Offshore (1979) by Penelope Fitzgerald

🚢 Set in the 1960s, Offshore is Penelope Fitzgerald's third novel, which won her the Booker Prize in 1979. It tells the story of a houseboat-dwellers community, which was closely inspired by her own experience of living in an old sailing barge moored along the bank of river Thames, at Battersea Reach, London. It was difficult times for her, which was also reflected on this book's characters. If I must sum it up in two words, this book is about restlessness and uncertainty.

🚢 The story opens with a sort of community meeting, which took place at Lord Jim, a barge owned by Richard Blake, who lives there, childless, with his wife Laura. Richard was looked up to as the unofficial leader of the community, partly because of his virtue, and partly because he had been involved in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Lord Jim, a converted minesweeper was also in the best condition compared to the others. Dreadnought, owned by an elderly marine painter called Willis, was in the worst condition with its serious leaks, though Willis was reluctant to sell it, because it meant that he'd have to live on shore with his sister. 🚢 Grace was another barge, owned by Nenna James, who lives there with her two daughters Martha and Tilda. She was anxious to get her estranged husband Edward to move back with them - he loathed living in a boat and chose to live in his friend's house instead. Nenna is the most interesting character in this book, to whom I was rooted for. Interestingly enough, the boat on board which Fitzgerald had been living was also called Grace. Nenna was pestered by Martha and Tilda's school, who claimed that both children were often absent from school, and seen running wildly on the muddy foreshore. Tilda, at least, enjoyed living on Grace, although it's not a good environment for raising children. Especially when their neighbor was Maurice, an old boat owned by a male prostitute, also called Maurice, who allowed his boat to be used for storing stolen goods by his shady friend Harry. There's also Woodie, a retired businessman, who owned Rochester. After Dreadnought sank - the dramatical scene was so beautifully written! - Woodie and his wife took charge of old unfortunate Willis, and let him live contentedly with them - converting Rochester into a sort of boarding house. 🚢 Like I said above, this is a story about uncertainty and restlessness. Even the ending is inconclusive. Normally I dislike this kind of novel, but in this case, I think it fits most perfectly with the whole sense of the novel. I rather like Wikipedia's description of it: "The book explores the emotional restlessness of houseboat dwellers who live neither fully on the water nor fully on the land." I caught the sense of dejectedness of these houseboat dwellers - they were generally frowned upon by the society. And yet, when we dive into their daily lives, they are mostly affectionate people, who wouldn't hesitate to help one another in difficult times. Maurice, for instance, always provides sympathetic ears for Nenna James' worries; Willis is always fond of Tilda; and of course, Woodie and his wife taking Willis under their care, which resulting in their change of plans, is the sweetest of all. Sometimes, one just need to be loved by others, before one can stand by one self - the life in the houseboat community might be that bridge towards brighter future for all characters. At least I wish them all the best. Again, I agree with Fitzgerald for not providing conclusive ending to the story; since it is just a phase that every one of us sometimes must face during our existence. How one would go from there, is one's own choice. Just as the ending of this story, would be how each reader would choose for themselves. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) by Scott O'Dell

🐋 Scott O'Dell wrote this book based on true story of a Nicoleño Native American girl called Juana Maria, who had lived alone for 18 years on San Nicholas Island, in the 18th century. Our girl in this story is Karana, also a Nicoleño girl, who, at the beginning of the story, lives with her father - the leader of the tribe, her little brother Ramo, and older sister Ulape. They live in a village called Ghalas-at, where the people survive by hunting, fishing, and gathering roots. One day a Russian fur-hunter ship called Aleut arrived at the island to hunt for otters. Karana's father dealt with the Russians to let them hunting for a certain price, but the Russians refused to pay, which angered the Ghalas-at people. On the battle that followed, many were killed, including Karana's father.

🐋 Lacking of surviving men, and fear of the Aleuts' returning, the Ghalas-at people decided to move to a new island, leaving their home behind. When the ship was about to leave, realizing that little Ramo had left behind on the island, Karana jumped from the ship amidst the coming storm (which was too dangerous for the ship to return), and swam back to the island. Now alone on the island, Karana and Ramo lived together under the roof of their house, and from the foods they gathered or hunted. The only threat was from the wild dogs, whom, when the people left, became more ferocious. One day they devoured little Ramo, which left Karana really alone on the island, and must somehow survive from the wild dogs, while waiting for the ship to return. But the ship never returned....

🐋 Every girl of Ghalas-at had been taught from childhood that women should not do men's tasks like making weapons or building canoe. It's interesting to see Karana so afraid at first, that something bad would befallen her for what she's doing. But in the end, her survival drive was much stronger than any patriarchal tradition. It's a silly tradition after all; a weaker girl than Karana would soon have been perished of starving or killed by the wild dogs had she not been able to make weapons or canoe, and hunt, and build shelter. On the other hand, Karana still preserved her feminine qualities, like when she made herself a pretty skirt from cormorant skins and feathers, and then wore it when she's out on the shore, admiring herself. 

