A Novel of the Plague

Geraldine Brooks has written Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague. Brooks is a journalist and a very good writer.

The topic is endlessly fascinating. The novel is based on an actual village in England when the plague slips in (1666). What's significant about this village is that the people chose to quarantine themselves to keep from infecting neighboring villages. This meant no one would escape exposure, but then, they had the moral high ground. Over about 18 months, two thirds of the population died.

The protag is a young woman of humble means and low expectations for herself. Working closely with the minister's wife who is kind, educated, and encouraging (teaches her to read), Anna evolves into a woman of stamina, self-respect, and expectations.

There is a twist at the end which surprised me, but I won't give that away. I wasn't really pleased about this twist because it messed up my expectations, but it really is a masterful and revealing stroke. Well done!

Highly recommended even if you're not a plague junkie like I am.

The Piano Teacher

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee is a well-written trade paperback set in Hong Kong both during WWII and a decade after that. Some of the characters appear in both eras. I knew nothing about Hong Kong during the war and found the historical aspects of the novel interesting. But. The story of The Piano Teacher is about people who feel passionately. Yet the book is a bloodless read. I don't want to criticize the author for not writing the book the way I wish she had or the way I would have written it. I know that is unfair. Instead I'll talk about this kind of book and my own personal reading preferences. I don't get much punch from reading books where the reader views the whole story from somewhere above the mess of emotions. I want to feel what the characters feel. I want to understand their choices. But the piano teacher is as foreign to me as the Chinese citizens of Hong Kong. I don't like her and I don't find her compelling. I really don't want to write pans of books -- what's the point of that? This novel is, after all, memorable. I'm fully capable of abandoning a book at any point, but I finished this one. It has complexity and mystery (in terms of characters' motives) and that is often enough. It has its strengths and pulls.