So of course when a sequel came out and I had to keep reading.

… Before the end of The Search for WondLa, Eva Nine had never seen another human, but after a human boy named Hailey rescues her along with her companions, she couldn’t be happier. Eva thinks she has everything she’s ever dreamed of, especially when Hailey brings her and her friends to the colony of New Attica, where humans of all shapes and sizes live in apparent peace and harmony.

But all is not idyllic in New Attica, and Eva Nine soon realizes that something sinister is going on—and if she doesn’t stop it, it could mean the end of everything and everyone on planet Orbona …

This second book in the series, A Hero for WondLa, brings all that was well done about the first and adds in more details and more depth to the characters. DiTerlizzi continues his wonderful world building and adds in a real sense of danger and menace to this book in the form of the humans Eva Nine finally meets.

Like all good world builders, DiTerlizzi has created a world filled with interesting creatures and cultures that seem to have ancient and complex histories behind them. And just when you begin to think the story might be simple he adds in a twist or a layer of complexity. And yet there is a simplicity and beauty to the story that makes it a real joy to read.

For those who read the first book this is an obvious must read. If you haven’t yet read WondLa I highly recommend it before starting the second book.

The only problem? Now the wait for the third book begins …

But even with that caveat, there is a small part of me that is disappointed in his latest book The Tyranny of Clichés.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a quick, entertaining and informative book; full of useful arguments, insights and food for thought.  At its most basic it is a challenge to conservatives to fight back and not allow the left in this country to continue to make lazy, ideological loaded statements and arguments in the name of pragmatism and a fake “just the facts, ma’am” attitude.

For more on the book’s message and arguments, and on my rather subtle disappointment, keep reading.

First the sense of disappointment.  Here is the thing.  I am a intellectual history nerd.  I love the battle of ideas and the war of words and a host of other – yes – cliches that we use when we talk about intellectual history and public engagement with worldviews and arguments.  I thought Liberal Fascism was a powerful piece of historical push back.  As I said at the time:

I found Liberal Fascism to be an interesting read and one that forces you to understand and wrestle with many of the fundamental political issues of the twentieth century and their implications for today.

It bugs me that many attempt to dismiss Jonah as a joke teller and try to dismiss his success as a fluke (or worse connect it to his mother).  Jonah is a serious writer who wrestles with important issues that lie at the heart of so many of our political, cultural and societal problems.  He understands the rot at the heart of liberalism and yet the unwillingness of so many to deal with the actual intellectual, philosophical and historical truths at the root of this problem.

Yes, he enjoys and is engaged with and knowledgeable about popular culture.  Yes, he is funny and doesn’t take himself all that seriously.  But he is much more than pull my finger or woman’s prison flick jokes.

But Jonah has admitted the voice he enjoys writing with, and that most reflects his personality, is closer to The Tyranny of Cliches (TOC) than Liberal Fascism.  Which frustrates me somewhat because there so much potential depth and intellectual heft involved in Jonah’s thesis yet this book really just skims the surface.

But you know what? If Jonah took the time and hard work to write a detailed, flushed out more academic style book about the cliches and deceptions that underly contemporary liberalism few would probably read it and its impact would be much smaller.  This is in many ways a problem of popular perception and so perhaps that is where the battle must be fought.  But I would have loved a more fully geeked-out version. Just sayin’ …

So what is TOC about? Basically, it is about how the left seeks to sneak in ideology, and poor thinking, by laying claim to science, pragmatism, rationality and just plain goodness via an assortment of cliches, catch phrases and pithy statements.

As Jonah explains

Pragmatism is the disguise progressives and other ideologues don when they want to demonize competing ideologies.

For Goldberg ideology is not an insult.  Everyone has an ideology.  Whether you call it a worldview or first principles or fundamental assumptions or political philosophy or framework or whatever, we all start somewhere when we seek to make decisions, make policy or judge actions and outcomes. This is ideology.