🐋 It's interesting to read how Karana gathered abalones, then dried them up under the sun. Or how she re-shaped a canoe, that she wouldn't be able to haul herself, to a smaller one. The arrows and spears that she produced, and used to kill some of the wild dogs to avenge her brother's death. Not mentioning how she built a home with fences made of whale bones. It really reminded me of Robinson Crusoe. I loved how Karana tamed the wild dog's leader, to be her only friend. And especially, Karana's kinship with the other inhabitants of the island - the animals: the otters, the sea lions, the whales, the birds. I realized how lonely she was, how longed she was to meet and have conversation with other human beings; and I admired her resilience and spirit. In short, it's a lovely book for young adults, full of adventures and good lessons of survival and character building.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Olive Kitteridge (2008) by Elizabeth Strout

🔴 Olive Kitteridge is Elizabeth Strout's third published book, which won Pulitzer prize in 2009. At first few chapters I asked myself, how on earth could this book win a Pulitzer? It seemed an ordinary literary fiction. But after finishing it, I realized there's the hidden layers beneath the seemingly a book about the lives of some residents of a coastal town Of Crosby in Maine. It is not a novel, to begin with, but a structure that is called short story cycle or story sequence or composite novel - a collection of short stories in which the narratives are specifically composed and arranged with the goal of creating an enhanced or different experience when reading the group as a whole as opposed to its individual parts. [Wikipedia]

🔴 Olive Kitteridge is the main character here, although she didn't always appear as one. Sometimes she's just a passing character that someone mentioned, or just commented upon; but sometimes, like at the last chapter, she became the main character. Nevertheless, she is the connecting element that tied tall the stories together. Olive was a high school math teacher, a cantankerous woman with sharp tongue and abrasive manner. The first story, "Pharmacy", is about her husband, Henry Kitteridge. He's a pharmacist, and had a soft spot for his employee, Denise Thibodeau. At this stage (Henry and Olive were in their 30-ish, with an only son who's in junior high school), I bitterly thought that it's no wonder that Henry is thinking of having an affair with another woman; his wife was always so rude and sharp, either to him or to their son Christopher. But Henry is always a sensitive man, and still loves his wife, despite all that.

🔴 Through thirteen disjointed stories, we followed eventful events of the Kitteridges, as well as some other residents. And as the stories unfolded, I slowly realized what had shaped Olive to be her self. Her past (tragic death of her father and her mother's abandonment) wounded her soul deeply, that I think it had hardened her. Though beneath, she's still a generous and kind person. A bitterness that came during her marriage with Henry, only added the sourness in her. Later on, her perimenopause and menopause stage only made things worse. Her disappointment over her son Christopher's unsuitable (to her) marriage, seemed to be he last straw. And so, she became this unbearable woman.

🔴 On the whole, this hasn't been a charming book to read. It seems that in telling the real lives of people in a town - which is greatly relatable to ours - Kitteridge focused mainly on the dark aspects only; disappointment and disillusionment ranked on top, with bitterness of love (and the lack of it) followed soon. Most of the characters have had hopes and dreams, but more often than not, the opposite happened. It seems that all our adult lives were spent to learn about it, so that in seventies, you'd learn finally to accept things as it is - things that's beyond your control.

🔴 Though this book distressed me a little, I loved the ending - Olive certainly deserves that. She is the epitome of strength, courage, and resilience. I was reminded of what my father had taught me when I was a teenager. When you put an egg and a potato into the same boiling water, they would react differently. The egg would be hardened, but the potato would be softened. Whenever you are having hard times, you can choose how to react, like the egg or the potato. Like Olive, most of us react like the egg; but only a few then change to be a potato in the end. Happiness is in store for the latter!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Murder at Sissingham Hall (2013) by Clara Benson

💙 This was my second Clara Benson - I have loved my first; it's a Freddie Pilkington-Soames - and thought that it might be as nice as the other one. I was wrong. 

💙 The story opens when Charles Knox was coming home from eight years living in South Africa. He went there in the first place, right after his engagement had been broken by Rosamund, his beautiful fiancée, who thought Charles was too poor for her to maintain the comfortable life she's used to - with balls, parties, with all the social life of the kind. Now Rosamund has married a wealthy man, Sir Neville Strickland, and lived in the countryside mansion of Sissingham Hall. And surprise, surprise! It was to Sissingham Hall that Charles was invited to stay for the weekend.

