"The Girl with No Shadow:A Novel" By Joanne Harris

   

 "The Girl with No Shadow: A Novel" by Joanne Harris.  This novel had a slow opening but like all things French, I thought I would give it a chance. Harris continues the story of the mother :Viane Rocher (Rosh-ay), Teenage daughter Anouk, and youngest Rossette. This is a sequel to  Harris' previous novel "Chocolat". 

 The novel starts starts getting interesting with the introduction of the character of Zowsie, who comes to work in Viane Rocher's chocolate shop.  Zowsie is a mystical character with witch like features, and when the daughter, Anouk confides into Zowsie about her personal life, revealing all of the intimate details of school life, and bullies, Zowsie uses the details to wrap a string around Anouk and tells her she can use powers to fend off bullies all the while becoming a confident young woman. 

 Readers are introduced to the life of a typical teenager, seems boring, (but oh, not quiet)   Zowsie connects with this teenager and tells her that being a freak is okay, because Zowsie is a freak herself.  She shows Anouk exactly what freaks can do, she triggers a rude, French waitress to spill her lemonade all over her customer, with a simple snap of Zowsie's fingers. 

 I enjoyed the mother's french lullaby to her baby daughter " Layla boom boom, Layla boom boom"(If I find the actual name for this song, I'm going to keep it for myself). A reader can walk away from this novel with a quiet innocence of a story and the easy culmination of French wrapped up into a small lullaby.

 But Harris uses a little too many metaphors in her novel.  She used the wind as a metaphor , for, foreshadowing problems that happen to this family.  It seems overdone.  In fact, when Viane Rocher  mentions "the black man"  periodically throughout the novel, as the father of Viane's illegitimate children (even though the father is not black).  This has an undertone of prejudice.  Why couldn't Harris just called this man, "the Man of Wind?"  Like her over use of the metaphor.

"The Piano Teacher" by Janice Y.K. Lee

"The Piano Teacher" by Janice Y.K.Lee.The novel opens with a description of Hong Kong:dirty with people everywhere: businessmen from all parts of world, Indians, British and Philippinos, Pakistanis with Pakistani rug stores and lastly, the Chinese.

Lee describes the British and the Chinese their ability easily mingle with one another.  And how the fish mongers butcher their fish in an unsanitzed manner, how feculence can be smelled and found in the alley ways of the tallest, high rise buildings.

The plot engages readers in the tell tale story of young newly wed by the name of Clair and her exposure to a brand new culture in Hong Kong.  Clair, the piano teacher would come to teach Locket, a young Chinese girl how to play the piano.  Clair is initially baffled by the prospect that a Chinese, upper class, family in Hong Kong would be well known in the community.  She's surprised that the the family speaks immaculate English and at the parents interest in pushing their daughter, like an animal, to learn the piano.

When Clair asked the mother about whether Locket, the daughter, will be attending school in America, the Chinese mother simply retorts "I don't want to talk about Locket's education, I want to talk about yours." 

 When Clair becomes infatuated with the family's riches, she decides to take some for her own:stealing a trinket and scarf without being caught by anyone.  Unfortunately, the family servant gets fired for stealing the items instead.  Clair is once again baffled by the Chinese traits in the home, as the young pianist she teaches seems unruffled at the dispearance of the servant, exclaiming that her mother had always  taught her that "all servants steal".

This incident would stick with Clair, putting her on edge in the family's home. Clair would come to have an affair in the novel, masking her obvious unfamiliarity in China with a new sudden interest.

Lee's generalizations of Americans and their over confident zeal, in this novel ,is obvious.  But what is even more stunning is how Lee depicts the character of Clair.  How could Clair be so unconscious of up-and-coming Chinese super power?

"The Poe Shadow" by Matthew Pearl

"The Poe Shadow" by Matthew Pearl.  I thought this novel would read much the same as Matthew Pearl's, "The Last Dickens".  Unfortunately, I think it lacked much of the action that too place in "The Last Dickens."  Although we do see the action the sought out aid of the real-life model for Poe's genius-sleuth, detective C. Auguste Dupin who comes to America in the search of the real killer of Poe.  I would have appreciated a little less of the discrete details of this detective, and appreciate more of a glimpse inside Edgar Allan Poe's career and details leading up to his death.

Pearl writes too much about Dupin, who cares if the detective was rude to his house servants and unfriendly.  Who cares that he disregarded a person when they talked. He was a detective after all, a man of observation not a man of social etiquette. I didn't expect to be reading Sherlocke Holmes, but with this novel I may as well have read the whole Sherlocke series with the depth of detective characteristics shown. 

The way that the french detective explains his perception of Americans once he arrives in America does not surprise me.  He says that Americans are rude, that they are too direct and spit their tobacco juice on the streets: unawares of any passer-by.

"Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese

"Cutting for Stone" a novel by Abraham Verghese, explores an intricate story of one man's life, and his role in becoming a doctor, in both Ethiopia and America. 

Introducing the main character (Marion's) mother, Sister Mary Joseph who crosses the Indian ocean to pursue a life in mission work in Ethiopia alongside her new love: Dr.  Stone.  Working with Dr. Stone in Addis Ababa spanned a life of hard work for the next seven years, and eventually her own passing while she was bringing her own twins into the world.

 After Dr. Stone sees his beloved die and the new responsibility of his new born twins, he decides this new role is to much for him and he takes off to America, leaving his new born twins to Dr. Ghosh and his new wife who both work in an impoverished clinic in Addis Ababa.  Dr. Ghosh, the adoptees father is followed by Marion to the clinic where he works, only to leave the devastated Marion to learn that his father is dieing of Leukemia.  As if this weren't enough, a bloodless coup had taken place in Ethiopia while emperor Hailee Selassie was away in Liberia.  This left the main character, Marion, no choice but to flee to America in hopes of continuing his medical school in New York City.  Marion has much to learn about the parallel differences between Ethiopia and America, but he takes it into strides, reminding that himself that he is making a life for himself and his family for which he left behind in Ethiopia.