Thursday, November 03, 2005
Cheat and Charmer by Elizabeth Frank
Cheat and Charmer by Elizabeth Frank looked like it would be a good book, but I just felt cheated.
Cheat and Charmer is the story of two sisters one beautiful and famous (Veevie), the other plain and somewhat talented (Dinah) can you say cliché? The sisters grew up in LA and both ended up in show biz and the Communist Party. It takes place in Hollywood during the Red Scare and the McCarthy witch hunts of the early 1950’s. Cheat and Charmer tends to hit you over the head on the topic of principles without ever really getting to the meat of the issue. It poses many surface questions about the principles of those in the Party both during their early years and later when many left the Party behind and then those who chose to testify and those who did not. I kept waiting for something interesting and political to happen and instead all it really is, is a “book of betrayal” (to quote my friend Jessica). The characters neither know how to be honest, what it takes to have meaningful relationships, nor how to create the lives they want as sisters, wives, husbands, mothers, friends, they are all immature and morally bankrupt people. The only redeeming characters are the housekeeper and the mother-in-law (Dorska)
Large portions of the history of Dinah and her sister Veevie are told through flash backs which are supposed to show the circumstances through which the women became involved with the communist party in Hollywood. The sad thing is that it becomes clear that the women were only ever viewed as party favors by the men in the novel, never a contributing partner in anything. I agree with my friend Jessica’s assessment that the author relied on stereotypes to build the characters rather than ever getting into who they really could have been in that environment. The women come out looking like sexual pawns to the men, and maybe they were, but I imagine there was more a more interesting character angels that she could have pursued.
I was really hoping to learn something more about the history and politics of time as well as what it meant to have to choose between testifying and “naming names” or keeping silent and therefore going to jail and loosing the life to which they were accustomed. Instead it really has flat characters and became a meditation of personal betrayal and loosing the illusion of the life the characters thought they had.
Cheat and Charmer is the story of two sisters one beautiful and famous (Veevie), the other plain and somewhat talented (Dinah) can you say cliché? The sisters grew up in LA and both ended up in show biz and the Communist Party. It takes place in Hollywood during the Red Scare and the McCarthy witch hunts of the early 1950’s. Cheat and Charmer tends to hit you over the head on the topic of principles without ever really getting to the meat of the issue. It poses many surface questions about the principles of those in the Party both during their early years and later when many left the Party behind and then those who chose to testify and those who did not. I kept waiting for something interesting and political to happen and instead all it really is, is a “book of betrayal” (to quote my friend Jessica). The characters neither know how to be honest, what it takes to have meaningful relationships, nor how to create the lives they want as sisters, wives, husbands, mothers, friends, they are all immature and morally bankrupt people. The only redeeming characters are the housekeeper and the mother-in-law (Dorska)
Large portions of the history of Dinah and her sister Veevie are told through flash backs which are supposed to show the circumstances through which the women became involved with the communist party in Hollywood. The sad thing is that it becomes clear that the women were only ever viewed as party favors by the men in the novel, never a contributing partner in anything. I agree with my friend Jessica’s assessment that the author relied on stereotypes to build the characters rather than ever getting into who they really could have been in that environment. The women come out looking like sexual pawns to the men, and maybe they were, but I imagine there was more a more interesting character angels that she could have pursued.
I was really hoping to learn something more about the history and politics of time as well as what it meant to have to choose between testifying and “naming names” or keeping silent and therefore going to jail and loosing the life to which they were accustomed. Instead it really has flat characters and became a meditation of personal betrayal and loosing the illusion of the life the characters thought they had.
Two weeks in a foreign country
What book(s) do you take with you when you are going on a two week trip out of the country and English language books will be difficult to find? I like to choose a very thick paperback. I mean thick in two ways: 1) lots of pages 2) something that takes a little work to read so it goes slowly. Now another criteria is that I won’t be sad if I have to leave my copy of it behind somewhere because I am sick of carrying it around, which is precisely what I did about 3 days before I came home.
So, you are asking, what book did I take with me? I took The System of the World by Neal Stephenson. Yes, I know I panned The Confusion just a few posts ago, but I have to admit, I got hooked. Yes, I got hooked, also it filled the above mentioned criteria for a book to take on a two week trip. I read the first in the series a year ago when I was on a two week biz trip in Europe, I waited a year to read the second and I forgot lots of details which made reading the second a bit difficult, so I thought if I am ever going to read the third, I had better do it quickly on the heals of the second, so it went with me on a two week trip to Italy.
I actually enjoyed this one more than the second. It has a single story line taking place in a few years and instead of the double weave story line over 30 years. It was a more cohesive story line than first two books. The history of currency was fascinating. There was the odd bit of swashbuckling, but for the most part, it was a more straightforward narrative. The funny part is I am not a huge fan of the straightforward narrative. I love magical realism, but I really enjoyed the amount of research that the author put into the historical details. I love that I learned about the time period and came out the other end a little more knowledgeable. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe everything he wrote as truth, it is not, he took liberties, but he did do some solid research so that the time period comes alive. One of the main characters is irritating, because he is too modern and American sounding, and the dialogue flips between carefully written/appropriate for the time and some very ridiculous modern sounding clichés and phrases.
I would love to know how many people have actually made it all the way through the three of them. All together the series is close to 3000 pages and it is not fluffy stuff: the history of physics, currency based on trade rather than land, the roots of computing, and alchemy. To be fair, there is a bunch of info about slaves, pirates and worldwide geography and customs. Overall, not a bad read, but you have to go through the first two so that the third makes any sense at all.
I also took a book about the spice trade – Spice, the history of a temptation - but I barely cracked the cover. I will keep you updated if I manage to read it.
So, you are asking, what book did I take with me? I took The System of the World by Neal Stephenson. Yes, I know I panned The Confusion just a few posts ago, but I have to admit, I got hooked. Yes, I got hooked, also it filled the above mentioned criteria for a book to take on a two week trip. I read the first in the series a year ago when I was on a two week biz trip in Europe, I waited a year to read the second and I forgot lots of details which made reading the second a bit difficult, so I thought if I am ever going to read the third, I had better do it quickly on the heals of the second, so it went with me on a two week trip to Italy.
I actually enjoyed this one more than the second. It has a single story line taking place in a few years and instead of the double weave story line over 30 years. It was a more cohesive story line than first two books. The history of currency was fascinating. There was the odd bit of swashbuckling, but for the most part, it was a more straightforward narrative. The funny part is I am not a huge fan of the straightforward narrative. I love magical realism, but I really enjoyed the amount of research that the author put into the historical details. I love that I learned about the time period and came out the other end a little more knowledgeable. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe everything he wrote as truth, it is not, he took liberties, but he did do some solid research so that the time period comes alive. One of the main characters is irritating, because he is too modern and American sounding, and the dialogue flips between carefully written/appropriate for the time and some very ridiculous modern sounding clichés and phrases.
I would love to know how many people have actually made it all the way through the three of them. All together the series is close to 3000 pages and it is not fluffy stuff: the history of physics, currency based on trade rather than land, the roots of computing, and alchemy. To be fair, there is a bunch of info about slaves, pirates and worldwide geography and customs. Overall, not a bad read, but you have to go through the first two so that the third makes any sense at all.
I also took a book about the spice trade – Spice, the history of a temptation - but I barely cracked the cover. I will keep you updated if I manage to read it.