💙 Charles dreaded his first meeting with Rosamund, because it was clear to us, readers, that he's still charmed by her. But the party was jolly enough, where there are other guests too: Bobs, Charles' old friend with his sister Sylvia; Angela Marchmont, Rosamund's cousin and our amateur-sleuth-to-be; the Murrays, Sir Neville's closest relatives; Joan, his ward; and last but not least, Simon Gayle, Sir Neville's secretary. That night Sir Neville retired early to his study, and the next day he was found dead; the study door was locked, but not the French window; and it seemed at first as an accident. But Angela Marchmont's thorough observation led the other to suggest that it's actually a murder. As it happened just after Sir Neville's solicitor arrived, apparently to change his will, it was suggestive that money was the motive. But is that so? 

💙 I have some problems with this book. I know that as a cozy mystery, there will be an equal amount of the mystery and personal life of the characters. But in this one, I disliked Clara Benson's choice of the main character - it should have been Angela Marchmont, instead of Charles Knox, who was a total simp. An unreliable narrator shouldn't be in a murder mystery. I have guessed the murderer easily enough very early, and was just wondering how on earth did both the Inspector and Angela Marchmont not see it right away, even after that incident had been disclosed? The 'dramatic' denouement is a bit ridiculous, thanks to Charles Knox. In the end, it's not a start of a series I have expected, and which I would certainly not continue.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

The Persian Pickle Club (1995) by Sandra Dallas

🧵 You might thought that Persian Pickle Club was some sort of a cooking club (I did), but it's not. It is a quilting club of local farmer-wives in a small village of Harveyville, during the Depression-era of Kansas in the 1930s. It's not been raining that year, and the crops were burning up, and jobs were hard to be found. People were hard up, and money were scarce. The Persian Pickle Club was not only a quilting club. They sewed during the gathering, but it's also a place where they exchanged gossips, and supported each other during the hard times. It's a like a beacon during a dark stormy night that gave you comfort and hope; something to look forward to during the dreary days. 🧵 The women would gather once a week in one of the member's house. The host would provide a pattern they're going to quilt that day, and the refreshments. Each member would contribute a piece (or pieces) of fabric that would be sewn in to the quilt. Then they would sew the pieces during the day, and when that's done, they will "frame" it. The "pickle" here is what a quilter calls a paisley fabric. On their first meeting, the members contributed a piece of their paisley fabric, which then made it in the quilt. That's how they named the club the Persian Pickle. And just like the quilt they sewn, their friendship was so tightly bind, that one member's secret would be kept secret forever, even from their husbands. 🧵 Rita was the newest member of the club. She's a town girl, and but for her and her husband's poverty, would not be thinking of living in a farm. Queenie Bean, from whose point of view the story unfolds, quickly became close friend with Rita, who never felt belonged into the club. Through birth and death, fearful incident to tragedy, their relationship grew stronger and stronger, amidst their different background and passion. Rita wanted to be a writer, and during her work as a journalist for a newspaper, bones of a man had been found in the backyard of one of the club member, apparently murdered. The deceased was a scoundrel, and no one shed tears for his death, but the question remained, who'd killed him? And so, when I have thought this was a story about friendship and caring-for-your-neighbor kind of book, a murder mystery was suddenly thrown before me. Not mentioning the fearful incident that has befallen Queenie and Rita one terrible night - who's dunnit?

🧵 Rest easy, though, this would not turn to be a crime novel. The mystery is something that highlighted the solidarity amongst these women. It's clear that whatever happens to one of the club members, she would be protected and taken care of by the others. Her secret would be their own secrets. On the whole, I think this was one of the most satisfying reads I've ever had lately. I loved everything about it, the quilting (you'd feel the soothing effect of the activity although you aren't doing it) and the deep friendship between those women. I loved Queenie's personalities; how she (and her husband Grover) treated the Massies, the squatter or drifter - as people called them. Queenie treated them like a true neighbor, although it's Grover and Queenie who let them stay at the unused shed.

🧵 I loved also how Sandra Dallas had picked quilts to symbolize the beauty of community - you see it, don't you? Different pieces of fabric, with different shapes or colors or designs, sewn together into one beautiful artwork, and how that one artwork represents the love and thoughts, struggles and happiness, of all who's been providing the fabrics and sewing them together? What a lovely, heartwarming story, spiced with a little mystery, and closed with something you wouldn't have seen coming. You know how wholesome it is when a whodunnit story only reveals the murderer's identity on the very last sentence before the end? Well, that's what this book feels too!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Agatha Christie Short Stories 2025: SEPTEMBER Reviews

The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan

Captain Hastings treated Hercule Poirot to spend the weekend at the Grand Metropolitan Hotel in Brighton, where their eyes were feasting with the grand ladies and their sparkling jewelries. One of these ladies is of Hasting's acquaintance, and soon Poirot was introduced to the Opalsen couple. Mrs. Opalsen loves jewels, and offers to show her pearl necklace to Poirot. However, the pearl necklace wasn't in the jewel box where she'd kept it; it had been stolen! The suspects were Mrs. Opalsen's French maid - who had been instructed not to leave the bedroom while the chambermaid's cleaning it - and, of course, the chambermaid. The police searched the two maids, and found not the necklace. But after thorough search of the rooms, they've found it hidden inside the French maid's bed. Mrs. Opalsen cried: "Oh, my necklace!", and Poirot and Hastings left to their bedrooms. Is it over then, just like that? Of course not....