Perhaps contra Russell Kirk, and other in the traditionalist or Burkean school, modern conservatives embrace ideology (at least of this type).  We argue about conservatism versus libertarianism, about paleocons versus neocons, about Ayn Rand versus William F. Buckley, about Kirk versus Frank Meyer (OK maybe just me on this one), etc.  We pride ourselves on arguing from bedrock principles and ideas.

The left in contrast is supposedly about what works.  Study the facts and find the solution, right?

Hogwash, says Goldberg. Progressives have a deep-and often dark-intellectual history that continues to influence their thought and policy prescriptions to this day.  But those roots don’t sell quite as well today, and they have some larger implications that the public might not accept, so the left chucks it all in the closet and pretends it doesn’t exist.

The point of TOC, in my opinion, is to help conservatives recognize this history and behavior and engage the left, forcing them to own their history and admit their ideology. I also think there are a few lessons for the right in the book.

First, both history and ideas matter.  Conservatives must be ever vigilant in defending their ideas and history from the encroachment of these liberal urban legends.  In chapter after chapter Jonah shows how these concepts and catch phrases are built on faulty history and ideological bias.  The historical background has been so warped as to produce a meaning in public discourse that is the exact opposite of what actually happened and was intended.

Philosophical Pragmatism is ideology not mere practicality or trial and error; Social Darwinism has no connection to conservatism and never did; Social Justice has come to mean the opposite of what it was intended to convey and is now an ideological trojan horse used to indoctrinate students; the Catholic Church in fact has a long history of fighting for the dignity of human beings and the defense of civilization not the destruction of science and freedom; on and on it goes.

Conservatives must know this history and be able to communicate it to the public so as to change their perceptions.  We must be able to tell stories that emotionally connect so as to tear down the default liberal assumptions of so much of popular culture and political debate.  You can’t assume that your ideas and the actual history of issues are known and understood.  We must not just attack the left but build on own story and tell our own history.

And a related point, and a cautionary one, is that self-deception is dangerous and damaging.  Seems like common sense but it is important.  Jonah argues that the underlying root of the tyranny of cliches is that these are the lies the left tells itself.  This has not led to an intellectually robust and dynamic movement but instead to a flabby, and in many aways viciously reactionary and often vulgar, movement that seeks a soft despotism of state involvement in every aspect of people’s lives all in the name of “solving problems” and “helping people” (hello Liberal Fascism).

What the right must do is reach the public with the message that things are not so simple and pretending they are leads to bad policy and bad outcomes.  A massive welfare state leads to dependence and dysfunctional families not a utopian community; sometime violence is needed and avoiding it quite often leads to even more violent and widespread suffering; an ideological and rigid belief in diversity as a good in and of itself leads to discrimination, closed minds and mediocrity not social uplift; there is such a thing as too much democracy and unity at the expense of freedom and individuality is dangerous a common tool of tyranny.

The simple message underneath is lazy thought leads to bad things.  This is a deeply conservative viewpoint – life isn’t as simple as you think it is and can’t be controlled and planned through willpower and good intentions.  In a humorous and engaging way, TOC forces you to unpack and re-think some of the fundamental cliches of our time.  And to see the base stealing the left is engaged in every day.  Conservatives must challenge and seek to overthrow this default position.  But they must also guard against engaging in equally damaging simplification and self-deception.

Perhaps, that could be Jonah’s next book …

Related articles

• Jonah Goldberg on The Tyranny of Cliches (collectedmiscellany.com)

The book is not a pure biography of Patton.  The first few chapters do chronicle Patton’s career before World War II – with particular attention on Patton’s limited experience in World War I.  However, the majority of the book focuses on Patton’s World War II German opponents – those who fought against him in Africa, Sicily, France, and Germany.

Yeide calls upon a wealth of information from his research in the National Archives.  For instance, during the D-Day preparations by the Allies, Yeide explains that despite Eisenhower’s and others’ claims that the Germans tied down many of their forces in order to counter Patton’s fictitious First United States Army Group, the Germans, according to Yeide, did not mention Patton at all in their intelligence analysis.

