Book Review: Empire of the Blue Water

This was the first book on CD I ever listened to and was thoroughly impressed. Stephan Talty's novel was not only about Captain Morgan, but about Port Royal and the British and Spanish unofficial pirate war for the Carribbean.

I really appreciated the fact that while Talty told many side stories to the conflict, they were brief and almost always were related Morgan and his campaigns. This is important in a book on CD as it's harder to skim pages in audio.

I will say however, Talty did treat Morgan with a very favoralble light. While other pirates were depicted as cruel or ruthless, Morgan's actions were almost always justified and any potential atrocities committed by Morgan's men (never Morgan) seemed to be glossed over. John Mayer's reading with a British accent and changes in cadence kept the book humming along.

I really enjoyed the novel as I drove to and from work.

Book Review: Lonesome Dove

One day, I was at a PTA fundraiser and saw an old grimy VCR tape of Lonesome Dove. Seeing the pictures of Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, I was flooded with warm childhood memories of watching the mini-series with my parents.

To my surprise, I read that it was based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. So I found a copy of the hefty tome, cracked it open and was immediately swept away by the language and characters that McMurty created. Here’s the opening paragraph:

“When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake — not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over. The sow had it by the neck, and the shoat had the tail.”

Talk about putting an image in one’s head. Throughout the novel, the reader is transported from one great scene to another. Even though there is no serious conflict or identifiable antagonist in the first 150 pages of the novel, McMurty’s seamless transition between multiple perspectives and unique back stories kept me going. I read a review that called the beginning sluggish. I understand that point of view. However, just when I started to wonder what's the plot, the impact of the start of the cattle drive on everyone's lives hit home and I never questioned motives or plot again.

I also enjoyed the way in which McMurty used the river crossings on the way to Montana from Texas as markers of major events in the book. It also gave me the opportunity to pull out a map and follow the cattle drive northwards.

I will say however, that anyone planning on reading Lonesome Dove should be prepared that life on McMurty’s plains, while fascinating, can be brutal.

My principal criticism, Newt cries too damn much.

Book Review: Gorky Park

In my continued effort to read many of the classics and novels that were highly regarded in my writing classes, I read Gorky Park. I wish I could remember why they regarded it so highly. It was probably due Martin Cruz Smith’s extensive use of detail to set-up a scene. While it was thorough, I found it really slowed down the pace of the novel. Perhaps the audience in the West during the Cold War-era thirsted for details of life behind the Iron Curtain and enjoyed that level of detail, for me it was a bit too much.

Aside from the large amount of details, another problem I had was the reader learns the identity of the killer very early on. Once I knew, I wondered why I should read another 300 pages about a dreary investigator with a crappy life.

What turned the novel around was a trio of secondary characters who became more and more important to the investigator as the book plodded along. They really brought him to life. As their roles increased I began to wonder what would happen next to these relationships and finally I was hooked. It took awhile to get there, but it paid off in the end.

A recommended read if you have free time and have an interest in Russia during the Cold War.