Waking Raphael, by Leslie Forbes

This book should come with a warning. "The only waking that will be involved with this book is when you wake up drooling on it." To say the least, I was not impressed.
The book centers on two women. One, Donna, is a young empty-headed TV personality from Canada who is sleeping her way to the top. The other, Charlotte, is a middle-aged divorce from England. They are brought together over a painting called La Muta, by Raphael (the painting is also called Portrait of a Gentlewoman). Charlotte is a professional restorer, who has travelled to Italy to restore La Muta; Donna is the host of a documentary about the restoration. (Sound boring yet, you have no idea.)
The usual host of minor characters abound: the young assistant, the local minor aristocrat, the local good man with a terrible secret, and assorted mafioso and cops (this is Italy after all). Sadly, the two most interesting characters in the books are two of these minor characters.
The story begins by establishing each of the characters, both minor and major, in their respective roles. It starts off with enough intrigue, allowing you to believe that the picture is somehow important or that her identity is somehow relevant. However, the story quickly devolves into the tawdry politics of sex and relationships. Once the story bottoms out there, it moves into the predictable middle-aged-divorcee-moves-to-Italy-and-begins-to-awaken-to-life-and-all-its-beauty. The one upside of this predictably boring plot-line is that Precoppio disgusts Charlotte with his salt-of-the-earth peasant ways, and he is thoroughly enjoyable for that reason alone. Coincidentally, he is one of only two male characters of any integrity or strength; the rest are all corrupt, lazy, powermongers, and/or perverts.
At the halfway point of the book we finally are introduced to a tie between the painting and the "antagonist." The action heats up when a local mute girl, called La Muta, slashes the just restored painting and sets off a chain of minor miracles: statues and painting crying tears of blood or bleeding from the wounds of their subjects. This launches a circus of a Vatican investigation alongside the police investigation, and of course a scientist and para-normal investigator to debunk the whole thing. Predictably, Donna and Charlotte set out (on seperate paths) to solve the real mystery, why La Muta attacked the painting in the first place. It doesn't take but about 3 active brain cells to guess the historical cause, and it doesn't have anything to do with the painting or Raphael.
The one upside of this book is that the epilogue is told from an outside point of view. It makes the predictable ending a little more bearable by being mercifully short.
If your looking for historical conspiracies and symbolism like in DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons, this is not your book. If your looking for "Under the Tuscan Sun" meets "The Odessa Files," then this is probably your book.

1 Fallen Aristocrat out of a possible 5

Neil

Waking Raphael, by Leslie Forbes

This book should come with a warning. "The only waking that will be involved with this book is when you wake up drooling on it." To say the least, I was not impressed.
The book centers on two women. One, Donna, is a young empty-headed TV personality from Canada who is sleeping her way to the top. The other, Charlotte, is a middle-aged divorce from England. They are brought together over a painting called La Muta, by Raphael (the painting is also called Portrait of a Gentlewoman). Charlotte is a professional restorer, who has travelled to Italy to restore La Muta; Donna is the host of a documentary about the restoration. (Sound boring yet, you have no idea.)
The usual host of minor characters abound: the young assistant, the local minor aristocrat, the local good man with a terrible secret, and assorted mafioso and cops (this is Italy after all). Sadly, the two most interesting characters in the books are two of these minor characters.
The story begins by establishing each of the characters, both minor and major, in their respective roles. It starts off with enough intrigue, allowing you to believe that the picture is somehow important or that her identity is somehow relevant. However, the story quickly devolves into the tawdry politics of sex and relationships. Once the story bottoms out there, it moves into the predictable middle-aged-divorcee-moves-to-Italy-and-begins-to-awaken-to-life-and-all-its-beauty. The one upside of this predictably boring plot-line is that Precoppio disgusts Charlotte with his salt-of-the-earth peasant ways, and he is thoroughly enjoyable for that reason alone. Coincidentally, he is one of only two male characters of any integrity or strength; the rest are all corrupt, lazy, powermongers, and/or perverts.
At the halfway point of the book we finally are introduced to a tie between the painting and the "antagonist." The action heats up when a local mute girl, called La Muta, slashes the just restored painting and sets off a chain of minor miracles: statues and painting crying tears of blood or bleeding from the wounds of their subjects. This launches a circus of a Vatican investigation alongside the police investigation, and of course a scientist and para-normal investigator to debunk the whole thing. Predictably, Donna and Charlotte set out (on seperate paths) to solve the real mystery, why La Muta attacked the painting in the first place. It doesn't take but about 3 active brain cells to guess the historical cause, and it doesn't have anything to do with the painting or Raphael.
The one upside of this book is that the epilogue is told from an outside point of view. It makes the predictable ending a little more bearable by being mercifully short.
If your looking for historical conspiracies and symbolism like in DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons, this is not your book. If your looking for "Under the Tuscan Sun" meets "The Odessa Files," then this is probably your book.

1 Fallen Aristocrat out of a possible 5

Neil

New format and purpose

I've been using this forum as a review site for a little while now. I think I'm going to focus it a bit. The new focus will be on the growing genre of Art/Literatary History Thrillers: DaVinci Code, Rule of Four, The Dante Club, etc. Occaisionally, other books that don't neatly fit the genre will fall in (The Relic, The Arcanum, etc). Hope you all enjoy.

Thank you,

Neil

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)- a book review

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) - by Ann Coulter (2004)

If politics isn't your bag, this probably isn't your book. It is primarily a collection of her articles with some new commentary. As such, much of the material is dated, but still relevant. Much like having goose for Christmas dinner- a bit out of date but always delicious.

Like snacking from a relish tray while dinner finishes cooking, the first chapter is a great warm up. It opens with tasty little morsel, "the best way to convert liberals is to have them move out of their parents' home, get a job, and start paying taxes." (Sounds suspiciously like Winston Churchill, proving once again that you can always go with the old standbys.) The first chapter is the ten rules for talking to a liberal, bit size bits like: don't be gracious- they'll stab you in the back, attack their policy- they will respond by attacking your person, always outrage them- then they get really ridiculous. This is really more about those who live and breathe politics, in particular Beltway Politics- the kind of stuff you see on Meet the Press, Hardball,and Nightline. Having worked up an appetite on this bit of fluff, its time to serve up the rest of it.

The meat and potatoes of her book are the articles and the new commentary that go with them. Her articles on the 2000 election are enlightening (sources of funding for the legal funds of the respective campaigns), but so much water under the bridge having now passed the 2004 election. The chapter on the Elian Gonzalez fiasco is a very pointed example of how liberal politicians apply selective compassion in their policy and their tendency to rely on the "Thug State" of jack-booted enforcement. (Remember pictures of Elian cowering in a closet while a Federal agent points a machine gun at him?) She goes on to serve up a wide diversity of topics: the Confirmation Process for presidential appointees, the double standards of liberal publishing moguls, journalistic standards, Terrorism and airline security (note: security and political correctness do not mix), and the deplorable lack of datable men in Washington DC.

For an after dinner cigar, she takes a chapter to blow open the arguments frequently cited by those who would have us legalize narcotics in the U.S. This chapter actually starts out talking about how she almost entered the political arena as a third party candidate so that leftist republican senator from her state (Connecticut) would lose. She goes on to talk about the Libertarian Party in her area and how they completely miss the boat on the long term social and political implications of their favorite platform- the legalization of narcotics. Her six point rebuttal is the most concise, well constructed argument I’ve seen in one place.

For dessert, she piles on three articles that have never been published before. Having read the articles in question I can see the editors’ reluctance- it was a matter of style, not necessarily content. Her arguments wandered, and never really addressed what the editors were looking for. However, she does say these are articles from early in her career; her writing is much improved since then. The last article was for a women’s magazine and was written as a response to the old adage, “If you sup with the devil, use a long spoon.” It’s humorous in its way and was an enjoyable read (having been from just a couple of years ago). The only reason I can think of that the publisher would choose to ignore it would be political view (see previous chapter on double standards in the liberal media).
It was enjoyable if you like politics. Don’t go into this looking for a discussion of liberalism vs conservatism, but if you’re discerning and patient, it’s there. She doesn’t ramble much, but she is prone to tooting her horn and spends a preponderance of time bashing her ideological foes in the “old media.”

3 ½ Right Wing Conspirators out of 5

Neil

Christmas Eve and Other Stories- a concert review

Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Denver CO- 7 December, 2004

For those of you not familiar with the name Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) you are probably still familiar with their songs- Christmas carols with full string sections backing up electric guitars, drums, and keyboards. Yeah, those guys (and girls).
I've been a fan of these guys for years, I picked up my copy of "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" (the first album) the year it came out, 1997. I've had friends go to their shows in the past and rave about how good they were, but I just never made it before. I'm budgeting now for next year's show.

The show is half theatre, half rock concert, and all entertaining. The first half of the show is given over to a Christmas story played in narration and music, the story of an angel sent to earth to see if the spirit of Christ is being kept alive on earth. The stages of his story are told by songs like "An Angel Came Down," "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," "Christmas Eve Sarajevo (12/24)," and "Old City Bar." The light show is dazzling (but be warned if you are prone to migraines) and "snow" even falls on the crowd at one point.
Christopher Gaynes, the narrator, has a marvelous voice- kind of a Denzel Washington does Shakesspear. The voices of the singers run the gammut from Operatic to R&B/Soul. The only song I didn't care for was the rendition of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," becuase the female vocalist devolves the end of it into a "How you doin' tonight, Denver?" with an R&B growl on the ending lyrics. She just dragged it out too long. The rendition of "Old City Bar" (my absolutely favorite song on all three Chritmas albums) was all that I could have hoped for. Every song drew thunderous applause from the audience, some even before the songs were fully over.
The theatre portion of the show lasted about 90 minutes. That alone was worth the price of admission. Then they opened it up and was more like a rock concert. They played several selections from "Christmas Attic," "The Lost Christmas," "Beethoven's Last Night," (an opera), and then one selection from the new album "Night Castle," due out in 2005. The closing number, "Christmas Eve Sarajevo (12/24)" brought the crowd to its feet as the final chords died away.
Then, to make it even better than a rock concert, they announced that they would be doing autographs after the show. There were probably 300-400 people in line, and they (all 15 of the principal musicians and singers) were friendly and made small talk as tehy scribbled their autographs on programs, CD's, and Christmas ornaments. Not only are they are marvelous musicians, but they were all very friendly and appreciative of their fans- which are a broad base ranging from old college professor types to young girls dressed like Amy Lee of Evanescence. If they come to your town go see them. It's much more entertaining than anything on TV.

5 Screaming Flying-V guitars out of 5

Neil

The Atrocity Archives - another book review

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

I stumbled across this one by accident at the library. I'm glad I did. This is the importance of a good title (intriguing artwork doesn't hurt either).

Imagine Tom Clancy meets H.P. Lovecraft, written by Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert). Yes, it is that bizarre. One of the things that struck me funny very early on is the name of the main character, Bob. Yes, Bob. Bob isn't glamorous, he's not a James Bond kind of save the world agent, he's not even a Jack Ryan kind of character. He's an underpaid IT guy in a Government bureaucracy trying to navigate the world of matrix management and get a transfer to the "field operations group." He gets his transfer, almost completely by accident- and it almost kills him, twice.
What I like best about the book is that Bob deals realistically with the horrors of Lovecraftian world. Minor horrors are disgusting, but not mind warping if you see them all the time. The big ones are something to be scared of, and he is. He (Bob) understands the "magic" of the world- Thaumaturgy (magic of numerical manipulation and mathematics), but doesn't try to make it "understandable" to us. The theorems and calculations sound like something out of a Doctoral Dissertation on Quantum Mechanics (which they could well be, Mr. Stross has a Doctorate in Computer Science), but are glossed over easily enough to just make them part of the story.
The perverse view of the government bureaucracy is something you seldom ever see in Lovecraft or spy books, but makes the book so worth reading because most of us can identify the patent stupidity of a line manager who knows nothing about the field their people work in. It gets even better in the included short story "The Concrete Jungle" when we get to see Bob swimming in the shark infested waters of bureaucratic powerplay.

