"Conversation With My Father," by Grace Paley

A woman and her 86-year-old father argue about short stories, life, and tragedy. She had always let him have the last word because of his health issues but this time she doesn't back down. 

This is one of my favorite stories because it's a story about storytelling--two people arguing about the right way to tell a story. 

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

In this 2014 novel, Jessie Burton captures the life of a Dutch wife during the seventeenth century. Petronella has just married and feels belittled by her husband who ignores her.  In keeping with the times, its an arranged marriage.

Burton records the many ways someone can make someone else feel insignificant. Marin and Cornelia, the housekeeper, know how to make Petronella feel invisible. 

Her husband, Johannes, buys her a dress that is way too big and give her a wedding gift that bewilders her, a cabinet-house. The cabinet-house mirrors the rooms that she and him inhabit. Jessie Burton writes about it:

 "The accuracy of the cabinet is eerie, as if the real house has been shrunk, its body sliced in two and its organs revealed. The nine rooms, from the working kitchen, the salon, up to the loft where the peat and firewood are stored away from damp, are perfect replicas."

Go to Part 2 for the second part of the review

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

There are many ways someone can someone else feel insignificant. Marin and Cornelia, the housekeeper, know how to make Petronella feel invisible. 

Her husband, whom she barely knows, also belittles her. He buys her a dress that is way too big and give her a gift that bewilders her, a cabinet-house. The cabinet-house the rooms that she and him inhabit. Jessie Burton writes about it:

 "The accuracy of the cabinet is eerie, as if the real house has been shrunk, its body sliced in two and its organs revealed. The nine rooms, from the working kitchen, the salon, up to the loft where the peat and firewood are stored away from damp, are perfect replicas."

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

There are many ways someone can someone else feel insignificant. Marin and Cornelia, the housekeeper, know how to make Petronella feel invisible. 

Her husband, whom she barely knows, also belittles her. He buys her a dress that is way too big and give her a gift that bewilders her, a cabinet-house. The cabinet-house the rooms that she and him inhabit. Jessie Burton writes about it:

 "The accuracy of the cabinet is eerie, as if the real house has been shrunk, its body sliced in two and its organs revealed. The nine rooms, from the working kitchen, the salon, up to the loft where the peat and firewood are stored away from damp, are perfect replicas."

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

There are several things to love about this novel. I love a book where literature is lauded. The Count's life is saved on account of a poem he wrote, which some thought had a revolutionary message.

Count Alexander Rostov nevertheless finds himself under house arrest in his favorite hotel, The Metropol. He has become in the eyes of the state a "non-person" for the sole crime of having been born a Count.

He loses his grand rooms and is forced to take rooms in the attic where the wait staff live. The Count still considers himself the luckiest man in all of Russia. He is able to keep his desk and its secret stash of gold coins.

No matter how well-educated and well-informed the Count may think he is, life and the people who populate it, never fail to surprise him.

The Count forms, for instance, forms an unexpected friendship with a handyman and he has a love affair with a woman, an actress, who is nothing like she seems.

 

The Count's odd friendship with Nina, a precocious eleven-year-old and daughter of a party leader, results in her sending him Sofia. This girl becomes his adopted daughter, his world, and his greatest accomplishment.

All of these scenes are ironic and comic rather than lugubrious such as the time that Nina goes off to work for a collective farm. Count Alexander knows that "life" will find her.

 

While the novel moves at the pace of an art film, there are wonderful comic moments. This is especially true with the Count's conflict with a waiter-turned-manager that he calls "the Bishop."

 

With sly humor, Towles traces the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in Russia's changing political landscape.

 

"Ghosts couldn't hurt you directly. They couldn't push you off a cliff, but the could lead you off one, if you were stupid enough to follow..." Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier. 

"Ghosts couldn't hurt you directly. They couldn't push you off a cliff, but the could lead you off one, if you were stupid enough to follow..." Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier.