Saturday, November 11, 2006
The Rubber Band
Rex Stout
Is it just me or is Archie always getting stuck with office work in the last couple Nero Wolfe books I've been reading? There is really some kind of continuity between this version and the last installment I read, even though I've read them with no regard for their order of publication. Nero is beating Archie at darts, and keeping Archie in the house. All the hired detectives in Archie's detective contact book are pounding the pavement. Red blooded lady hound that he is, he's jealous and testy throughout.
The Rubber Band is the first book of a compendium called "Five of a Kind" (err, murder murder murder...they're all about murder I guess. I don't know yet). Wow, Rex Stout's wikipedia entry is fairly extensive...who would have known he was on the original board of the NAACP?! Thats what it says there, although I don't quite know where to turn to verify that...
At any rate, in book Nero Wolfe apparently is quite taken with a beautiful young lady that finds herself in a pickle: wanted for stealing $30,000 and also wanted in connection with a plot to kill a foreign dignitary. It works itself out to Wolfe's satisfaction, although he does get the blood racing: he is shot in the arm by the guilty part at the conclusion, while holding court over his usual Clue-esque knot ungnarling..
Is it just me or is Archie always getting stuck with office work in the last couple Nero Wolfe books I've been reading? There is really some kind of continuity between this version and the last installment I read, even though I've read them with no regard for their order of publication. Nero is beating Archie at darts, and keeping Archie in the house. All the hired detectives in Archie's detective contact book are pounding the pavement. Red blooded lady hound that he is, he's jealous and testy throughout.
The Rubber Band is the first book of a compendium called "Five of a Kind" (err, murder murder murder...they're all about murder I guess. I don't know yet). Wow, Rex Stout's wikipedia entry is fairly extensive...who would have known he was on the original board of the NAACP?! Thats what it says there, although I don't quite know where to turn to verify that...
At any rate, in book Nero Wolfe apparently is quite taken with a beautiful young lady that finds herself in a pickle: wanted for stealing $30,000 and also wanted in connection with a plot to kill a foreign dignitary. It works itself out to Wolfe's satisfaction, although he does get the blood racing: he is shot in the arm by the guilty part at the conclusion, while holding court over his usual Clue-esque knot ungnarling..
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Waiting
Ha Jin
This book has a wonderful, plain style. Passages feel as if I'm reading with sunglasses that sap the book's emotional undercurrent of its spotlight. Intellectually I know that emotions are at play and yet I feel more connected to the zombie protagonist Lin, because the style of the writing matches Lin's state of mind.
I know very little about China particularly China in the last half of the 20th century but references to Shanghai watches, Phoenix bicycles, and walks through Victory Park in a city not too far from the Manchurian and Siberian borders bring to mind some kind of bleak picture. Something like Narva, where Nanci and Adam and I found ourselves walking through some of the more rundown areas of town (how could we avoid those areas?! They were all around the place). But no, really Narva is actually quite beautiful in some areas.
Anyway, the plot: a love story of a sort, two ladies and an indecisive man. Its sad.