Although many Americans believe Patton to be a master strategist who charged across France against German resistance, Yeide concludes that the Germans did not think of Patton as a major strategist, but more of a good tactical armor leader.  Yeide goes as far to say that if Patton was in the Wehrmacht, he would be one of the least experienced armor generals.

The book is 422 pages (including a glossary) divided into 14 chapters.  Yeide includes 34 maps and 52 black and white photographs.

This book brings a fresh perspective to one of America’s most studied and admired generals.

As regular readers know, I’m a big fan of reworked or retold myths and legends and so was excited to dig into The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.  To understand why, here is the publisher’s setup:

The legend begins…

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles’ mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

As it turned out this was really a romance – between Patroclus and Achilles – with the classical story mostly as background. It was well done in many ways, and the writing is often excellent, but the classics as romance was not what I was looking for.

More below.

Did the same sex element throw me off? Perhaps. But I think it was more the sentimental and frequently sensual style and tone. Far too much of it is just a coming of age love story between the two boys with lots and lots of focus on just how much Patroclus adores, loves and or is besotted with Achilles. By the time you get to the action of the Trojan War you are tired of it all, or at least I was.

Again, well written in parts and well done in some ways but completely not my style. Not to sound sexiest but this struck me as a boom women would adore. The central characters are feminized and presented as idealized lovers until the very end.

And as exciting and dramatic as the ending was it felt a little like the character of Achillies changed dramatically in the final chapters as the conflict rose to its conclusion.

As I was struggling to capture my frustration with the novel, along comes Daniel Mendelsohn to say it better than I ever could.  Mendelsohn points out the two most problematic elements: structure and tone.

First, structure:

The “Iliad” has focus and weight because it zeroes in on what is, despite its length, a very narrow subject (albeit with vast, rippling ramifications): Achilles’ wrath, what it stems from and what it means. (What are honor and glory? Why do we fight and live?) Because it is cast as Patroclus’ autobiography and concentrates on the love affair, “The Song of Achilles” necessarily has to start much earlier and then catch up with Homer. The result is an odd disproportion. There’s a lot of time and energy devoted to adolescent Sturm und Drang (Patroclus’ early years are a bit Judy Blume-ish), but as the action progresses into the territory of established myth — the abduction of Helen, the formation of the Greek armada, the landing at Troy, 10 years of warfare — you often feel as if this or that famous episode is being rapidly ticked off a list. (The sacrifice of Iphigenia is dispatched in two paragraphs: “We were horrified and angry,” Patroclus blandly reports.) And the fact that Patroclus dies before the end of the story forces Miller into an odd narrative corner indeed.

Second, tone:

The real Achilles’ heel of this book is tone — one made disastrously worse by the author’s decision to metamorphose an ancient story of heroes into a modern tale of hormones … Miller unhappily wobbles between “lyrical” overwriting (“his voice wheedled and ducked, like a weasel escaping the nest”) and a misguided attempt to give a contemporary smoothness to Homer’s antique tale. At the end of the novel, as in the “Iliad,” old Priam secretly comes to the Greek camp to ransom the body of his son Hector, whom the enraged Achilles has slain. “I am sorry for your loss,” Miller has him say. You wonder just which funeral home this took place in.

The problem reaches crisis proportions in the handling of the “love affair,” which begins with an embarrassing breathlessness (“My chest trilled with something I could not quite name”) and climaxes — sorry! — in the long-awaited and, it must be said, cringe-inducing consummation: “He seemed to swell beneath my touch, to ripen. He smelled like almonds and earth. He pressed against me, crushing my lips to wine. He went still as I took him in my hand, soft as the delicate velvet of petals. . . . Our bodies cupped each other like hands.

A lot of other reviews felt differently and Publishers Weekly and Library Journal gave it very positive reviews.  And there are plenty of customer reviews equally positive.  I think one’s reaction is likely to turn on how much romance (near erotica) you want with your classics.  If you enjoy romance and don’t mind an idealized same sex love affair transplanted to ancient Greece you will likely enjoy Song of Achilles.

