Library Limelights 169

Kati Hiekkapelto. The Exiled. UK: Orenda Books, 2016. 

Anna Fekete is a detective in her adopted country of Finland but now on vacation to visit family in Serbia. Her family had immigrated during the Balkan War but later her mother returned to their native land, to ethnic Hungarians within Serbia's boundaries. At this time refugees are streaming through Serbia to reach Hungary, hoping for asylum in an EU country. The theft of her purse at a local fair and the death of the thief sets a chain reaction for Anna, beginning with the local Roma community. Racism extends to both minority groups. Warnings from local police and old friends do not dissuade her from a quest for whoever killed the thief. Her home town of Kanizsa is a real place (Kanjiza in Serbian), a border town across the river from Hungary. People smuggling is not unknown.

But amidst reacquainting herself with her roots and contradictions about the theft, Anna realizes there is an ominous connection to the long-ago murder of her father. Peter, a sympathetic and smitten policeman, agrees to help her; her family, her mother especially, refuses to discuss the past. Anna also questions her own existential identity. A complicated story, boding well for the next in the series. Apparently the "blossoming" of the Tisza River becomes an annual festival and tourist attraction when millions of mayflies congregate, causing a great natural spectacle ― had to satisfy myself it was real, but no thanks. Bugs in your face, your hair, everywhere. Nevertheless, the Serbian countryside is lovingly described. [I have omitted diacritical marks, except in the quotations.]

One-liners:

Centuries of oppression and rejection would hardly be forgotten the minute Anna told people she wanted to help. (98)

How odd that he seemed to know her father so well when religion had meant so little to her family. (108)

To her great astonishment she wanted to go back and dance some more. (172)

Gender and race:

Kovács Gábor and the chief of police exchanged glances. Anna saw in their expressions all the thoughts they weren't saying out loud. Does this woman think she knows better than us? Is this woman going to get difficult? Woman, woman, woman. Worse still, a woman who had grown up abroad. The men's faces said more than a thousand words. 

"Say something, then," Anna snapped to Ernó and Tibor. 

"We ... I ... Anna, listen, it was just some nameless gypsy," Ernó said, almost under his breath. 

"Some nameless gypsy? Why do you keep on using the word gypsy over and over? Don't you know it's an offensive term? They are Romani. And what the hell difference does it make what ethnic group he belonged to? They are human beings, and a human being is dead!"Anna forced herself to swallow her anger. (28-9)

Past and present:

Who am I? What makes us who we are? Our language: I have two of them. Our home: I have two of them as well. Work, friends, hobbies ‒ all far too superficial. Our family, our roots. What do I have left of those? The memory of my father. A memory suddenly now prodded with a burning iron, branding me so that the smell of burning skin rises into the air. She wanted to talk about her father, about Áron. But she didn't know how she could ever bring up with her mother what she'd heard at the wedding. 

The weight in Anna's chest felt heavy and her legs were like lead. They carried her somewhere, one step at a time. Toward Péter's house. Anna didn't even attempt to withstand the will of her feet. (176)

More weight:

For the rest of the journey home he didn't say another word. Why do I get the impression that all my father's grey-haired old friends seem to know something? Or that they sense something, at least? Why won't they open up. Is it because I'm not asking the right questions? Or am I just imagining this? 

The grass verge was dotted with blood-red poppy flowers. They made Anna think of Dzsenifer and her skirt. Uneasy thoughts and worries about the girl's wellbeing weighed Anna down. She felt as though there was something she had missed. Something simple yet crucially important, something that would unravel this mess in an instant. 

As they drove back towards the town, they saw groups of refugees trudging along the road. There were more than there had been a week ago, far more. Anna winced as she thought of the cows that wandered the fields around Velebit. At least they had shelter every night. (226-7)

Carol Shields. Larry's Party. Toronto: Random House of Canada, 1997.

It's shameful to admit I have not read Shields before this. This title had always appealed to me and I was not disappointed. We get to know Winnipeg man Larry Weller as much as he knows himself, full of questions and contradictions, puzzles and fears. A rather ordinary man of working class origins, but no ordinary writing. This is genius at work, making us care about a guy who works away at a pleasant job (florist), fumbles his first marriage (Dorrie), and finds his special creative element (hedges). Larry moves on to Chicago, in demand as a builder of the outdoor mazes that fascinate him. He and second wife (Beth) seem well-suited; and always in the background, occasionally to the forefront, are his growing son Ryan and endearing sister Midge.

Still, Larry feels something missing, words he needs to learn, feelings he needs to express. He's a product of an entire generation of basically inarticulate parents. Eventually Beth goes her own way and Larry moves back to Canada at a pinnacle of success, ever experimenting in his maze commissions with the interaction between humans and nature. Then with the encouragement and assistance of girlfriend Charlotte, he throws a dinner party when both his ex-wives happen to be in town. Maybe subconsciously he knew something important would be resolved for him. Everyone freely over-shares. Reading Shields is sheer pleasure. Who could not identify with some aspect of Larry's sensitive thoughts as he ‒ often wonderingly and tentatively ‒ explores his role as a man?

One-liners:

It strikes Larry that language may not yet have evolved to the point where it represents the world fully. (95)

A more profound reading of the maze related to the difficulty of life and life's tortuous spiritual journey. (215)

She was a woman devoted to texture and to small exacting shifts of comfort. (279)

"A man these days is no more than an infrastructure for a penis and a set of testicles." (319)

Two-liners:

▪ Sometimes Larry sees his future laid out with terrifying clarity. An endless struggle to remember what he already knows. (88)

▪ "Well, what exactly do you want, Larry?"

