Vish Puri Series

Hello, all! This time, I'll share my opinion about the books in Vish Puri series - namely the first and second books, The Case of Missing Servant and The Case of A Man Who Died Laughing. I decide to review them in one post. I found the existence of these books in Goodreads and decided to give them a shot.

I like this book because it describes the backgrounds and the characters in detail. They gave me good laughs, too. I also love the characterization of Vish Puri. Usually, these warm-hearted detective novels have detectives with, let's say, very minimal power of investigation. Vish Puri, however, is different. Vishwas Puri, affectionately called "Chubby", is a Delhi-based PI in India. He is quite famous, being the only PI that have appeared on a magazine cover. He is a very traditional man who resents the Westernization of India values. I like him immediately. It's quite difficult to find a PI with brain and good personal life - intact marriage, no dark past trauma, etc. Usually either the PI is very brilliant but leads a dark personal life full of past baggage or he has peaceful life but well... minimal power of detection.


The author made me laugh a lot with Indian swearwords - one stuck immediately. It is maaderchod, which definition can be found in the glossary in the end of the book - or with the aid of faithful Google. More laughter caused by the Indian-English dialogues ("She is reverting tomorrow, na?"). No offense, but... They are funny!

These books gave glimpses about life in India. Wow. I think Indonesia is bad enough - sometimes water doesn't flow and sometimes there are blackouts... but India, especially the region where the Puris live in these books is worse. Power outage can be expected daily, and water is precious - although they live in town. The environmental pollution is similar too - Yamuna is no longer a pristine river in Mahabharata and Ramayana epics but a sewer. Even the moral corruption is the same - small bribes to government authorities to grease the wheels of bureaucracy, corrupt babus (the meaning is different from its Indonesian counterpart - the word babu in India means a clerk or bureaucrat), corrupt government members... The people who are relying too much to superstitious stuff and fake holy people... These books paint India in such way that makes me view India as a Hindu version of Indonesia. 

All in all, these books are must-reads, especially for you who enjoy Alexander McCall Smith's works and Nury Vittachi's. 

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Wow. I really like this book. It is a very refreshing read.

Meet Moist von Lipwig (pronounced Lipvig, thank you) a.k.a. Albert Spangler, incorrigible con man with a face so unforgettable that his mother once brought home a wrong kid from school. And he would hang tomorrow... But an angel came, an angel who would come only once for every man.
Thus, Mr. Spangler was hanged. He was dead. But immediately he got a new life as Moist von Lipwig and even got a job as a Postmaster. A unenviable job, because four Postmasters before him had been dead in unexplained circumstances... And not only that. By accepting that job, he found himself became a rival of clacks company, Grand Trunk, which was headed by a dangerous man.

This book is fast-paced. I find Moist to be a charming character. He thinks fast, and talks even faster. His falling in love with Adora Belle Dearheart, a girl who could see who he was through-and-through is funny and sweet. Ms. Dearheart's name is bound to give a wrong impression - bear in mind that she was nicknamed 'Killer' and 'Spike'. Affectionately, of course.
The concept of clacks is interesting. Clacks is equivalent to the Roundworld telegraph, but I feel that Sir Terry describe it as the more modern invention - the Internet. The description of its operators remind me to Google and Apple and Microsoft employees, you know, that type of people. 
The application of clacks and stamps can be seen as successful attempt to modernise Ankh-Morpork. It pleases me when an author continues to improve the city he creates. Because of it, Ankh-Morpork feels real. An ever-changing, dynamic city.

I've also watched a part of the movie adaptation, and I must say...
...that it disappoints me. I wholly disagree with its description of Moist. The movie Moist is too easily angered and too moral. I cannot imagine the Moist von Lipwig in the book haunted by his past doings, of people he has conned. Adora Belle's portrayal is fine - Claire Foy is suitable for portraying Adora. The other thing that disappoints me is a standard issue in movie adaptation - the omitting of the book parts. Because of these reasons, I cannot finish the movie - I cannot stand seeing Moist being made like that. 

Ten stars for the book.
Six for the movie.