If, however, you were looking for a little more depth and complexity to the retelling of this classic tale I think you will likely be disappointed.  And I have a feeling anyone with a more serious interest in and knowledge of Homer and Achillies will react like Mendelsohn.  Or see this Amazon review.

As Mendelsohn notes, “there are some very good things here — nice imaginative flights, small details that pop out and make you take notice.”  I did enjoy much of the book.  But the fawning romance of the first half and the compressed nature of the second drained much of the energy out of my enjoyment.  I am sure a good deal of this is simply taste and  style but I do think there are some more literary faults beyond just not being a fan of romance.

But as I like to say, your mileage may vary …

Everything about The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey makes me want to read it. The cover art, the website, the video, the plot, the connection to a Russian fairy tale, the author’s name – everything. Thus begins the rearrangement of my TBR pile …

As the above makes clear, it just seemed like a book that had so many of the elements I look for in a book.  For those of you out of the loop, here is the publisher’s synopsis:

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart—he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone—but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

Well, in April I finally got the chance to read it.  With all the hype surrounding this book – my own above, and many others - there was ample room for disappointment. But despite the fact the book was different than I had expected, there was no let down for me.

It was an evocative and deeply human story with a fairy tale woven in. And like so many fairy tales and folklore – not the Disney versions – this one was touched with sorrow and tragedy. But also infused with love and hope and beauty as they really exist.

Gorgeous prose, a wonderfully developed setting that become a character of its own, and a great cast of characters make this a novel with depth and emotion – a heft belied by the fairy tale at it heart.

What is amazing is how in a debut novel Ivey blends historical fiction, a sense of magical realism and the more traditional aspects of a novel into a wonderful story.  The characters have depth and draw out real emotion.  The land of Alaska become a character itself; fearsome and yet beautiful.  You see the characters grow and change; you see relationships develop and friendships bloom; you see the joys and despair of life.

It is not a fast paced novel by any means but the absorbing and beautiful nature of the story means that you want to savor it.  This one book where the waiting seemed to make it better.  If you haven’t had a chance to read The Snow Child I highly recommend it.

Related articles

• The Snow Child, By Eowyn Ivey (independent.co.uk)
• Author interview: Eowyn Ivey on her début novel “The Snow Child” (rebeccaberto.wordpress.com)

Cover of The Hunger Games

Well, I finally broke down and read the first book in the Hunger Games series – the aptly titled The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I had downloaded the series on the Kindle when they offered a highly discounted version and figured with the movie out and all the discussion that I might as well read it.

And perhaps it was due to all the hype but quite frankly I was a little disappointed. Sure, it is in many ways an imaginative example of world building and setting the stage for some interesting characters and some powerful emotions.

And I don’t mean to say it wasn’t entertaining because it was and I enjoyed it. The story really kept you moving forward and you wanted to find out how all the dynamics would play out.

But from a literary perspective it just didn’t wow me. It was interesting and creative and entertaining but just wasn’t one of those books where you end thinking: “Wow, that was awesome.” Or one where you immediately want to jump into the next book. I am, however, pretty clearly an outlier on this one.

One explanation for this might be my heavy dislike for angst of a certain youthful kind. I hated it in the later Harry Potter books for example and I disliked it here. Granted, Katniss’s angst is not all that over-the-top but the whole “is the love interest between her and Peetra real or not?” aspect just grew sort of old for me.

In case you have been living in a cave or something here is the publishers blurb:

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don’t live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival

And as is the case with so many first in a series books, it seemed surprisingly shallow in terms of character depth and, to a lesser extent, plot. The simplicity of the prose allows Katniss to shine but, outside her relationship with Peetra and a little with Rue, it is a very interior story. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as the series continues.  And it is of course, a young adult novel so I am not exactly the target audience.

This probably seems like nit-picking, and I am sure the hype surrounding the books and movie led to my disappointment, but for whatever reason this one fell a little flat for me.

