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Last week, I found myself calling a series of books compelling.
Compelling:
http://dictionary.reference.com/...
2. having a powerful and irresistible effect; requiring acute admiration, attention, or respect: a man of compelling integrity; a compelling drama.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/...
that compels: as
a : forceful
b : demanding
c: convincing
I feel that I am learning history as I read the books, but even more than just intellectually gazing at history, I feel as if I am participating in it. The descriptions are so complete that I am put into the scene with the characters.
The series is by Barbara Hambly and the books are set in New Orleans in the 1830’s.
The main character and detective is Benjamin January who has returned to the city because his beloved wife died in Paris from the cholera and he couldn’t bear to live there any more.
Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The series beginning with A Free Man of Color follows Benjamin January, a brilliant, classically educated free colored surgeon and musician living in New Orleans during the belle epoque of the 1830s, when New Orleans had a large and prosperous free colored demimonde. January was born a slave but freed as a young child and provided with an excellent education; he is fluent in several classical and modern languages and thoroughly versed in the whole of classical Western learning and arts. Although trained in Paris as a surgeon, he has returned to Louisiana to escape the memory of his dead Parisian wife. As he is a very dark-skinned black man, in Louisiana he cannot find work as a surgeon. Instead, he earns a modest living by his exceptional talent and skill as a musician.
Each title is an entertaining murder mystery with a complex plot and well-developed characters, and each explores many aspects of French Creole society. However, most tend to emphasize some particular element of antebellum Louisiana life, such as Voodoo religion (Graveyard Dust), opera and music (Die Upon a Kiss), the annual epidemics of yellow fever and malaria (Fever Season), fear of miscegenation (Dead and Buried), or the harsh nature of commercial sugar production (Sold Down the River).
Important themes running throughout the series are 1) the cultural clash between the rising Protestant English-speaking Anglo-Americans on the one hand and the declining Catholic, French-speaking Creoles on the other, 2) the extreme regard of Creole society for "how" colored a person is (quite alien to modern readers), 3) January's bitterness at the many forms of racial injustice he observes, 4) the complex, partially race-based sexual politics of colonial French society, and 5) January's ongoing attempts to balance the primal, open, and frank African outlook acquired in his early childhood with the more restrained and rational European worldview he now holds. This last theme occurs most often with respect to music, spirituality, and respect for law and social custom.
A Free Man of Color (1997)
Fever Season (1998)
Graveyard Dust (1999)
Sold Down the River (2000)
Die upon a Kiss (2001)
Wet Grave (2002)
Days of the Dead (2003)
Dead Water (2004)
Libre (2006, short story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November 2006, Salute to New Orleans issue. Available on Hambly's website.)
There Shall Your Heart Be Also (2007, short story in New Orleans Noir, ed. Julie Smith. Available on Hambly's website.)
Dead and Buried (2010)
A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven (2010, short story starring Rose and Dominque and taking place while Ben is away in The Shirt On His Back. Available on Hambly's website.)
The Shirt On His Back (2011)
Ran Away (Upcoming)
A short passage of Sold Down the River explains why I feel drawn in and compelled to read on. Maybe because I was driven past some tall stands of cane in St. Kitts many years ago, saw men cutting the cane, saw a train hauling it, and visited an old mill, I am more receptive.
Pgs. 86, 87
When it got too dark to work safely, torches were lit and the men set to helping the women load the rest of the cane, and haul it to the mill. Carrying the piled cane up the short flight of steps to the grinders, January was able to see the setup of the mill. The grinders were set on a raised floor above a roundhouse, where the mules hauled on the sweeps that turned the machinery, the three huge tooted iron cylinders chewed the cane, the glinting new metal of one a vicious reminder of the dead man whose soul had been sung across to the other side last night.
The green sap dripped and ran into the iron reservoir beneath, to be tipped from there into the first of the battery of cauldrons. La grande, it was called, and as each successive kettle was boiled down it was purified with alum and ash and emptied into the next: le flambeau, la lessive, le sirop, la batterie, every one smaller than the last, a seething inferno of heat and stink and boiling juice.
Moths and roaches roared around the torches set into the walls, and the smoke pouring from the furnace beneath the cauldrons burned January’s eyes, and above everything Simon Fourchet presided, a black-coated Satan bellowing at the men who hauled wood, who stirred the kettles, who dipped out the rising scum of impurities or climbed up and down those steps endlessly to feed the chopped billets of cane into the rollers.
Hell, thought January, stumbling on blistered feet, aching, his mind curiously clear. What window had the ancients looked through, to see that Hell would actually be a Louisiana sugar-mill on a November night?
Another series of books that I have been reading have also been compelling. The Louise Penny series began with Still Life and I wasn’t very impressed, but good friends had insisted the series was wonderful so I tried a second book, A Fatal Grace. That story was indeed better so I tried a third, The Cruelest Month. It was then that I was compelled to buy the rest of the series to have on hand.
These books go beyond being simple mysteries. They explore much more than just who died and who did it. There are layers within layers and people are not saints. Ruth, the old lady who scorns people, is a poet of great power. Clara and Peter are wife and husband painters. Peter has always sold well, but suddenly Clara attracts attention from important people and Peter does not respond well. Inspector Gamache chooses people for his team who seem undesirable to others.
So, I read on in the series, A Rule Against Murder and A Brutal Telling. Each book is more powerful and each one draws me into the lives of the characters deeper and deeper. Then I arrive at Bury Your Dead. Bit by bit I hear the words of a young detective as he and Inspector Gamache talk to each other. I am compelled to listen, to understand what has happened.
Pgs. 130,131
“…These days I imagine my wedding next June. I see the decorations and picture all my friends and family there. Some of the people I work with.” He hesitated. “Would you come?”
“If I am asked, I’d definitely be there.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“Wait ‘til I tell Suzanne. When I sit in the church mostly I see her coming down the aisle to me. Like a miracle.”
“Now there is no more loneliness.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s a blessing Madame Gamache and I had at our wedding. It was read at the end of the ceremony. Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other,” Gamache quoted.
Now you will feel no cold
For each of you will be warmth for the other
Now there is no more loneliness for you
Now there is no more loneliness
Now there is no more loneliness.
….Go now to your dwelling place
To enter into the days of your togetherness.
And may your days be good and long upon the earth.”
There was a pause. But not too long. Gamache was about to speak when Agent Morin broke the silence.
“That’s how I feel, that I am not really alone. Not since I met Suzanne. You know?”
“I do.”
I am compelled to read the story to the bitter end. Along the way, I learn compassion, strength, forgiveness of self. It is a great gift given by the author. The last book for now is A Trick of the Light. I feel that these books must be read in order as they were written.
Last week in the comments about unusual books, people shared books that were compelling. I ordered some about Viet Nam, The Cat From Hue: a Vietnam War Story by John Laurence, Highways to a War by Christopher J. Koch, and A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo.
I also ordered Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian because the series has been brought to my attention over and over by people who praised it as being compelling. It is time I finally read it.
Many thanks to everyone who recommends books. Thank you for sharing the titles and authors.
What books do you find the most compelling?
Diaries of the week:
Write On! Deus ex we all do it.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music Series: Beethoven's Fourth Symphony
by lone1c
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Kos Katalogue -- Shop with the 99% right here!
by Sara R
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I am very sorry to hear this! I loved her books.
Anne McCaffrey 1926-2011
by xaxnar
http://www.dailykos.com/...
UPDATE: Limelite has a diary about a very compelling book:
R&BLers: 2011 MBFI -- "The Warmth of Other Suns"
by Limelite
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early.