For Feisty Feminists

What is there to say about a book like Howards End? It’s a classic, and there have probably been millions of pages written analyzing it. There’s not much that I could say that would add to that in any meaningful way.

Howards End is really good. It’s ridiculously good. I would recommend it to almost anyone.  It centers on the Schlegel sisters, Meg and Helen, who belong to the middle class. They become involved in the world of the Wilcoxes, who are old money upper class, and Leonard Bast, who is poor. The different characters represent different facets of early 20th century England, but are also fully formed, complicated people. The book works on both levels: as human drama and as social commentary on social class.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the book is how much compassion Forster has for the characters, while exposing their weaknesses and showing them doing selfish or hurtful things. Helen and Meg, though very different, are incredibly likeable, so having compassion for them is easy; yet, while their instinct to help Leonard Bast is charitable, it is shown to have selfish, ego-driven motivations - especially during a scene at a dinner party where they discuss ‘how to help the poor’ using Leonard as an example. Leonard himself is more pitiable than likeable, but Forster shows us enough of his past life and his inner thoughts that he is not simply a representation of ‘lower class,’ but a sympathetic human being. Henry, the Wilcox patriarch, is selfish and sometimes controlling, almost boorish, but Forster shows us his vulnerability more than once.

Then there’s Ruth Wilcox, whose actions before her death become the catalyst for much of the plot. Her final wishes regarding Howards End, her family’s home, are seen by her family as not indicative of who she really was, and they suspect Meg of being a scheming interloper, never understanding their mother/wife and her true nature. Her presence haunts the entire book, an enigma that illuminates the other characters without revealing much about herself.

The eight book in the Sookie Stackhouse series is about par for the course; it’s not as exciting as the earlier books, because it has so many ongoing plot strands to revisit and develop, but it’s better than the previous installment, which seemed like 4 shorter stories thrown in together with no overall story arc.

In Dead and Gone, the weres (werewolves and other shapeshifters) ‘come out’ to the public just like the vampires did before the series begins. For some, it is a great relief to be out in the open. However, the folks who were already anti-vampire become outraged and, in some cases, violent, against anyone with supernatural powers - and that includes Sookie. There are other supernatural forces at work as well, and Sookie finds herself in great peril, and another really attractive man (are there any dumpy men in this series?) gets involved with her.

The series has the same flaws as many mystery/suspense novels I have read (alright, I’ve really only read this series and Harry Potter): the main character(s) investigate strange occurrences for most of the book, but don’t come anywhere close to the answer until the end, when someone breathlessly explains the whole thing; the main character is in mortal peril with no escape, but someone comes to save her/him at the last minute; and have I mentioned the constant string of swooningly hot love interests, all fixated on Sookie no matter how much she hurts them, or how selfish she is?

No matter, if you’ve read this far in the series, there’s no reason to stop now - and as I mentioned above, Dead and Gone is better than the previous installment. Part of me wishes that it the series had been pre-planned as a certain number of books, because as it goes on it does feel like Harris is just trying to fill space, as opposed to being inspired to write a story. At the same time, if there were no more books, what would I read on the airplane?