Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens

I picked this book up last fall and read the first few chapters. It is a novel set in Ireland in 1846 during a potato famine. It is also about 400 pages and at the time I decided I would have to come back to it. I am glad I did. It is an engrossing read. It is tragic, as you might expect, but beautifully written.

The story follows the main character, Fergus, as he sets off on his own after horrifically losing his family. Here is a sample of Behren’s writing as he describes Fergus’s thoughts when he leaves a newly made friend to die and hitches a ride out of town. “You had to stay alive; every instinct told you. Stay in your life as long as you can. If only to see what would happen. Every breath told you to keep breathing.” (pg 64)

Fergus lives in a workhouse and also with children and a deserter hiding on a bog, he travels to Liverpool, works excavating rock, and eventually makes his way to Canada. Each move is precipitated by tragedy. You can’t help but imagine what it must have been like to have been born in Ireland in those days.

The book is such that you can open to almost any page and find an intriguing piece of writing. Here, on the crossing to Canada, a trader tries to tell Fergus about life, “Life comes running at you, trailing gaudy streamers, and you can’t make them out until it’s too close – are those ribbons, or is that blood?” (pg 303)

The World to Come by Dara Horn

The World to Come has been chosen by the Deschutes County Public Library for its 2008 program, A Novel Idea. There are a number of events planned in conjunction with encouraging the entire county to read this book, including author readings. In the past the library has picked books related to activities in our area such as The River Why by James Duncan and Bowerman and the Men of Oregon by Kenny Moore. Other choices such as The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co. by Maria Amparo Escandon have taken most of us out of our geographical and cultural comfort zone and The World to Come seems to fit more into this later category.

I found this book to be very dense, with some wonderfully descriptive language and vivid images. The story starts with Benjamin Ziskind, a former child prodigy and current quiz show question writer. It goes back in time to when his Jewish ancestors were being persecuted in Russia and a famous artist, Chagall, gave his grandfather a painting. This painting surfaces in a museum near Benjamin’s house and he steals it. This story is often billed as a mystery, but it is really not, unless the mystery is how the painting ended up in the museum.

There are many layers to this story. There is much discussion of death and the world to come. This book has elements of historical fiction in the two artists portrayed, Chagall and Der Nister, are actual people. Chagall, a painter, makes it out of Russia and becomes very successful. Der Nister, a writer, dies in a gulag. Horn fictionalizes his life and a story he has allegedly written survives hidden in paintings. The words of Der Nister’s mentor seem prophetic and harsh. “Your purpose as a writer is to achieve one task, and one task only: to build a paper bridge to the world to come.”

I found it a challenging book. As I mentioned before about The Savage Garden I do not really like historical fiction with real people. However, that is a relatively small portion of the novel and the truly fictional characters are all remarkably well-developed. Benjamin’s twin sister plays an integral role and the stories of their parents, now dead, are very intriguing. The book also ends on a somewhat ambiguous note. It did not seem ambiguous to me, but when our book group discussed it not everyone agreed on what happened at the end. I also found some of the writing very beautiful. It is a worthwhile read and I am looking forward to the library’s events.

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

This is a story published in 2007, but set mostly in Italy in 1958. I started thinking – does that make it historical fiction? I tend to shy away from historical fiction. It seems messy. If a real-life person is written about in a fiction book, how do you know what is true and what is not? To be historical fiction does a book have to include historical events and people or simply be set in the past? Vision: A Resource for Writers has this definition: “…a literary work or category whose content is produced by the imagination and based on or concerned with events in history.” I think, according to that definition, The Savage Garden is historical fiction since it is crucial to the story that it is set in an area that was occupied by Germany during WWII. And, it is important that the story takes place when those events are still well-remembered by the community.

I picked it up because I heard from somewhere that it was a good mystery. I guess that makes it a historical mystery. There are actually two mysteries. Adam Strickland, a young English graduate student, goes to San Casciano in Tuscany to visit and research a garden at the urging of his professor. The garden was built in 1577 by Frederico Docci in memory of his wife. The garden has some unusual characteristics and Adam decides it will be a good topic for his dissertation. Uncovering the significance of the design and various artifacts in the garden is one mystery. It involves understanding many characters in the Greek myths and Italian literature. This book may be especially interesting to someone who has read or studied these ideas and texts. That is not me, but the information added rather than detracted from the story.

The second mystery has to do with the current branch of the Docci family living in the villa at the garden. Signora Docci lost a son during the war and her husband died soon after. It becomes clear that the circumstances under which her son died are somewhat mysterious. Was he really killed by Germans evacuating as the Allied troops approached? Adam becomes interested in figuring out what really happened that night. Mendelian genetics, fascists and communists, bullet trajectories, and rumors of the time all play a role in Adam’s edging closer to the truth. Complicating matters, Adam becomes involved with Signora Docci’s granddaughter, Antonella.

This is mostly an intellectual mystery. There is very little action or threats to the protagonist. The author does a good job of reminding us how young Adam is with his worries about his visiting brother or his parents back home. It is interesting to contemplate if there are 400-year old mysteries such as this garden still around waiting to be solved. That must be what drives archeologists and art historians. I definitely plan to read more by this author as it was an entertaining read and I learned something.