The Grand Metropolitan in London

Poirot continued his investigation; he inspected the room next to the Opalsen's, and asked a few questions to the chambermaid, the butler, even Mr. Opalsen himself. One of these proved later to be the clue to the true robbery, while the other was a red herring. Then, to Hasting's puzzle, Poirot went to London that very night. It was, in the end, a not very sophisticated case. One thing is sure, the police should have learned more about jewelry - but for Hercule Poirot's wide knowledge, it could have been a simple but perfect robbery!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Case of the Missing Lady

The next client of the Blunt International Detective Agency is a famous explorer who has just returned from an expedition to the North Pole. He had been engaged with a widow, Hermione, right before he left two years ago, and now was rushing to marry her. But she's not in her aunt, Lady Susan's, house where she'd been staying, and Lady Susan didn't know, or wouldn't tell him, of his fiancée's whereabouts. Feeling apprehensive that something fishy had been happening, he hired "Mr. Blunt" to investigate and find the missing lady.

Tommy and Tuppence's investigation led them, first to Maldon, from where a telegram from Hermione had been received by Lady Susan, and next to a sinister isolated nursing home in a village. It was there that they finally stumbled to the right trail. But what was really happening to Hermione? And would Tommy and Tuppence succeeded in rescuing her from whatever her predicament was?

This seemingly simple case turned out to be a thoroughly entertaining one to read! The "chase", the thrill, the humorous and witty interchanges of the duo, and especially... the ending. This case ended in much unexpected way that I laughed out loud after finishing it. Such a brilliant job from Agatha Christie, always with her witty and cheeky way!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2
 

Five Quarters of the Orange (2001) by Joanne Harris

🍊 My first introduction to Joanne Harris was Chocolat; I knew I have started that book years ago, but couldn't remember whether I've ever finished it. I think not. Either because it's a borrowed book, and I have to return it before I have finished; or it must've been sold while I was reading (I ran an online second-hand book store back then). Anyway, Five Quarters of the Orange, then, became my first book of Joanne Harris which I did finish. It's a big relieve when I had finished it; it's not a bad one, just that I was not in the right mental state to give it a proper credit. It's a complex story of dark secrets, a childish-folly-turns tragedy, acceptance, revelation, and resilience.

🍊 Framboise Simon was sixty years old widow when she returned to her childhood home in a small village on the banks of the Loire. She owns a creperie, serving delicious food she loves to cook; mostly recreating her late mother's dishes from the recipe scrapbook Framboise inherited from her. Although she was born in the village, the villagers thought Framboise a stranger, because she does not dare to use her own name, Dartigen. Framboise Dartigen was only nine years old when she left the village after a terrible tragedy during the German Occupation in the 1940s. This, then, is an intermingled mixture of Framboise's past and present life; how the past affected her present, and how the present helps her to be free from the haunting past. 

🍊 Framboise's childhood is a troubled one. She lived with her widowed mother Mirabelle Dartigen, brother Cassis, and sister Reine-Claude. Mirabelle was a hard woman, who's often mean and cruel to her own children, although she loved them. Her life seemed to be full of hatred and bitterness, and she poured it to her children, whom in turn, hated her too. She's often a victim of splitting headache, which was usually started with smelling non-existing oranges - a fruit she always hated. The title derived from Framboise's idea to trigger the headache on her mother, so that she and her siblings could be on their own; by secretly slicing a tiny sliver of orange - the fifth of the supposedly quarters - to be placed near her mother's pillow. Once she inhaled it, she'd have another spell, and off the children would go. Go where?

🍊 It's during this German Occupation that a handsome German officer who speaks a perfect French called Tomas Leibniz introduced himself to the children. They instantly took to him, but especially Framboise, who worshipped him. Their friendship grew bigger; but unfortunately, also, their risk. It finally led to the tragedy. But Framboise did not quite understand that at that time, and it was now, while browsing through her mother's recipe book, was written snatches of her mother's thoughts, did Framboise finally (almost) fully understood what had had happened.

🍊 Maybe if I had read this five years ago, I would have appreciated it more. Now, it distressed me a little. I was troubled with how Framboise treated her mother - though I could see why. The only person I could like in this book is Paul. I admired his support and friendship for Framboise, and I liked how it all ended. It was a troubling book, but still worth reading, if nothing else, for its beautiful writing.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