Book 64: Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett

Before I started reading this book, my friend who's responsible for me reading this entire series told me that Checkmate reads like Part 4 of The Game of Kings, i.e., the final free fall on a massive roller coaster of emotions. I thought I was prepared for this experience; I was not.

Checkmate was an absolute marvel of tropes and plotting and payoff; there were so many revelations and confrontations and plot twists and acts of noble self-sacrifice and decisions that would have been unforgivably cruel and awful if they hadn't been chosen out of the deepest love. I (and a couple of other friends) have attempted to explain the plots of the first three books in the series to a good friend who will never actually read them, but when I attempt to imagine doing that for Checkmate my brain breaks a little. There's so much that happens, but even more than that, I am still overwhelmed by my feelings about this book, and I finished reading it almost two weeks ago. The delay in writing this post is mostly due to having gone on vacation almost immediately after finishing it, but it was also caused by a near inability to express how I feel about this book.

Part of that is because so many of the events of the book could be absolutely wretched and unforgivable if handled by a lesser writer. Dunnett never shied away from writing about terrible, emotionally gutting things earlier in this series, of course, but in Checkmate she really went all out, and committed to both the tropes of high romance and also the logical and devastating endpoints of plot threads she had put in place three or four or sometimes five books prior. And yet there's so much power and beauty and understanding and love in how she captured everything that all I was left with was a sense of wonder that it was possible to tell a story like this the way she did. She managed to write a novel that makes the characters and also the reader work for every victory, and forces the reader to truly feel every single setback and tragedy, while also giving both the characters and the reader enough time and space for those moments to land. Everything happens at a breakneck pace, and yet nothing happens before it's the right moment. It feels like a weird thing to say, but I spent so much of this series genuinely angry at her brilliance, at her craft and her talent and above all else the joy with which she told this story. She wrote the book she wanted to be able to read, and that comes across in every word of the story.

It isn't just that she told a difficult story well, though. It's that the writing in this book, and in particular its depiction of many different kinds of love, is so heartwrenchingly beautiful it would often make it hard for me to breathe. In general, I don't read books first and foremost for the beauty or poetry of language; I often prefer the simple facts stated plainly. But with Dunnett, it's impossible to separate the two. It's her use of language and her mastery of so many different kinds of storytelling techniques that enabled her to tell such a difficult story and make it all seem inevitable. This is a book that seems headed for disaster and like there's no escape route possible (or at least visible to the reader), until at the very last second when we all discover it was on a road we hadn't known existed in the first place.

I have never been so grateful and relieved to finish a book and so utterly bereft by the realization that I'll never read it for the first time again. It was everything I had hoped it would be, and more.

Grade: A    

Book 63: The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett

Once again I can't actually write anything about this book that isn't in some way a spoiler, so under the cut it all goes!

Book 62: Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas

The setup for this romance novel set in Victorian England is pretty standard: a beautiful woman from a good family watches her marriage prospects disappear after her father dies and their wealth vanishes. Annabelle is a very likable protagonist, especially since she makes friends with three other women who also can't catch a husband, and their friendship is delightful. The four of them make a pact to work together during Annabelle's last season to make an advantageous match and help her snag the peer she's always wanted. If she doesn't, she will be forced to become a rich man's mistress, something that has already happened to her mother, who would do anything to save her daughter from that same indignity.

Annabelle finds the right sort of peer to trap into marriage, but she's draw to Simon, the son of a butcher who's made a fortune in the financial markets. Will her attraction to this gorgeous specimen of a man overrule her desire for a better social standing? I think it shall.

I found this book very readable, but it's not exactly my kind of romance novel; I spent a lot of it just feeling very frustrated with how dumb the class system was, given that Simon's wealth would secure Annabelle's future and the future of her mother and younger brother as well. He was also supposed to be unsuitable by virtue of being a scoundrel, but he wasn't particularly convincing in that role, and it was impossible to imagine that he was ever going to seriously try to sell Annabelle on being his mistress rather than just proposing to her. I really liked the dynamic between Simon and Annabelle, but I never really believed in the social constraints keeping them apart.

Grade: B

Book 61: Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson

This is a biography of Shakespeare that was written as part of a collection of short biographies of historical figures--it is just under two hundred pages long. It might seem odd that such a short work about the most famous playwright in the world could be satisfying or even remotely complete, but of course what we don't know about Shakespeare's life far outweighs what we actually do.

