfect and this marks her as different also.

The narrator is accepted into one of the best schools for women and Tokyo and hopes that her placement at this school will enable her to be accepted in a good college. She sees her acceptance to this school as a fresh start, but once she begins school she observes a rigid hierarchy--marked by time in the school (the school has a grammar school-like version) and students who have been in the school from the beginning are the leadership group. Beauty and great accomplishment can also help you attain status in the school and the narrator has neither, so she remains different and outside and becomes increasingly bitter.

Kirino sets the book around the murders of two prostitutes: one is a former classmate of the narrator and the other is in fact, her very beautiful sister. The story is told from the perspectives of each of the characters and even the murderer, a Chinese immigrant gets his turn to describe his background, how he came to Japan and why he killed one of the women.

This is a somewhat bleak book but the narrator draws you in with her increasingly erratic commentary and the story is fleshed out as you read the narrator's version and later read about the same event from the perspectives of her friend and sister.

The Glass Devil by Helene Tursten

The Glass Devil is the latest book by the Swedish author Helene Tursten. Her books take place in Gothenberg on the southwestern part of Sweden. A gruesome triple murder is discovered and Irene Huss and her colleagues begin the investigation. The victims are members of a religious family; the husband, wife and oldest son are killed. The surroundings of the victims show signs of possible Satanic rituals and the detectives begin to learn as much about that as they can. However, that turns out to be a misdirection. Huss goes to England to meet with the only surviving member of the family, a daughter who is a computer professional. The daughter is distraut and Irene and her colleagues assume that it is because of the murder.

Huss is an interesting character, for all of the mayhem and horror of the murders, she has a happy home life with her husband and two daughters. The juxtaposition between the murdered family and Huss is clear and her character shares little of the angst that seems to suffuse the lives of many of the male detectives in crime fiction. All is revealed at the end although it seems like Tursten skipped a step or two to get there. Altogether another satisfying entry in the Inspector Irene Huss series.

Notebooks

I love office supplies. When I was a kid and my parents used to offer us a treat of anything we wanted, I always picked a pen or paper. I remember that I did this because I knew we did not have much money and one could usually find a nice, but cheap pen. But, I suspect it is really because I loved pens and paper even then. I had dolls but could never really figure out how to play with them but could always find activities that involved pens and paper.

I have a large collection of notebooks but am partial to Moleskines. The size is great, I tend to use the larger size, the pocket in the back is handy (I like to carry grid index cards with me), and the elastic keeps the notebook together. I mostly use them now for school (I am in an online Library Science program at Drexel University) but I always carry at least one notebook with me. I do often carry a second with me for miscellaneous jottings. For example, now that I work in a library, I use visits to book stores as a way of gathering information on the books that I want to read next, but get them from the library.

There is a Staples in the outdoor shopping center where we do most of our book shopping and we visit that at least once a week. They have just started a great new line of journals of all types: some are pocket-sized, others are faux Moleskines and there are also wonderful casebound notebooks (I am left-handed so spiral notebooks are not ideal for me). I was so excited to see this new display with so many choices so reasonably priced.

There is something glorious about a new notebook--it is an opportunity to start fresh. With a new notebook, a good pen is essential and I have lately been using the Pilot V7 retractable gel pens. It is a needle point pen and the point is just perfect for me and it dries quickly which is very important for a left-hander.

I suppose it is a benign addiction although I worry that I collect so many that our house will resemble a jumble shop. My favorite TV episode ever was one on Homicide: Life on the Street. A man fought another man for a pen; the detectives could not imagine this as a motive for murder but when they went to the house of the alleged murdered, there were pens all over---on the walls, the lamps, the tables and even strung on string and ribbon between the walls. The murder part was inconceivable and as an addiction, it was gloriously strange, but more believable to us office supply junkies that addictions to some other things.

The Bloomsday Dead by Adrian McKinty

The Bloomsday Dead is set in Ireland on Bloomsday, June 16. Michael Forsythe, the protagonist is back, and is asked by Bridget Callaghan to find her kidnapped daughter. Forsythe was the main character in two other McKinty books, Dead I May Well Be and The Dead Yard.

Like Ulysses, this is a novel set on one day (although Ulysses lacks the body count of The Bloomsday Dead). Bridget is his Molly/Penelope and Michael is struggling to find home and end his search.

The Bloomsday Dead conforms to the thriller format, but it the writing that is most thrilling in these books. There were passages where Michael is alone thinking about his past, his future and the loneliness of the landscape that are mythic in quality. It is strange, for me, to find these books that are so violent and to be so poetic as well.

Grace (Eventually)

I was late to reading Anne Lamott. I had twelve years of religious schooling and was active in my church--I sang in the choir, prepared the vestments for the services and attending services during some seasons on a daily basis. But even then I struggled with belief--religion, for me, was about doing good or for being a force for good in the world. I had a very difficult time accepting and understanding faith.

I knew of Anne Lamott as a believer and shied away from her books for that reason. I enjoy books about religion, but they tend to be about history, or theology or the politics of religion, but I avoid books written by believers about their beliefs.

Lamott is a believer but she is also a luminous writer and that is what drew me to her. Her chapters are short, like meditations, and they show someone grappling with life and with her faith--that is not quite right, she has accepted her faith and is strong in it, but wonders sometimes why her faith does not make things better in her life and in the world.

She confirms her faith through family, what we used to call good works and hiking and enjoying nature and those are things that I can understand even if I can't really understand faith. But perhaps it is that she accepts faith on her own terms and not other people's terms and that shows me that I may be a believer but in only in my own way.