But it was a quick and enjoyable read nonetheless; with an imaginative world and a fast paced plot.  I am sure I will read the rest of the series soon and hope to see the movie as well.

It turned out to be a very interesting blend of psychological mystery, literary and philosophical exploration and road trip story.  This is not a fast paced thriller by any means but it does pack an emotional punch and there is an undercurrent of tension that drives the story forward.

More after the jump.

First, a little about Arvin:

Nick Arvin is an American engineer and writer. Born in North Carolina, he was raised in Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan and Stanford University with degrees in mechanical engineering, and from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has worked in forensic engineering and accident reconstruction.

And with that in mind, the plot blurb:

At a loose end after college, Ellis Barstow drifts back to his home town and a strange profession: reconstructing fatal traffic accidents. He seems to take to the work immediately , and forms a bond with his boss and mentor, John Boggs, an intriguing character of few but telling words.

Yet Ellis is harbouring a secret. He was drawn to the reconstructionist’s grisly world by the fatal crash that killed his half-brother Christopher and that still haunts him; in fact his life has been shaped by car accidents. Boggs, in his exacting way, would argue that ‘accident’ is not the right word, that if two cars meeting at an intersection can be called an accident then anything can – where we live, what we do, even who we fall in love with.

For Ellis these things are certainly no accident. And he harbours a second, more dangerous secret, one that threatens to blow apart the men’s lives and which, as the story’s quiet momentum builds, leads to a desperate race towards confrontation, reconciliation and survival.

As the above indicates, there is a mystery of a sort at the heart of the plot but the focus is really on the relationships and each character’s struggle to make sense of them; and to understand how they got to where they are in life and in these relationships.

Arvin clearly used his extensive knowledge of accident reconstruction to build a convincing plot element and hook.  You are quickly pulled into the world of accidents and the very technical process of trying to make scientific sense of these seemingly random events.  The human explanations and testimonies are not reliable so investigators are forced to fall back on the science to bring some semblance of order and meaning to the accidents they study (pushed and pulled by lawyers and insurance companies). They attempt to explain what actually happened but of course guilt and innocence hover in the background.

And you can’t really remove the human element from the accidents and humans look for things like meaning, intention, fate.  Ellis, Boggs and Heather are in a psychological sense careening towards each other at very high speeds.  Is what happens an accident?  Is it fate? And, Arvin asks, is there really such a thing as an accident?  Can we escape the choices we have made and the events that make up our lives?

I noted above that the novel is a blend of psychological mystery, literary and philosophical exploration and road trip story.  It leans heavy on the literary and psychological/philosophical side in my opinion.  In particular the middle section of the book, the road trip part, is heavy on psychological and philosophical exploration and lean on plot.  It shares its feel with the sleep deprived constant driving of Ellis.

Ellis is trying to deal with all of the pressure that builds up in his life – from his family, his career, his relationship with Heather and Boggs. He seeks to be more intentional more rational.  But as his life seems to be splintering around him he can’t bring the cold rationality of his work to his life – so he takes refuge in his skills as a reconstructionist.  But will this destroy the one thing he cares about?

As you can see, the story is driven more by questions than answers.  But if you find the literary and psychological exploration of these questions interesting then I think you will enjoy the novel.  If you want a neat plot and steady style and structure than you might be frustrated with this one.  I am not sure it all works together seamlessly, or that the attempt to build a literary novel around a made for TV type plot hook like accident reconstruction quite works, but I found the characters and their emotions interesting and the questions explored worth thinking about.  Enough of it “worked” that I enjoyed it but I have a feeling reactions will vary widely by taste.

So when I stumbled upon Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination by Brian J. Walsh I was immediately intrigued.  It turned out to be a thoughtful, insightful and engaging work.  It is not light reading by any means and have a post-modern bent, but longtime fans of Cockburn will want to dive into this book.

More after the jump.