If only he knew. (168)

A-mazing:

The word obsession feels too boxy and broad for the round cavity of Larry's mouth, so he simply says to friends or family or anyone who asks, that he's "into" mazes. A hobby kind of thing. He plays it down. He doesn't know why, but he'd rather not let people know how "into it" he really is, that it's like a ripe crystal growing in his brain and taking up more and more space. 

It's not only mazes themselves he thinks of, but the idea of mazes, and the idea is a soft steady incandescent light bulb at the edge of his vision; it's always there, it's always switched on. He can turn his gaze at will and watch it, casting its glow on the subtle sleeping aisles of shrubbery around his house, their serpentine (ser-pen-tine) allure, their teasing treachery and promise of reward. (92)

Dorrie lets loose:

"He won't be the first kid born out of—" 

"Don't say it. I hate that word." 

"Wedlock?" 

"You said it. I told you I hate that word and you said it." 

"No one uses it anymore. No one pays attention to that stuff." 

"How about your sister Midge? She thinks I did it on purpose, trapped you, her baby brother, stuck a pin in my diaphragm or something. Well, I was the one that got trapped." 

"Why worry about what Midge thinks?" 

"What about your parents. How come they're always going around saying Ryan was premature, the darling wee thing? Eight pounds. Uh-huh! Tell me about it." 

"Because they don't know what else to say." (196-7)

The party:

"You really think this is a good idea? It seems—"  

How did it seem? He put the question to himself. A forty-six-year-old man hosting a party? You don't see it happen often, a single man, twice divorced, paying off his social debts, inviting his friends not to a restaurant, but into his own space for an evening of conviviality. A table set. Talk, laughter. Food and drink raining down. Most men in Larry's position receive rather than dispense hospitality. That's Charlotte's opinion. Such men receive and receive and receive. It can go on for years, this social imbalance, before anyone thinks to question it. Some state of emergency must occur to make a reversal seem inevitable. (288)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir. The Day is Dark. UK: Hodder& Stoughton, 2011.

Having enjoyed previous novels featuring Icelandic lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir, I found this one blah. Off goes Thora with banker boyfriend Matthew to Greenland, to make a report for his bank. Berg Technology, contracted to prepare a new mining site there, had been guaranteed by the bank; now some workers have strangely disappeared and the others refuse to return. One of them, Arnar (not to be confused with Alvar), is suicidally depressed in a detox centre. The east coast of Greenland is virtually an icy desert in extended hours of winter darkness. Thora has seven people of various expertise in her investigating group, including two Berg employees familiar with the site. Inexplicable findings — human bones in the company office, an unidentifiable murder video, and being shunned by the nearby native villagers, contrary to custom — are not the suspense builders they should be.

Enter Igimaq the Greenlandic traditional hunter. More mystery: Why is he haunted by thoughts of his daughter? Is he a killer? Still, nothing happens for a long, long time. I got impatient and then I lost interest. Police finally come when the body count goes up. The author would have us spooked by folk tales of decades-old settlement deaths and the consequences of Berg entering a forbidden native region, but it's not working. The decline of the Greenlandic way of life deserves attention, but references to spirits and animal lore are all too vague, as are the repetitive activities of Thora and company, sitting around waiting. Scary, it's not; compelling, it's not; credibility for many events is problematic. A great deal of the action is narrated second-hand, unsatisfactorily, blunting the climax if you can find it. I will be very cautious about trying the next book.

One-liners:

Warm showers would have lightened their moods but all the pipes in this part of the camp were frozen, making that a distant dream. (106)

Thora drifted off to sleep wondering how long a corpse could stay suspended in ice. (109)

"I never took part in the bullying, but I was a silent witness, which is hardly better." (206)

"Because the more souls the dead can seize, the more powerful they become." (309)

Encounter with locals:

"You shouldn't be here," said the woman. A dull odour of alcohol was carried into the car on her breath, which formed thin white clouds in the cold air. 

"In the village?" asked Thora. "We just wanted to ask a few questions. There are two men lost, and they might possibly have come here." 

"You should go home," said the woman, still staring at Thora expressionlessly. "Back to your home. Wherever that is." 

"We're leaving soon." Thora wished that she understood what was going on. Now her Danish would really be put to the test. She started speaking and although her vocabulary was childish she hoped that the gist of what she wanted to say came across. "Are you opposed to the project or did the employees of the Icelandic company do something to you?" 

The woman gave Thora an inquisitive look, not unlike the one Thora had just given her. "You're staying in a bad place. No one should be there. Go home." (147-8)

Arnar:

He wanted a drink desperately, despite having resolved to stop. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the effect of being drunk that tugged at him; instead he missed the dreamless sleep, the ability to drink away his consciousness and turn off his brain, allowing it to rest. Even his bad conscience could not hold out against the alcohol. It always won. (197)

Igimaq:

What was already dead could not be killed again. Igimaq wasn't actually scared of death, nor did he understand those who said they wished to live longer than was natural. To create the conditions for a new life, you had to clear space, and it would soon be his turn. He accepted this completely, but nevertheless wanted to have some say in his own death. He wanted to die as he had lived, under the open sky with his rifle in his hand, in harmony with nature, which could strip him of his flesh after he drew his final breath. He did not want to die with his heart in his throat, fleeing something nameless as it snapped at his heels. (348)