The Summer of the Ubume

I first knew this book's existence by browsing my 'Recommendations' in Goodreads. Here is the short summary from amazon.com:

In Japanese folklore, a ghost that arise from the burial of a pregnant woman is an Ubume. 
The Summer of Ubume is the first of Japan's hugely popular Kyogokudo series, which has 9 titles and 4 spinoffs thus far. 
Akihiko "Kyogokudo" Chuzenji, the title's hero, is an exorcist with a twist: he doesn't believe in ghosts. To circumnavigate his clients' inability to come to grips with a problem being their own, he creates fake supernatural explanations--ghosts--that he the "exorcises" by way of staged rituals. His patients' belief that he has vanquished the ghost creating their problems cures them.
In this first adventure, Kyogokudo, must unravel the mystery of a woman who has been pregnant for 20 months and find her husband, who disappeared two months into the pregnancy. And unravel he does, in the book's final disturbing scene.

Whoa. Let me list the things that hooked me immediately. 20 months pregnancy? Check. An exorcist who doesn't believe in ghost? Check. What kind of exorcist has no belief of the existence of the very thing he meant to exorcise? A seemingly supernatural case with logical explanation? Check. A ghost that I hear for the first time? Check.

And this is what I felt after finishing it.

This book is completely scary. It covers both fields of fear - the irrational (ghosts) and the rational (all the psychological twists and dramas). 
The book starts with lines that commonly found in mystery books - lines that spoken by someone we don't know. Sometimes we dismiss it, but later in the story those lines are found to be important. Such lines.
The story starts innocently enough. A poor journalist, Sekiguchi, visited his friend, Chuzenji 'Kyogokudo' Akihiko who was an owner of a used-books store in order to share a controversial story.
However, it was soon revealed that one of the person involved in the story was none other than their high school friend, Makio. After knowing that fact, Sekiguchi decided to further investigate the story. In doing it, he asked for help from his friend who was a private investigator, Enokizu and Kyogokudo's sister, Atsuko. By a strange twist of fate, Enokizu got a new client who was another key player in the weird story, Kuonji Kyoko, the sister-in-law of Makio.
And this is where the book begins to ride the crazy train.
The narrator - Sekiguchi - became more and more unstable along the story. I really want to shake him real hard or give him a good slap. CAN'T YOU BE A LITTLE BIT SANE, PLEASE. And grow some backbone. Buck up, man! At some point, I wonder which ones are crazy/ unusual. Is it Kyogokudo and Enokizu? Or is it Sekiguchi? I think it's the latter.
There was a long lecture about the nature of memory, brain, consciousness, subconscious, ubume, and quantum theory which I found to be a little bit tedious but interesting enough. Because I've watched Moryo no Hako before, those seemingly-out-of-topic lectures didn't bother me too much. I skimmed through some parts of them though - sorry, author. They were appropriate additions to the book.
The solution was a bit unbelievable. I can't imagine how a pair of eyes can thoroughly fooled their owner by unseeing something that was clearly there. I can understand if it just happened to one person. But three? And one of them didn't have any ties with the other two? Erm. I'm having a hard time to imagine, let alone believe, that such thing can happen.
This is a very noir book. It leaves a taste that needs to be cleaned fast, without delay. I don't recommend you to read another heavy or dark book after reading The Summer of the Ubume.
Nine stars. Deducting one for the solution.

Books I Will Buy

Hello, I'm back again! I'll try to write more regularly. 

This is a list of books I'll DEFINITELY buy. Check it out! 

1. Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia de Luce #5) - Alan Bradley
   Eleven-year-old amateur detective and ardent chemist Flavia de Luce is used to digging up clues, whether they’re found among the potions in her laboratory or between the pages of her insufferable sisters’ diaries. What she is not accustomed to is digging up bodies. Upon the five-hundredth anniversary of St. Tancred’s death, the English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey is busily preparing to open its patron saint’s tomb. Nobody is more excited to peek inside the crypt than Flavia, yet what she finds will halt the proceedings dead in their tracks: the body of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist, his face grotesquely and inexplicably masked. Who held a vendetta against Mr. Collicutt, and why would they hide him in such a sacred resting place? The irrepressible Flavia decides to find out. And what she unearths will prove there’s never such thing as an open-and-shut case.
2. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Flavia de Luce #6) - Alan Bradley
   On a spring morning in 1951, eleven-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother, Harriet. Yet upon the train’s arrival in the English village of Bishop’s Lacey, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear. Moments later, he is dead, mysteriously pushed under the train by someone in the crowd. Who was this man, what did his words mean, and why were they intended for Flavia? Back home at Buckshaw, the de Luces’ crumbling estate, Flavia puts her sleuthing skills to the test. Following a trail of clues sparked by the discovery of a reel of film stashed away in the attic, she unravels the deepest secrets of the de Luce clan, involving none other than Winston Churchill himself. Surrounded by family, friends, and a famous pathologist from the Home Office—and making spectacular use of Harriet’s beloved Gipsy Moth plane, Blithe Spirit—Flavia will do anything, even take to the skies, to land a killer.
   
   WHAT!!!??? The return of Harriet? MUST. HAVE. The suspense is killing me already!
3. Thankless in Death (in Death #37) - J.D. Robb
   In the latest suspense thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, the year 2060 is drawing to a close in New York City and loved ones are coming together for Thanksgiving. But sometimes the deepest hatreds seethe within the closest relationships, and blood flows faster than water…
    
   Lieutenant Eve Dallas has plenty to be grateful for this season. Hosting Roarke’s big Irish family for the holiday may be challenging, but it’s a joyful improvement on her own dark childhood.
    
   Other couples aren’t as lucky as Eve and Roarke. The Reinholds, for example, are lying in their home stabbed and bludgeoned almost beyond recognition. Those who knew them are stunned—and heartbroken by the evidence that they were murdered by their own son. Twenty-six-year-old Jerry hadn’t made a great impression on the bosses who fired him or the girlfriend who dumped him—but they didn’t think he was capable of this.
    
   Turns out Jerry is not only capable of brutality but taking a liking to it. With the money he’s stolen from his parents and a long list of grievances, he intends to finally make his mark on the world. Eve and her team already know the who, how, and why of this murder. What they need to pinpoint is where Jerry’s going to strike next.
   
   I've read the excerpt in Calculated in Death and it makes me extremely curious. How can you keep your readers interested when you've revealed the murderer, the method, the motive, and the next victim, all in one excerpt? You make me extremely curious, J.D. Robb.
4. Concealed in Death (in Death #38) - J.D. Robb
   The incomparable J. D. Robb presents the latest moving and suspenseful novel in the #1 New York Times–bestselling Eve Dallas series.
    
   In a decrepit, long-empty New York building, Lieutenant Eve Dallas’s husband begins the demolition process by swinging a sledgehammer into a wall. When the dust clears, there are two skeletons wrapped in plastic behind it. He summons his wife immediately—and by the time she’s done with the crime scene, there are twelve murders to be solved.
   
   The place once housed a makeshift shelter for troubled teenagers, back in the mid-2040s, and Eve tracks down the people who ran it. Between their recollections and the work of the force’s new forensic anthropologist, Eve begins to put names and faces to the remains. They are all young girls. A tattooed tough girl who dealt in illegal drugs. The runaway daughter of a pair of well-to-do doctors. They all had their stories. And they all lost their chance for a better life.
   
   Then Eve discovers a connection between the victims and someone she knows. And she grows even more determined to reveal the secrets of the place that was called The Sanctuary—and the evil concealed in one human heart.
   
   Hey, it's J.D. Robb - I don't have any other reason for wanting this book!
5. Snuff (Discworld novel - Sam Vimes) - by Terry PratchettAt long last, Lady Sybil has lured her husband, Sam Vimes, on a well-deserved holiday away from the crime and grime of Ankh-Morpork. But for the commander of the City Watch, a vacation in the country is anything but relaxing. The balls, the teas, the muck—not to mention all that fresh air and birdsong—are more than a bit taxing on a cynical city-born and -bred copper.Yet a policeman will find a crime anywhere if he decides to look hard enough, and it's not long before a body is discovered, and Sam—out of his jurisdiction, out of his element, and out of bacon sandwiches (thanks to his well-meaning wife)—must rely on his instincts, guile, and street smarts to see justice done. As he sets off on the chase, though, he must remember to watch where he steps. . . . This is the countryside, after all, and the streets most definitely are not paved with gold.
   
   It's a Vimes novel, I really want to have it.
6. Raising Steam (Discworld #40 - Moist von Lipwig) - Terry Pratchett
   To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork - a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it's soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrive armed with notepads and very sensible rainwear.
   