Here is the publishers blurb:

For forty years, singer and songwriter Bruce Cockburn has been writing beautifully evocative music. Bestselling author and respected theologian Brian Walsh has followed Cockburn’s work for years and has written and spoken often on his art. In this creative theological and cultural engagement, Walsh reveals the imaginative depth and uncompromising honesty of the artist’s Christian spirituality. Cockburn offers hope in the midst of doubt, struggle, failure, and anger; indeed, the sentiment of “kicking at the darkness” is at the heart of his spirituality. This book engages the rich imagery of Cockburn’s lyrics as a catalyst for shaping and igniting a renewed Christian imagination.

As noted above, if you are a fan of Bruce Cockburn this is a must read book. Walsh explores Cockburn’s lyrics with depth and insight. Despite the fact that I have some rather serious disagreements with Walsh’s politics (he fails to wrestle with the contributions and failings of free markets and accepts some caricatures of President Bush, etc.), I really enjoyed the way he provocatively explored Cockburn’s work through the eyes of scripture and faith. He examines Cockburn as a prophetic voice and psalmist offering laments and praise in equal measure.

If you are not a fan of Cockburn, or familiar with his work, I am not sure you would enjoy the book quite as much or be able to make the connections. But if you are interested in the intersection music, faith and art Walsh still offers some interesting conceptions of how we view the world and how music and art engage and inform that worldview.

My only complaint is that the book can get rather dense and seems maybe a tad too long. Some familiarity with philosophy, particularly with a post-modern perspective, is probably needed to appreciate Walsh’s style and arguments.

It is not necessarily a quick or easy read but there is a lot to appreciate and think about in this volume of critical engagement and imagination.

What from so many angles seems like violence and betrayal fueled by mere revenge turns out to be each side attempting to turn constantly shifting events to their advantage. Steinhauer plays the story out giving the reader the perspective of a number of characters from Weaver to his former boss Alan Drummond to Chinese spymaster Xin Zhu. But just when you think you are starting to put the pieces together he shuffles the deck and you have re-evaluate your assumptions.

There is an underlying tension in espionage – and thus in spy fiction – in that at root it is the search for truth and yet in pursuing that elusive truth, truth itself – or at least honesty and veracity – are the first causality (cliché perhaps but accurate I think).  An American Spy mirrors this and in fact forces the reader to wrestle with it and “live” in this type of world. You find yourself constantly trying to understand the strategy and motivations of each side while guessing their next steps – in other words, thinking like a spy.  What also becomes clear is how the nature of the trade undermines trust and casts doubt on everything.

Milo starts out trying to act like a “civilian” – dinner with friends and a routine with school and family.  But when your friendly dinner companions are your ex-boss and his wife and all he wants to talk about is the death of 33 agents under his watch, and the destruction of his career, normalcy is by nature elusive.

Steinhauer uses another cliché – the agent who can’t break free – but again to very good use.  But instead of wreaking havoc and gaining revenge on those who forced him to return – ala many action films – Milo instead is caught in an ever-changing web of deceit and seems almost resigned to his death as an acceptable solution.  The more he pursues the safety of those he cares about the more they seem to be in danger.

It is worth pointing out that if you ever hope to make sense of the complicated plot or to understand the back stories of the characters you need to read the first two books.  You can read this by itself but you will lose a lot of depth.

Some early reviews have pointed to the complexity of the plot and the slow start that results.  But as noted above, I believe this grows out of Steinhauer’s attempt to mirror what it is like to be involved in espionage: making decisions based on limited information, constant shifting of motives and angles, and all of this done under great pressure and with ever higher risks.  We start off by approaching the story from different people’s perspective with clues and threads dangled in front of us.  But once this foundation is set, events begin to move very fast and you find yourself racing to the conclusion.  Only then you find that there is one last twist – and one that makes you hope for more books featuring Milo Weaver.

I will admit to a lack of objectivity when it comes to Steinhauer.  I am fan and have been for a long time (having read all of his books and followed his blogging as well).  But I think it is safe to say that if you are interested in spy fiction and not reading Steinhauer you are missing out.  Without getting into the never-ending debate surrounding genre versus literature, I think Steinhauer is an excellent example of the best of genre.

