Book Review: In the Company of the Courtesan

Plot Summary: A courtesan flees the fall of Rome with her dwarf companion, and sets up shop in Venice, surviving by their wit and charm.

Almost? 

That’s my main opinion of every most aspects of this book.  It almost is compelling, it almost wins me over with lush narrative, it almost has characters that win me over.  It almost has a plot? 

Almost doesn’t mean bad; if you liked Sarah Dunant’s other book The Birth of Venus, you’ll enjoy this one for sure.  I think her characters (Fiammetta the courtesan and Bucino the dwarf) are fun enough.  The story is told from Bucino’s point of view and the prose is easily readable, not too flowery, and I always love a historical setting.  Throw in some references to art (the artist Titian makes an appearance), and Venice in the 16^th century and you’ve got good potential. 

To me, this book never takes any of these elements far enough to make it REALLY interesting.  For example, the premise of setting up shop in a new city?  The story takes you right up to her first few struggles and then BAM, suddenly 8 or 9 years have passed and she’s already super established.  What happened to all the drama in between?  There’s a second subplot that pops up about then that gets resolved shortly thereafter but I feel the novel loses steam because there’s not the sense that any of this has a point, or is building up to a climax.  Stuff just happens.  And, there’s no really steamy scenes despite the subject matter.

I picked up In the Company of the Courtesan because the back cover made me think I was going to get a variation on this movie, only with a dwarf (it’s not really like this movie at all besides having a 16^th century Venetian courtesan):

Eh.  I think the book is pretty forgettable.  Maybe a beach read? 

<3 <3

Book Review: Lives of the Monster Dogs

I must admit here on my blog, that I have an addiction:

I buy a lot of used books.

I can’t help it!  Paperbacks for $2? Hardcovers for half price?  Flea market finds for $1?  At all such locations I feel as though they’re practically giving books away, so whenever I find myself in this situation I transform into a slathering bibliophile with no higher brain function as I grab every book that remotely looks interesting and head to the cash register.  In college it was Shakespeare’s Books, Moe’s, The Other Change of Hobbit, and Pegasus in Berkeley (with 4 used bookstores, that just started then confirmed the addiction.)  These days I make up excuses to head to Book Buyer’s in Mountain View, or that on in Campbell with the bookstore kitty named ISBN.  Apparently it’s my life’s mission to convert my bookshelf to the used Sci-Fi/Fantasy section (yeah well I never said I liked high literature, did I?) of an entire store.

What it currently means is I have a really big stack of books to get through and I’m really trying hard not to buy more until I get through all these.  I never used to be a person with a list of 10 books on the to-read pile, but times change and so do I, so now I’m that person.  It’s my mission to get to the bottom of the stack…so I can go get more! 

All this reading has some social value, I promise!  I also enjoy vetting books to friends with similar tastes.  Most of that pile is probably not really spectacular (after all, someone decided they didn’t want it anymore), but I feel quite determined to wade through my pile and I’ll post up some reviews here.

First up: Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis

 Quick plot summary: Mysterious genetically and cybernetically enhanced dogs with the culture from 18^th Century Prussia appear in New York.

Ok, that tagline makes this sound ridiculous; this isn’t comedy; it’s more like, a dispossessed, dying race comes to modern day New York – part of the book is a “memoir” of that time, and the other part is written as research notes as to how these monster dogs came about. It is, in fact, terrifically tragic in tone. 

I preferred the sweeping historical segments of the book; those are the parts I stayed up late reading.  There’s a mad scientist villain element, but reading his history was probably the most fascinating part of the book.  Where the narrative falls a bit flat for me would be the modern day memoir.  It's not badly written at all; I just don't like the main character.  About 1/3 into the book, you realize that the narrator is a stupid with youth and easily manipulated, which, since that’s the point of the character I suppose means the author has completely succeeded.  At some points, the narrator finds herself in situations where I wanted to shout, “WHY ARE YOU STILL THERE?  GET OUT!” Sort of like in a horror movie.

To give fair warning, this is one of those books where you don’t completely understand what happens at the end; but, the author gives completely fair warning with the narrator stating at the beginning that she will never be able to make sense of the events so I didn’t feel as bad about that as I normally do. 

End conclusion: I don’t think this is a book I would re-read, and I don’t know that I liked it.  However, it is very good, and it managed to both grab me and I know it’ll stick with me for a long time to come. 

Heart scale:
<3 <3 <