The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“Reading about life was no preparation for living it”
“My argument with so much of psychoanalysis is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness. When in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people’s suffering.”
“The childhood shows the man, As morning shows the day.”
“What if, like the Lady of Shalott, she stopped looking at life through a mirror – and turned, and stared at it directly?”
The Maidens is about a murder that occurs at Cambridge. A former student, Mariana, has a niece, Zoe, who currently attends the university. One night she receives a phone call from Zoe who seems upset as she thinks her roommate might be the murder victim. Mariana goes to the college for support and ends up being a bigger part of the investigation than she intends. Mariana is a group therapist who looks at things with that lens. She has a patient that causes issues and could be dangerous. There is a professor, Edward Fosca, who seems like a good candidate for the main suspect. There is a group of women called The Maidens that he teaches and the victim was part of that group. Then another victim is found from that same group. What is going on at this university? Who is the murderer? Will Mariana be able to figure it out before she becomes the next victim?
Alex Michaelides creates a mood of suspense while integrating fun connections with ancient culture. I loved the setting of an old university like Cambridge. It creates this sense of history and lore that permeates the novel. I felt transported to a different time even though the story takes place in the modern age. Mariana is a tough character to like. She seems like a pushover and some of her conclusions didn’t really at up like when she associated intelligence with trauma or that police onsite talking to the dean meant the victim could only be this one particular person. Also, why would she choose to run down an alley? I didn’t understand Mariana. Zoe was also unlikeable as she constantly came across as not liking her aunt and treating her badly. Edward is conceited and a little creepy. There are a lot of creepy men in this book…”men are not to be trusted.” The first person to be assumed a suspect (one of the few not creepy men) and the subsequent interview is where the book really grabbed my interest. Up until that point I was coasting along a lazy river but then this point of the book is where the rapids began. I was carried along at a nice clip, interested in finding out how it wrapped up. There was a scene where Gauloises cigarettes were mentioned which evoked a vivid memory of me smoking those in Paris. It brought a smile to my face. On the flip side, there was a description of watching your mother cry and I related fiercely with it. “It’s horrible watching your mother cry. You feel so impotent, so powerless.” I know it is pedantic of me but Alex used the term serial killer when only two murders happened whereas the definition includes 3 or more victims. He also missed an opportunity to really bring in the gay male fans. He described a guy on stage that was shirtless with the torso dripping in sweat but didn’t go any further in descriptive detail. He could have described the abs or muscles or something but nope. I love when I make connections between books. In this one, there was two points I wanted to call out. One is when the Goldberg Variations were brought up and I read The Gold-Bug Variations in college. I listened to Bach as well. The other was by the author himself in a self-referential moment. He brought in a character from another book, a book I actually read as well. It was cool and clever with a little wink implied. Some of the words I ran across that I liked were menis, Byronic, stygian, and anagnorisis. Alex did have me guessing on who the killer could be and I never guessed how it would wrap up. Though I didn’t like how it ended, it was a surprise. It was a little too weird and out there for me. This is exactly the type of book I would pick up because it referenced ancient cultures, murder, rituals, and mythology.
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Tag: college
The Lyrical Life And Critiquing Love
Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“I personally like to pretend the phrase ‘deep cut’ has a totally different meaning, one that has nothing to do with anyone else’s opinion. How deep does it cut? How close to the bone? How long do you feel it?”
“Why do we listen to those voices, calling from just outside our door, that tell us to reject contentment in search of something more?”
“’Am I allowed to be a person right now?’”
Deep Cuts is about music and life. We follow Percy Marks from college to adulthood as she navigates relationships and her place in this world. She is roughly the same age as me so I relate to a lot of the events. The time periods that were referenced really hit home. Percy went to college in the early 2000s and so cultural milestones, like September 11th, evoked vivid imagery and feelings in me. It spans many years and several cities. There is also Joe, who is a musician and throughout the book, he is the yang to Percy’s yin. They revolve around each other, occasionally colliding, and greatly influencing each other’s lives. Percy is all about music, writing, and critiquing. She helps others write music and writes articles about music, but does she have what it takes to write her own songs?
This is the type of book I have always wanted to write. Each chapter is a song title and seems to be intricately woven into what is going on. The music sets the scene and tone for what is happening on the pages. I didn’t pull up the song every single time one was mentioned but I did it a lot. There is even a playlist on Spotify with a list of songs from this book (which I am not listening to as I write this). I do love music and have always wondered how it could work within the confines of a book. I think that Holly Brickley did a great job of doing this and I am jealous. This book grabbed me from the first chapter. The repartee between the characters and the time period it took place in was energizing. I was excited to see what would happen in this story and how it would evolve & resolve. It felt like an indie film and it was all about character development. It was punchy and clever. It was a kind of love story with a will they/won’t they vibe. Love of each other or of music or what they other elevates them to do. I wrote down tons of artists and songs to go back and listen to. One thing about my listening habits is that I favor style over substance. I tend not to listen to the lyrics as much as I would like to. Now after reading this, I want to listen to the highlighted songs with a new ear. I want to focus on the lyrics and give the artists their due. Holly used the phrased “sprawl of knowledge more than a well of joy” which made me think and consider. I liked how she intimated that going deep into something is joyful. There was a lot of good turn of phrases and sentences that I related to. “It was the kind of beer that tasted like rubber bands” and I could immediately conjure that taste in my mouth. “Instead of sleeping that night I revised my end of the conversation in my head over and over” which is something I could understand immensely. I had a bad habit of doing that over and over again…or the reverse where I play out potential future conversations that have yet to happen. I love it when books reference the title in a normal way as when Holly does it on page 27. I liked the comment on men. “’Boys are less afraid of being wrong’…this was why men got to run the world, even as it became slowly obvious that they were terrible at it.” I had to laugh out loud at this. I liked how the author took lyrics from songs and expanded on them including possible meanings. “The bottomless pit of misfortune hovering just on wrong step away from all of us? It’s a miracle just to be here, the song seemed to say, on this side of the blue. Don’t torture yourself trying to understand why. Know what you know. Do what you have to do.” There were songs “written” by Joe & Percy that were referenced in the book too. It was a cool tie back in. The words in this book that I ran across that I enjoyed, looked up, and said out loud were ensorcelled, melisma, and prismatically (the way this was used was perfection). I really love ensorcelled. It is just a fun word. This is exactly the type of book that I would read to get great song suggestions especially ones that I would not normally be exposed to. It is a thoughtfully written book.
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