I'll be picking up works by Mr. Stross, he is entertaining and a very concise writer.

4 1/2 Alien Elder God tentacles out of 5

Neil

The Rule of Four- a book review

A couple of days ago I picked up several new books at the library, I'm finishing the second one now. I'll try and get a review of that one up this weekend, its good stuff.

The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

This book first caught my eye in USA Today a couple of months ago. It was billed as a "worthy successor to "The DaVinci Code." Now I'm a huge fan of The DaVinci Code, so I picked it up. It's no DaVinci Code. It's interesting, it's a quick read, it's even mildly entertaining. But I'm not going to go pick up a copy of Hypernotomachia Poliphilo after reading it. Let me expound:

"Rule of Four" is really a tale of one young man's attempt to escape his father's obssession, a book that later becomes his own seductress. It weaves it's story across two generations and among two groups of friends. It talks about the seductive power of learning, the cost of obsession on family and friends, and the struggle of the main character to define himself in a way not related to his father. In this vein it's an interesting story that flows through the puzzle like the Tiber through Rome.

However, it is presented as an adventure and puzzle solving story, ala DaVinci Code, and in that respect it fails. The puzzle of Hypernotomachia is an academic pursuit that leads to an unknown treasure. The clues are laid out in anyway that the reader would be able to puzzle through them. The reader does get the vicarious joy of the principals solving the riddles though. At the end it injects a bit of "adventure" that felt somewhat contrived. It brings the book to a fiery climax, but the book had never felt like an adventure.

The bits and pieces of life on campus at an Ivy League school (Princeton) are amusing at times (Nude Olympics in the snow), but it becomes tiresome to those who have no ties to such memories or shared experience. The characters have diversity, if not great depth, and the story is never stolen by the background romance that pushes the development of the lead character.

I enjoyed the book, I read it in less than two days. The authors have a command of the language that keep it from getting in the way of the story. I would recommend it for a one time read, but don't buy the hype that this is a successor to The DaVinci Code.

3 1/2 Ancient Tomes out of 5.

Neil

...The goose is getting fat...

Please to put a penny in the old man's hat.

The secret Santa season has launched at work. I love this, it's so much fun. Even better- I have the most awsomest Santa.
Tuesday- new book
Wednesday- Bag O'Donuts
Thursday- Bag of Reese's Miniatures

My daughter bought Amy and I tickets to go see Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Yahoo!Launch has 14 channels of streaming holiday music. How awesome is that?
I'm enjoying this holiday season. I hope everyone enjoys this season as much as I do.

Neil

The Big Dinner

Here it is, the first Holiday In The New House. We've had a couple of good size get togethers, but this will be the first Holiday Meal. Maizie is coming, it will be the first time she's seen the house in person. I'm kind of looking forward to it. So- back on track.
There was a bit of disagreement about the food, namely the turkey. Amy was pretty blase about the whole thing, she just wanted to get a turkey breast from the Honey-Bake Ham store. Uh uh, we're doing a real turkey. I want my house to smell like turkey (be quiet Adam Sandler), and I want to serve MY turkey in MY house, okay OUR house. I'm probably being a little silly, but I can live with that.
So, we have everything that we need at this point: turkey, dressing ingredients, veggies, bread, tranquilizers for argumentative parents. Let's just hope the house (and our collective sanities) will survive.

Things I'm thankful for:
1. Amy. I don't have enough time (2 1/2 hours) to write out all the reasons I'm thankful for her; so I'll just say I'm thankful for her.
2. That Heather is a good kid. As much as she drives me crazy sometimes, she's a good kid and I'm very proud of her. Even if she does ship Harry/Draco (if you don't get it, don't ask- it's scary).
3. A job that I genuinely like. I probably should have gotten into gov't service years ago; it fits me better.
4. A good relator who was in the right place at the right time. Thanks, Julie.
5. That more people voted for Bush than Kerry.
6. That Dan Rather is leaving CBS. Maybe with a few more major cracks in the armor the major media will colapse in on itself and this nation will start thinking for itself again.

What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving,

Neil