What do I think about The Muse?

"Not all of us receive the ends that we deserve. Many moments that change a life's course - a conversation with a stranger on a ship, for example - are pure luck. And yet no one writes you a letter, or chooses you as their confessor, without good reason. This is what she taught me: you have to be ready in order to be lucky. You have to put your pieces into play."

   

-From the opening page of The Muse by Jessie Burton, 2016        

 Last night I finished reading this good book that I just happened to find at the library. It was a shot in the dark, and within its pages I found a delightful story from two different time periods. One part of the story begins in 1967 in London, a story that involves the main character from Trinidad in the Caribbean, Odelle Bastien. We meet her best friend, Cynth, whom she shares a small flat with. The young women spend their days working in a shoe store, a plight that they see as very unsatisfying. As the story unfolds, Odelle meets a young man named Laurie who is smitten with her, but she isn't very interested in him in the beginning. She gets a job in an art studio as a typist and she feels that her luck is beginning to change. She becomes a good friend and confident to her boss, "Quick," an older woman who treats Odelle much like a daughter. The two become very interested in a painting that Laurie owns and the story behind the painting becomes very intriguing to them all (and to the reader!).

Then the story jumps back to people who were in Spain in about the year 1936, people who were brought together by civil war. We meet Olive, Teresa, Isaac, and Sarah, and we begin to see a commonality between this part of the story and the latter part. Art is also a focal part of this section of the story, and we find the characters trying to find fame and fortune in the art that they, themselves, create. But who actually painted these beautiful paintings? And what do the paintings mean? Who are those people in them? After I read this book for a while I could see how the two stories are interwoven. In the end you will see the relationship between characters in the 1960s and the people in the 1930s. Let's just say that there are characters who turn out to be related to each other, and the conclusion is full of surprises. If you like history or mysteries, you will enjoy this book. Burton does a great job of characterization and she has a very good way with words that makes the story flow smoothly and effortlessly.  But what else would you expect from someone who graduated from Oxford? Now I'm interested in reading Burton's other book, The Miniaturist. If it's as good as The Muse, it will be time well-spent.

In my last entry, "When I Look Into Your Eyes," I spoke about our sweet beagle-mix, Nilla. Just so you know, she's doing great except for her red, itchy skin, a problem she's had for about four years. She's currently taking two medications to help relieve this for a little while, and one of them tastes like chicken. No, I haven't actually tasted it myself, but the veterinarian assures me that it is so. And Nilla sure does gobble it up. That is proof enough.

The next book that I will read is a novel set in Ireland, and I'm eager to get going on it. In my next post I will discuss this book as well as a topic that I think you'll be interested in, travel. I won't divulge anything else at this time, so please stay tuned. I want to thank my readers in the UK, Germany, Alaska, France, Russia, and the U.S. for looking at my blog from time to time. Please continue reading, and leave me your thoughts. I enjoy hearing what you think, so in the comments section YOU get a chance to write too.

Until next time, be gentle to yourself...

Melissa Hill
Book Blogger
www.onegoodbookblog.blogspot.com

When I Look Into Your Eyes

"When the Man waked up he said, 'What is Wild Dog doing here?' And the Woman said, 'His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always.'"

-Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book (www.dogtime.com)

*********************************************************

When I look into Nilla's eyes, I see a pure soul. When I look into those big brown eyes, I see a faithful friend who is always the same. She is never moody or ungrateful. She is never rude, selfish, or mean-spirited. She is never complicated or disloyal or lazy. She is just Nilla, an 11-year old beagle-mix that we adopted when she was just a few months old through the stray fund of North Paw Animal Hospital here in Durham, North Carolina. She and the other puppies of her litter were found along the side of a nearby road, and the vet office quickly took them in and brought them back to health. When I look into her beautiful brown eyes, I see a soul who is thankful for every bite of food, every piece of raw hide, every treat, and every full bowl of clean water. In a word, Nilla is a 30-pound bundle of unconditional love.

We can learn a lot from our pets. They give us more than we give them, no doubt, and we know it. I know that my many walks with Nilla are good for me in many ways. I tell people that walking is my therapy, and being with Nilla makes it even more therapeutic. I've been having knee problems for the past three years, so my walks haven't been as long or as numerous, but I look forward to the time when I can again take my sweet beagle-mix up Bramble Drive and down Genesee with no effort. Everyone here in Willow Hill knows me by my dog. I'm having the dreaded knee replacement surgery on July 9, and then the rehabilitation can begin, so Nilla, don't give up on me!

Now onward to another one of my favorite topics, books. This week I read a fun book called
 A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I saw this book on a shelf at the library and thought it sounded pretty interesting. It was one of those books that you can only keep for one week so I read as often as I could and finished the book in just five days. It has been on the New York Times bestseller list so I knew it would be good. The book is about an aristocrat, Count Alexander Rostov, who is called an "unrepentant" aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and is placed on house arrest for many, many years in a grand hotel in Moscow. Rostov lives out his days in a small attic room in the Metropol, a nice hotel that is right across the street from the Kremlin. The hotel is filled with interesting characters, and Rostov seems to befriend all of them, especially the regular employees that work throughout the building. He himself has never worked a day in his life, but he begins to work as a waiter in the hotel's lavish restaurant so that he will have something to do. Rostov seems to take his "imprisonment" as well as one can imagine, and he definitely makes the most of a difficult situation. There is an interesting conclusion to the plot, and I won't spoil it for you, but I do think you will enjoy this book for its humor as well as for the history that you will learn about Russia beginning in the 1920s.

A Gentleman in Moscow reminds me of a movie that I saw several years ago starring Tom Hanks. It was based on a true story and was a lot of fun to watch. The movie, "The Terminal," was about a man who didn't have the right papers to be able to leave the airport in New York, so he lived in there for many years. He meets interesting people there, and he begins to improve his English and find ways to get some money so that he can eat. If you are familiar with this story you will see its similarities with Towles' book.

I'm currently reading The Muse: A Novel by Jessie Burton. I've barely started the book but I think I'm going to enjoy it. Stay tuned for some thoughts about this book. I'd also like to read Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz by Michael Bornstein. I saw the author and two other survivors on the news this past week, and their remarkable story is one that I'd like to read about. This book is definitely on my "wish list." 

School is out for students here in N.C. now, so I will soon be on my summer break. I hope you have a great week...

Melissa Hill

Book Blogger

www.onegoodbookblog.blogspot.com