Brent P. Newhall's Blog

I am a minimalist.

This is especially so in the kitchen. I haven’t bought a new pot, pan, or kitchen utensil in 5 years. I just don’t need to. I know the basics.

I have a slightly more eclectic approach to cookbooks. I believe in learning how to cook things in general. I don’t follow an omelette recipe; I know how to make omelettes, and will incorporate whatever ingredients are handy and/or interesting to me in the moment.

As such, I recommend cooks buy The Joy of Cooking, and concentrate on that for their first few years.

But. An unusual cookbook can inspire the cook, and introduce an unexpected flavor or texture combination. A treasured few can do that, while beautifully illustrating methods of cooking that may be a bit too briefly covered in the venerable Joy of Cooking.

Such is the case with Delia Smith’s How To Cook. I confess that I stumbled on this large hardback in a nearby cafe-cum-bookstore, just after sampling a deliriously delicious coconut cake. As luck would have it, this book had a recipe for just such a cake, and even better, it was on sale. So I bought it.

It’s a lovely BBC production, a companion to a TV series, and the pages are laid out in an admirably clear, downright artful structure. It really shows you how to make an omelette, and roast a chicken, and prepare fish, and many other common kitchen projects, in addition to its many recipes (all lovingly photographed).

I’m trying not to lead up to a “you should buy this” finale. Does everyone need this book? Of course not. But it is beautiful and useful.

And of how many things in life can one say that?

Three Hearts and Three Lions cover

A friend of mine recommended this Poul Anderson fantasy novel, Three Hearts and Three Lions a while back. I’ve finally been working my way through it.

I’m not going to finish it.

It’s about a guy who wakes up in a fantasy world, and can mysteriously speak the language and ride a horse and fight (quite well!) in armor. And he’s trying to figure out how he got here, and why. So he’s talked to a nearby witch, who’s directed him to the nearest elven lord for advice. He’s attracted a dwarf and a shapeshifting girl as companions.

That’s it. I’m 1/3 of the way through the book, and that’s as far as we’ve gotten.

I don’t mean to be impatient, but at some point this ceases to be worth my time. There’s some fine writing, and some fine sequences, but the story’s dull as dirt. The characters are fun, but none have much stake in anything.

Worse, this is not a bland novel. Anderson was a strong writer, and this world comes alive at times. I find his use of phonetic dialect frustrating (I kid you not, this is an exact quote: “‘Tis naw so canny a steadin’ ye’re boon fawr.”), but it does add richness to his characters. And the protagonist was a smart engineer in his past life, so he’s constantly evaluating his surroundings to figure out the scientific implications (“He wondered what they used in place of steel. Aluminum alloys? Surely magic could extract aluminum from bauxite. Beryllium, magnesium, copper, nickel, chrominum, manganese—while doubltless correct, the idea of an elvish wizard with a spectroscope was funny enough to restore a balance in Holger.”).

But, ultimately, the book feels like no more than a neat idea and a richly-imagined medieval world. And I’m sorry, but I need a little more out of that in my novels right now.

(Writers: Does this describe your novel? What could you do to give the characters a more pressing problem to deal with?)

So, this one goes back on the shelves. A pity; I loved Anderson’s The High Crusade.

It’s difficult to review Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go without resorting to reviewers’ favorite candy phrases: heart-wrenching, melancholy, tragic, and the one that I always shudder at, tour de force.

This is partly because of its deceit. For its first few chapters, it appears to be nothing more than a woman reminiscing about her childhood at an English boarding school. Moreover, the protagonist is nothing special, and spends much of her time second-guessing her (and others’) actions.

Then you begin to notice that something’s a little…off. Certain life details are conspicuously absent. Some normal things are never mentioned, while others are referenced in strange ways, and there are these strange euphemisms about donations and completing.

These are the two great strengths of Ishiguro’s novel:

1. The writing is delicately structured to intrigue and reveal, despite a narrator who is rather dull herself. One learns things about characters that the characters don’t realize themselves.
2. There’s a twist to this woman’s life and entire world that’s revealed slowly and naturally (another of Ishiguro’s impressive feats), and which adds several complex layers of meaning to her memories and worries. This drives the story forward even further.

Which makes Never Let Me Go even more difficult to review. Ishiguro’s subtle touch masks wonderful layers of intriguing complexity, and the twist really shouldn’t be revealed in a review like this. So what can I say?

After I finished the final page, I felt like my head had blossomed open like a flower, and I felt dazed for a few hours.

I can hardly think of higher praise.