As a result, this book is as much a history of the time period Shakespeare lived during, the methods various historians have used to discover and verify what we do know about Shakespeare the man (and the methods many frauds used), and the history of theatres in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Bill Bryson is a writer ideally suited to this kind of work; he brings the same wit and clarity and beautiful turn of phrase ("Faced with a wealth of text but a poverty of context": I don't know if I've ever read a better summation of what we know and don't know about Shakespeare) to Shakespeare that he's brought to travel and science in his other books. This manages to be a book that would be incredibly readable and informative for someone who doesn't know much about Shakespeare while also being immensely satisfying for someone with a deeper knowledge of his background and works.

This was just one of those books that I enjoyed reading so much, from beginning to end, and it's another one of those books that I've owned for so long I don't even remember when or how I acquired it. I'm so glad I finally got around to reading it now as a result of this challenge. Also, it was pretty interesting to read it while in the middle of reading the Lymond Chronicles, since those are set about ten or twenty years before Shakespeare was born. Having a lot of unexpected feelings about the 16th Century right now.

Grade: A

Book 60: Listen to the Moon by Rose Lerner

This is the third book in Lerner's Lively St. Lemeston, and it's the first one that focuses mostly on what happens in a couple's relationship after they get married. Sukey Grimes and John Toogood are both servants whose livelihoods are affected when Phoebe, Sukey's former mistress, and Nick Dymond, John's former master, get married and no longer have the means to keep them on. John had been happy with his life as a valet, but when a position as a butler for a local vicar is suddenly available for only a married man, he decides to take a chance on their chemistry and asks Sukey to marry him.

I enjoyed a lot of aspects of this book, especially the focus on the working class (although it suffered a bit through no fault of its own in comparison with KJ Charles's excellent book featuring a valet finding love). I especially liked seeing how John and Sukey grew to love each other in a marriage borne out of necessity and a desire for a good living rather than an immediate love match. A bit too much of the conflict or tension in the book could have been resolved much faster if either one of them were actually able to communication with (or listen) to the other; I know that development is part of how their relationship is supposed to grow, but I didn't see enough change, and by the end of the book I felt like they were rehashing the same arguments over and over again, even with the happy ending. I liked both of them, but I wanted to feel more confident in their marriage than I did.

Grade: B 

Book 59: True Pretenses by Rose Lerner

My suspicions were correct: I did in fact enjoy this book much more than the first one in the series.

A large reason why is that the tropes in this one are like catnip for me. Two orphan brothers who have stuck together and survived in the world by running cons? Check. A dark secret from their past that threatens to tear them apart? Check. One last con involving a young woman with a fortune who's in the market to pull her own con of sorts? CHECK.

And on top of that, the specifics of the brothers' background are also really interesting, since they're two Jewish men in a very unwelcoming early 19th century England. Ash, the older brother who's been responsible for his brother Rafe since Ash was 9, originally views Lydia Reeve as a perfect mark for his brother to marry, thereby finally gaining a respectable life. But Rafe doesn't actually want that life, and Ash finds himself draw to Lydia. Meanwhile, after her father's death, Lydia has no access to her fortune until she marries, and when Rafe confesses their plans she finds herself more intrigued than horrified--especially if she can marry Ash instead of Rafe. And from there we have a wonderful marriage of convenience, with both parties denying that there's anything more than that brewing under the surface, and I just liked all of these characters and their imperfections so much. The final conflict and resolution didn't quite land the way I wanted it to, but on the whole I really liked this book.

Grade: B

Project Update: What to do When You’re Not Reading

I created this blog and this project because I wanted something concrete and completely unrelated to national politics to focus on in the ramp up to the election in November, something that I was in control of and had a direct say over. But in 100 days, the U.S. will have either chosen Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump as President, and there are some simple, straightforward steps I wanted to lay out that we can each take to ensure that we elect Hillary Clinton.

1. Register to Vote.

This is the “make sure you put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others” step. Now is the time to either register to vote or to check that you are registered to vote at your current address, and to confirm your polling location. If you may not be in your city or town on Election Day, take a look at what your state’s requirements are for voting by absentee ballot if your state doesn’t allow early voting for everyone. Have a plan for when you’ll vote on Election Day (before/after work or school), and check to see if you live in a state with new voting restrictions in place—17 states have new restrictions that were not in place in 2012, and while we’ve been fighting back against them in many states, being informed about possible changes now will help you be prepared to exercise your right to vote.

2. Donate your time or money (or both!) to the Clinton Campaign.

Once you’ve double-checked that you’re registered to vote for Clinton in November, the next step is donating to the campaign. If you can afford to donate money, that is obviously incredibly helpful and important, because running an effective Get Out The Vote (GOTV) organization in fifty states isn’t cheap. But not everyone can afford to do that, and many people who are able to donate money also want to volunteer their time. And here’s one of the secrets about volunteering your time for a campaign: not only are you directly helping to elect your candidate, it’s also much harder to get lost in the anxiety about an election when you’re out there doing the work. It takes you out of the echo chamber of the media’s horse race and puts you in touch with the nuts and bolts of the organization’s work. Plus, once we hit the fall, the main focus of the GOTV drive is to get in touch with voters who are democrats and therefore likely voters to support them in getting to the polls. This means you’ll get to have conversations with people who are already on our team, rather than attempting to convince swing voters or people who have previously voted Republican. It’s you doing your part to help everyone we can check off Step 1 of this post so they can go out and vote in November.

3. Have conversations with the people in your life who aren’t firm Clinton supporters.

Does having conversations with people who supported Sanders in the primaries and aren’t fully on board yet, or Republicans and Independents who don’t like Trump but aren’t sure if they can vote for Clinton, sound like fun to you? Great! This is also an extremely important step, in both swing states and in safe blue states, because the margins of her victory also matter (especially when it comes to down ballot races—more on that in a bit). I confess that this particular point is one I don’t have a ton of experience with, because I live in a very blue state and my family is full of Democrats. But having in-person conversations with people you love about why it matters beyond Democrats vs. Republicans that we not elect Donald Trump is incredibly important. I would recommend looking at President Obama’s speech at the DNC to get a sense of how to frame a conversation like this: it’s not about the differences between the parties, it’s about competing visions of who we are and what we want this country to be. And frankly, this weekend Trump has done an exceptional job of making that difference as stark as possible.

4. Support Democrats in down ballot races.

There are two levels of victory we can achieve this fall. The first is to elect Hillary Clinton as president, which will protect us from a Donald Trump presidency and strengthen the progressive wing of the Supreme Court. That is vital, but as an isolated achievement it’s also a fairly defensive-minded victory: it protects the advancements of President Obama’s administration and prevents the damage of a Trump presidency, but that’s not all we’re fighting for. And in order for Hillary Clinton to be able to put her plans into action, we need to take back the Senate and increase our numbers in the House.

One of the most satisfying things about supporting either Senate or House candidates is that a little goes a long way, especially in comparison with Presidential campaigns. One great resource for identifying candidates you want to support is Emily’s List, which works to get pro-choice Democratic women elected to office. Electing women candidates changes the composition and functioning of government in many ways, not least of which by making a representative government truly more representative of the country it serves. And you can get even more bang for your buck by supporting women candidates for office in swing states, because they will support and coordinate with Clinton’s campaign in winning the state up and down the ballot.

5. Do the work you can, and otherwise focus on your own life.

This piece of advice will probably come as no surprise, given that it’s the basis of this blog, but there is a very big difference between doing something about this election, and simply worrying about it. I am as guilty as anyone of going down a politics spiral, but unless you work in politics or are volunteering full-time for a campaign, compartmentalize your engagement in this election as much as you can. Give it your full attention when you are volunteering for a campaign or researching which down ballot candidates you wish to give money to or engaging in a good faith conversation with someone you know about voting for Clinton. But try to minimize the amount of time you spend following what shameful thing Trump has said or done on any given day, or chasing new poll numbers for swing states. No matter how much the media wants you to follow the election minute by minute, you don’t need to spend your time doing that, and it won’t change the result of the election if you follow every twist and turn. Take action in the ways that you can, and otherwise shut it off. I recommend reading a book (or 132 of them). Trump is a nightmare, but you don’t owe it to anyone to let him increase your anxiety or stress, beyond doing what you can to elect Clinton and defeat him.

Okay, enough with the politics! Time for me to get reading :)