AT BERTRAM'S HOTEL

Agatha Christie. AT BERTRAM'S HOTEL. William Collins, 1965.

A young woman, her estranged mother, Miss JANE Marple, and an absent-minded clergyman are all staying at an old-fashioned Edwardian-style hotel in London in the 1960s. Miss Marple is afraid the young woman is being exploited. Others are concerned that the clergyman is missing. The police become suspicious. They notice anomalies in licence plate numbers, cars parked nearby, unconfirmed sightings of famous people around a series of armed robberies. They investigate the ownership of the hotel, the background of staff, the proximity of suspicious characters. Miss Marple is the eyes and ears; she shares what she has seen and heard when asked. Then, someone is murdered.

MERTON: A BIOGRAPHY

Monica Furlong. MERTON: A BIOGRAPHY. Harper & Row, 1980.

A very interesting story of one man's life, someone who died before I was aware of him, in 1968. A writer who chose to live as a monk in 1940/50s America. Who, after Nuremberg, began to question choosing to live by the law of obedience. Who became famous for his spiritual writings and his literary work and then as a voice for peace during the Vietnam War. Who was seemingly kept imprisoned in Gethsemani by his abbot. When he was finally allowed to travel, visited the Dali Lama, the Buddhist statues in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), spoke on the links between Marxism and monasticism, and died within minutes of leaving the stage, from an accident possibly involving an electric fan. 

The biographer relies almost exclusively on Merton's own writings, published and unpublished, and on interviews with people who knew him. She concludes that his death was not a suicide. There is no mention of the subsequent "conspiracy theory" which suggests that, as an anti-war writer, he may have been targeted by his own country.

I am glad to learn of this one man's struggles. I am now excused from feeling I should read his writing. Not interested in theology, Catholicism, or abstractions. 

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Peter Robinson. PLAYING WITH FIRE. Pan, Macmillan, 2004.

Another thrift store find which will be donated to the SOAP free library. Banks, Annie and WInsome are investigating two fires, arson used to cover murder. Banks and Annie's former relationship interferes with their working together. Art forgery seems to underlie the murders, with a side order of the link between sexual abuse and drug addiction. I still love Peter Robinson and am sad that there will be no more. 

WAR DANCES

Sherman Alexie. WAR DANCES. Grove, 2009.

Found this copy of Alexie's award-winning WAR DANCES at a thrift store. One of my most enjoyable and rewarding reads in years. A mixture of poems, prose poems, and longer short stories. "Fearful Symmetry" caught my eye as it has been a month of William Blake references. It starts out as a writer, attempting a screenplay of a CNF book by the same title about the first time white people used an "escape" fire or backfire to fight a wildfire in Washington State and morphs into a story about writer's block, crossword puzzle obsessives (crazies), and learning to recognize and read the metaphors we live within, the escape fires we set for ourselves.

BLASPHEMY has been waiting on my shelf for six or seven years. It comes down now. I have read and enjoyed, years ago, his THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FIST FIGHT IN HEAVEN (2010) and YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME. Ooops. Found two waiting beside these. THE TOUGHEST INDIAN IN THE WORLD. & RESERVATION BLUES. 

SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL

Romeo Dallaire. SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL: The FAILURE of HUMANITY in RWANDA. Vintage, 2004.

I have long been an admirer of Lieutenant-General Dallaire but I've hesitated to read his memoir because I was just too afraid of the darkness of the story. When a copy appeared on a favourite thrift store shelf shortly after I'd been thinking that I should read it in prep for writing about TRC, I took it as a sign. 

My admiration has not diminished. However, I have to confess that, once the killing starts, near the middle of its 560 pages, I did not read every word. I tried to train myself to speed read. First and last lines of each paragraph. Concluding paragraphs. The most useful is the final chapter, "Conclusion". I shall be citing more than one of his comments.