And I think PW’s review captured this element very well:

Steinhauer is particularly good at articulating contemporary spy craft—the mechanics of surveillance and intelligence in the digital age and the depth of paranoia endemic to the trade. In addition, his ability to create characters with genuine emotions and conflicts, coupled with an insightful and often poetic writing style, set him apart in the world of espionage fiction.

Given this it is not surprising that he is garnering comparisons to legends like Le Care and Deighton.  Big shoes to fill but with this excellent trilogy Steinhauer is well on his way.

I am still not sure – as is so often the case with these type of questions, the answer is really all of the above. But this e-book only work by novelist Lars Walker is a captivating read and one that pulls you into its characters and settings – making you feel like you are reading about a real place and real people; that you are reading history in a sense not literature or not just literature.

More thoughts below …

Here is a blurb from the author/publisher:

Chris Anderson has everything. He’s the son of the richest family in town. He lives in a beautiful, loving home. He even has a fairy godmother.

Chris Anderson also has nothing. He was born with a deformed arm, and when he gets angry he sees visions that terrify him.

At the turn of the Twentieth Century, in a nation wrestling with faith and science, tradition and change, Chris will be forced to confront his own nature, and learn the meanings of freedom, love, and the grace of God.

The set up seems to hint at historical fiction: you have the introduction in modern times with flashbacks for the history. The basic plot follows Chris as he grows up; moving from farm to town and dealing with his complex Norwegian family and community.  The drama comes from conflict within the family – his old school grandfather and his progressive teetotaler mother for example – and from his deformed arm which looms large in his own mind and life.

But always on the edge of the story is the “underworld” – the world of fairies and magic.  He has his own real live fairy godmother in fact, who reminds him  that the magic side is often dark and dangerous and who desperately wants to be baptized.  Chris himself has a strong connection to this world.  When he is angry or feels threatened he sees little men with red hats who seem capable of great violence.  He has dreams and visions.

All this complexity leads to dysfunction and struggle – despite the wealth and success of the Andersons.  One by one the men are driven away. His Norwegian immigrant grandfather is driven out by his domineering mother and her progressive causes.  His brother rebels and heads west to escape.  And soon his father joins the path west.

Chris tries to stay rooted.  He takes a position in the family firm and seems committed to what normalcy he can find. But his deformed arm and his love for Sophie – an adopted girl who is in some ways like a sister but who he loves with desperation – prevent him from peace or stability.  He can’t accept himself as he is and thus can’t accept love from Sophie and this brews deep and ugly bitterness inside him.  When this emotion surfaces it drives him out west to find his father and brother.

He connects with them but out of fear of ending up lonely and alone heads back to his hometown to make a life for himself.  His awkward and often ugly attempts to do this make up the rising climax of the book and highlights the truly changing nature of the community he returns to.

What struck me about the style and content of Troll Valley is how, at bottom, what makes it worthwhile is the simple storytelling.  Walker creates such believable and entertaining characters that the reader is sucked in and soon begins to care about these complex characters.  This is what storytelling is all about: the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes; to experience and explore new things without having to go anywhere. Walker gives us this chance to visit Minnesota around the turn of the century and see what a Norwegian immigrant community might look like and how its inhabitants might live and interact.

But there is also an element that is almost post-modern or a unique mix of pre and post-modern – unmodern if you will.  With a magical realism influenced by classical Christianity and Nordic myth; with genres blended and intertwined and big ideas wrestled with and unpacked.

In some ways this makes it messy. The plot isn’t particularly tight and it isn’t clear what exactly the device of the modern-day relative drug-addict and his Native American helper brings to the story.  But it works because it is full of interesting characters, settings and language – because it touches on powerful emotions that grow out of conflicts we still wrestle with today.  It touches on faith and family – on community and relationships.  It feels like history, literature, theology and psychology all rolled up in a story.

Who knows what you call it.  But it is engaging, entertaining, often thought-provoking and for $3 a real steal.  If you have a Kindle or a Nook I encourage you to download Troll Valley and experience this unique journey.