   Moist von Lipwig is not a man who enjoys hard work - as master of the Post Office, the Mint and the Royal Bank his input is, of course, vital... but largely dependent on words, which are fortunately not very heavy and don't always need greasing. However, he does enjoy being alive, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse...
   
   Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man wi' t'flat cap and sliding rule who has an interesting arrangement with the sine and cosine. Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs and some very angry dwarfs if he's going to stop it all going off the rails...
   
   Good God. Finally, another meeting with our favorite Patrician Lord Vetinari, the incorrigible racketeer Moist von Lipwig, and of course our dearest most adorable character, Adora Belle Dearheart. Looking forward for it!
   

Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

Finally I met another book that makes me hooked.
It's been a long time since I read a book almost non-stop. It's even been longer since I found a book that makes me wants to re-read it immediately after I finished it.
I found this gem hidden among old tattered books at the book sale at Gramedia. I was curious because one of my group reading choices is another book by the same author titled Bad Monkey. I haven't read Bad Monkey at the time I purchased Skinny Dip - I just started it now because I like Skinny Dip so much. I had some reservations before purchased it (never read any works by this author, can spend the money on other things), but all those reservations gone BAM after I read this sentence:

I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves.

Those words are enough. I was owned immediately and brought this book to the cashier and paid it without hesitation.

And boy, it's worth every rupiahs I spent. Absolutely no regret. My thanks to the original owner who was willing to depart with this precious book so someone else can enjoy this refreshing reading.

The book is fast-paced and exciting. The author manages to tell us, his readers, about big bad environmental problem without using too much technical lingo. Neither does he make us yawn. Bravo. He successfully keep the issue from being lost along the storytelling, because the issue itself is an important part of the story. So it keeps echoing from the first time it was mentioned until the ending.

The characters feel original for me. I rarely sympathize with female character who is rich, smart, beautiful, getting true love, and likes to shopping branded things, but this is one of the rare moment. I don't know why, but I find Joey Perrone is extremely likable. All the protagonists are likable.

The antagonists themselves have some qualities that make them less fearsome and disgusting. They are admittedly not likable. But they are laughable. Especially Chaz Perrone. Gosh. This is the first time I see a man as shallow as he is and a biologist that hates nature as he does. A biologist that litters, runs over snakes with his expensive Hummer, and hates nature? LOL. He is everything that every biologists (or soon-to-be) I know are not.

I highly recommend this book for anyone feeling that he/she can use a good laugh and biologists (or biologists-to-be) so they can be more dedicated to their work, using Chaz Perrone as reflection of WHO YOU SHOULD NOT BECOME.

Perfect ten stars.

The Severing Crime Edge

The Severing Crime Edge

aka Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge, this is a supernatural thriller anime.

I like the concept of the echoes of old murders still left behind. But there are lots of aspects that I don’t like, and those almost outweigh the good aspect I consider to stop watching this anime. But my curiosity gets the better of me and keep me engaged :P

The first why: why, oh why do you make the male protagonist a pervert with hair fetish? HAIR FETISH. Eeeeuw. And why do you make the scene of their encounter so damned... creepy ? If I were an isolated young girl who has no friend, knows that there are people who want to murder her, then I would scream, scream, scream until I exhaust my voice when there was a young male who peeks through my solarium window wielding a hair scissors! I DEFINITELY wouldn’t treat him! I’d call the police instead.

And the next episode is chock full of fan service (read soft porn, soft porn) and sexual undertones. Bouncing breasts (really, bouncing like a rubber ball), a sister that is (if I am not mistaken with that kind of facial of expression) aroused... with her... SISTER... injects her and licks her.  And paedophilia. And rape intentions. And naked girl body directly contacts with the protagonist. Girl, not woman, which actually makes this scene creepier and more horrible...  especially after he says in later episode that he likes her body... because that means the male protagonist is attracted with a girl whose physical appearance resemble an elementary school student, and it would mean that his abnormality is not only hair fetish but also paedophilia. And a lot of licks, licks, licks with saliva flying, flying, flying. Yuck. 

Saliva, saliva everywhere

The scene where the grandfather of male protagonist reveals their family origin is pretty bland. I mean, if my grandfather reveals that our distant ancestor is a serial murderer with body count over 200, I will be shocked and the revealing will be done in a serious situation. Not with shouting with me sitting behind the door and my grandpa on the other side.

OH GOD. Why must they ruin a perfectly good concept with scenes like them? WHY WHY WHY. 

Curse you with your dirty minds!

And why must you make fictional murderers? There are perfectly creepy-as-hell and famous real serial murderers. Jack the Ripper, for example. And the Queen Zewulfa can be perfectly substituted with our famous lady Erzsebet Bathory.

Nnnnngggggghhhhhh but the myth is pretty good (begrudgingly admitted, begrudgingly).  

Despite all those things, I still want to watch this anime. Sigh. 

Happiness Sharing :3

Saya cuma ingin mencurahkan isi hati dengan menulis ini. Saat saya menulis ini, saya tahu seharusnya waktu yang saya gunakan untuk membuat narasi singkat ini dapat saya gunakan untuk membuat laporan atau belajar untuk UTS minggu depan.

Tapi sekarang saya sedang merasa bahagia. Sangat bahagia dan bangga.

Semua ini berawal dari beberapa hari yang lalu, entah berapa hari, sudah lupa tepatnya. Saya, seperti biasa, membuat laporan yang menggunung terus-terusan. Lalu saya menyadari suatu tren di internet hari itu. Entah mengapa, berita soal paus sedang tren... Mengapa? pikir saya. Apakah mendadak orang-orang menjadi sangat religius?

Ternyata tidak. Ternyata ‘tren paus’ itu terjadi karena Benediktus XVI mengumumkan bahwa beliau memutuskan untuk... mundur.

Sebagai salah satu umat Katolik, saya merasa shock. Lalu marah. Saya merasa ditinggalkan... Mengapa justru sekarang, di masa ketika Gereja mempersiapkan diri untuk berpaskah beliau justru mundur? Bagaimana nanti jika saat Paskah tiba paus baru belum terpilih? Akankah kami berpaskah tanpa paus? Sudah tidak beruskup, tidak berpaus...

Tetapi setelah membaca berita, saya sadar. Beliau justru sudah bersikap gentleman dan membuktikan bahwa dirinya tidak haus kekuasaan. Beliau sadar bahwa dirinya tidak cukup mampu untuk membereskan masalah Gereja yang memang sudah menggurita dan mengakar. Dan semua perasaan negatif itu, malahan menjadi rasa hormat... Apalagi beliau membuktikan, setelah mundur dan menjadi Paus Emeritus, beliau tidak merecoki paus yang baru, tapi ini cerita berikutnya.

Begitulah. Di saat teman-teman memusingkan tugas kuliah sampai tidak sempat menyentuh media sosial, saya setia mengikuti berita lewat koran dan televisi. Ada perasaan tidak sabar menanti dimulainya konklaf. Tidak sabar! Apalagi yang ditunggu. Di masa modern ini, dengan teknologi luar biasa, semua kardinal elektor  seharusnya dapat mencapai Vatikan dengan cepat...  Apalagi Benediktus XVI juga sudah merestui dan mendorong percepatan permulaan konklaf...

Ada juga perasaan kecewa karena satu-satunya kardinal elektor dari Indonesia, Mgr. Julius Darmaatmadja, SJ, tidak dapat mengikuti konklaf karena kondisi kesehatan yang tidak mendukung...

Ketika semua kardinal elektor (115 orang) telah berkumpul, saya deg-degan dan cemas. Saya sungguh berharap konklaf akan cepat selesai dan menghasilkan tokoh yang memang sesuai untuk memimpin Gereja sekarang... Nakhoda yang sesuai untuk bahtera besar yang sedang mengembara sekarang ini.

Hari pertama, putaran pertama, asap hitam. Saya berangkat kuliah sambil tetap menanti-nanti, terus berharap. Supaya batin 115 orang yang terkunci di balik pintu itu benar-benar diterangi Roh Kudus, agar yang terpilih benar-benar orang yang layak dan mampu.

Kamis subuh sebelum UTS fismik, saya masih baca-baca fismik... Otak sudah isinya pathway... Dan tiba-tiba adik saya keluar kamar. Sambil setengah teler (maklum baru bangun) adik saya berkata, “Habemus papam.”

Respon spontan saya adalah, “Hah, ngaco! Belum kan?”

Dan adik saya bilang, “Sudah terpilih, tahu. Dari Argentina.”

Wow, dari Argentina? Pertama-tama, saya merasa was-was... Imam Amerika Latin, apakah dia punya latar belakang yang bersih? Saya masih ingat kasus Fernando Lugo dulu! Apakah dia orang yang baik? Apakah dia mampu dan sanggup memimpin kami?

Lalu saya memeriksa latar belakangnya yang lain... Beliau seorang Jesuit! Dan ternyata, dalam sejarah Gereja yang panjang, baru kali ini seorang Jesuit mengisi takhta kepausan... Saya langsung merasa bangga, karena entah mengapa saya selalu kagum pada imam Jesuit. Imam Jesuit rata-rata pandai, pikirannya dalam, serta militan (tegas, bukan fanatis buta).

Dan dia adalah paus dari tanah misi di luar Eropa... Sebenarnya ini menimbulkan perasaan yang ambivalen di hati saya... Apakah Gereja di Eropa sudah semati dan selayu itu sehingga tak ada lagi yang bisa datang dari sana? Tetapi hal ini juga menunjukkan adanya harapan baru... Bahwa benih yang dulu disemai di tanah misi ternyata tumbuh dan berkembang.

Dan kata-kata pertamanya setelah terpilih membuat saya (lagi-lagi) bangga...

"You know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world to get him.” – Paus Fransiskus I

Menurut saya ini adalah sindiran tentang keringnya panggilan di Eropa... Ini berarti beliau familier akan masalah Gereja di masa kini, dan mampu menyampaikan sindiran ini dengan halus, terselubung, namun disadari dan dapat menyentak orang yang mendengarnya (or is it just me? :3)

Saya sangat ingin tahu nama jabatan apa yang paus berikut akan pilih. Dan ternyata, pilihan namanya pun bijaksana. Dengan pilihan nama Fransiskus, beliau menghormati dua santo sekaligus, yaitu Fransiskus Assisi dan Fransiskus Xaverius walaupun beliau menyatakan nama Fransiskus yang beliau pilih adalah Fransiskus Assisi. Fransiskus Assisi adalah santo yang terkenal karena kesederhanaan dan kedekatannya dengan kaum papa, sementara Fransiskus Xaverius adalah pendiri ordo tempat beliau berasal, Serikat Jesuit.

Dan berita-berita yang sekarang tersebar tentang kesederhanaannya, membuat saya semakin bangga memiliki Bapa Suci seperti dia. Euforia ini masih menyala di hati saya. Semoga kebanggaan ini akan terus awet dan Anda dapat memenuhi harapan umat Katolik sekarang, Paus Fransiskus. Semoga Anda dapat memimpin Gereja dengan benar-benar diterangi dan diinspirasi Roh Kudus. Jangan ada cela yang mencoreng namamu maupun Gereja di masa pimpinanmu yang sekarang sedang dan akan berjalan ini. Habemus papam Franciscum! Proficiat, Gereja, karena kini engkau telah memiliki gembala kembali.

oleh: Dyah Candra Hapsari Subagyo

karena sedang ingin berbagi euforia :3

buat yang membaca ini, mungkin ada yang merasa saya lebay, atau apalah...

tapi rasanya sekarang sedang senang sekali :3

Another Giveaway!

This giveaway is hosted at The Book Slayer (nice banner, btw). It will end in 33 days, so let's try our luck!

Giveaway

This giveaway is hosted at Proserpine Craving Books. It will end in 6 days, so hurry!

Giveaway

This giveaway is hosted by Bookaholics book club. This giveaway will expire in 19 days after this post.

The Habitation of the Blessed

Title:  The Habitation of the Blessed
Series/ standalone?: first book in A Dirge for Preter John series
Author: Catherynne M. Valente

WARNING: This review is heavily-ridden with spoilers. Beware!

I just finished reading A Dirge for Prester John: The Habitation of the Blessed. This is the first book in the (plotted) trilogy of A Dirge for Prester John.

Who is Prester John? His detailed enough description can be read in the Wikipedia entry about him.

My expectation before reading this book had been high, because the authoress is none other than Catherynne M. Valente herself. I’ve been enchanted by her adaptation of Russian folk tales, Deathless. So I expected to be captivated by The Habitation of the Blessed. Moreover, I am intrigued by the blurb which said, among other things ...’Hagia, the blemmye wife of Prester John...’ and ‘... the mythical land of Pentexore with its strange creatures...” I Googled blemmye immediately, found its description, and thought that maybe Valente doesn’t stick with that description. How wrong am I. 

But. My reading experience has been terrible. Oh, oh my. I feel very disturbed and repulsed and disgusted upon reading this book, from shortly after the beginning until its very end. By the part that makes me feel very queasy, I read it with skimming method. Well, I guess this book is not for everyone. 

Catherynne M. Valente as usual tells the story with beautiful prose that constructed by carefully chosen beautiful words. The narrative style is books within a book; storyteller that tells stories that have been read and hurriedly transcribed by another storyteller and has been told and written by at least three different storytellers.  

When did I start to feel queasy? At the beginning, when John was tried in his sailing on a vast sea of sand and forced to eat fish. Raw. With its internal organs - while their shape and constructing substance are different from those of the fish in our world - removed hurriedly and shabbily. Well, that can be expected from a man that had been threatened with death from famine and reduced to eat his robe. But still. Yuck.

When did I start to feel very queasy? When John had an intercourse.
With a crane. Crane, as in one specific specie of the Aves class, Grus antigone antigone. This makes me nauseous and disturbed. Why? Well, John was a priest who had taken a vow of celibacy. His breaking of the vow disgusted me. That feeling was exacerbated by the fact that he had broken it with a bird. With a frigging freaking bird. Please! The scene when the pygmies rutted with the cranes also disgusts me. 

Also I am repulsed by the fact that he, Prester John, married a blemmye, Hagia. And impregnated her. Eugh. Interspecies sex, as in between human and vampire or werewolf whatsoever doesn’t disturb me as long those who involved assumes same shapes. A man/ woman have sex with some entity that assumes the appearance of a beast - or a decapitated human, in blemmye case - doesn’t stand well with me. That’s why I felt disturbed when reading the stories in Greek mythology when Zeus seduced Leda in form of swan, or wooed Io in form of a beautiful white bull, and when Pasiphae attracted to a bull, their liaisons resulted in birth of monstrous half-man, half-bull of the Crete labyrinth, Minotaur. Maybe the interspecies sex in this book is an allegory to interracial marriage - which I don't mind nor oppose - but it just failed to depict that.

I am also unable to symphatise with the protagonist, Prester John. Well, maybe his character is typical of the missionaries in that age. He was thankless to those who had helped him, he was a man with holier-than-thou attitude, yet he was easily trapped in sin of adultery. I found it easier to symphatise with Hagia. 

The thing that horrifies me is although John saw his act of bringing Christianity as a good one - similar to one bringing a brightly burning candle to a dark land - it is actually a destructive action. It is more similar to the act of the Serpent tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge and give it to Adam. Pentexore and its creatures had established a working system long before John, and Didymus Thomas (yes, he was there too, and also Alexander the Great), came. Each of them worshipped different gods and had different beliefs, yet it didn’t cause any friction amongst them. They didn’t have concept of sin, they lived harmoniously. With Christianity that John brought and tried to spread, they now knew the concept of sin. In Pentexore before Christianity, there was only a lamia with her natural instincts and urges. After Christianity, there was a whore lamia. That’s what Christianity did to Pentexore. It erased its carefree life, its innocence. 

And the thing that just makes me hate him even more? His cheating in Abir. The reason, said by the cheater himself, was to be the perfect entity, a king-priest, just like Christ. But, if that is the real intention, why did he pray so his queen will be Hagia? Heh. I believe that his motivation for cheating is not purely the king-priest perfection, but just a lesser, worldlier one – he wanted to rule, with a female he desired so, the blemmye Hagia.

One more thing that disappoints me is the way Valente describes Pentexore. She gave a map to give us a picture of Pentexore location, and that’s good and appreciated. But, I also want the map of the internal parts of Pentexore. I want the map that show where the Sea of Sand starts in the world we've known and ends in Pentexore, I want to see where we can reach it and its border with our world. Her description of the creatures is too general. She even doesn’t explain some creatures appearances, such as meta-collinara. I know that in the ‘original’ letter of Prester John those creatures’ names are mentioned, but when you read this book, you tend to forget what cametenna, tensevetes, etc. look like because there are so many strange creatures with names no less exotic than themselves. She also made some allusions and cameos (Alexander the Great with his gate and Apostle Thomas a.k.a. Didymus Thomas), but they are not deeply explored and felt like decoration only.

I can’t give it a high rate. Ten is the perfect score, and I will deduce some for each aspect that I loathe. Eating raw fish with its internal organs glistening? Eeuw. Minus one. A protagonist with attitude so bad I barely can stand him? Deduce one. A type of sex that repulsed me? Minus one again. The insufficient description of the creatures and Pentexore landscape (they should be more detailed, I think), minus one. So the end score is six.

I recommend this book for Valente’s hardcore fans. The Goodreads reviewers rated it 5 stars, and most of them are fans of Valente’s. One reviewer compared this book with In the Night Garden by the same authoress, so if you’re the fan of In the Night Garden, maybe this book will suit you. 

And finally, the picture.

A blemmye

Sources:

• amazon.fr
• en.wikipedia.org

A Red Herring Without Mustard

Seri/ Standalone? Buku ketiga dalam seri Flavia de Luce
Wujud buku: mass paperback
Dibeli di Periplus
Harga: Rp 17.500,00 (kalau tidak salah)

Ringkasan dari Amazon:

In the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey, the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce had asked a Gypsy woman to tell her fortune—never expecting to later stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned almost to death in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? As the red herrings pile up, Flavia must sort through clues fishy and foul to untangle dark deeds and dangerous secrets.

Finally, ada buku yang saya sukai yang didiskon (biasanya yang dibanting murahrahrah itu selalu buku yang tidak diminati >.<)
Saya sukaaa sekali seri Flavia de Luce karangan Alan Bradley. Kenapa? Karena heroine-nya, Flavia Sabina de Luce, yang tidak biasa dan setting-nya (Inggris pasca PD II - mirip buku Agatha Christie). 

Flavia Sabina de Luce. Namanya keren banget, nama yang sangat anggun untuk anak umur 11 tahun dan pemiliknya juga bisa membawakan diri sesuai dengan namanya. Flavia adalah anak yang tidak biasa karena hobinya adalah melakukan eksperimen kimia. Dia juga hafal reaksi-reaksi yang diperlukan untuk mensintesis sesuatu. Buat kita itu pembawa stres, buat dia itu pelepas stres. Really, the most unusual heroine. Hal lain yang saya senangi dari dia adalah kemampuannya menyembunyikan emosi.

Saya membaca buku ini dengan urutan yang salah, buku pertama dalam seri ini (The Sweetness at the Bottom of The Pie) saya baca pertama kali dengan sepintas, lalu langsung loncat ke buku ketiga yang sedang saya review ini, dan baru buku kedua (The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag). Hal ini sedikit berpengaruh pada kenikmatan membaca.

Cerita ini menarik dibaca sampai akhir, tidak menggoda saya buat langsung lompat dan melihat konklusinya. Ada sedikit sentuhan gipsi, tapi hal itu hanya sepintas saja, tidak diperdalam. Saya semakin kesal pada kedua kakak Flavia, Ophelia dan Daphne, yang terus-terusan membully Flavia. Di dalam buku ini, lagi-lagi kita disuguhi kecerdikan Flavia dalam mengorek informasi.

Di buku ini juga ada lagi aspek tentang Harriet, almarhumah ibu Flavia, yang dipaparkan kepada pembaca. Sebenarnya saya sampai sekarang masih bingung. Ayah Flavia bernama Haviland de Luce. Tarquin de Luce yang sebelumnya tinggal di kediaman keluarga de Luce adalah paman Harriet. Kediaman itu juga resminya milik Harriet. Jadi ayah dan ibu Flavia masih famili? Sama-sama de Luce? 

Yah, intinya ini buku yang worth it. Saya tidak menyesali waktu dan dana yang terbuang untuk membeli dan membacanya. 

Rating akhir 7/10

The picture

Sumber (semuanya diakses 8 Januari 2013):

• Gambar sampul: http://www.flaviadeluce.com/wpcms/wp-content/gallery/other/a-red-herring-without-mustard.jpg
• Gambar bola kristal: http://www.xconomy.com/wordpress/wp-content/images/2008/11/crystal-ball.jpg