Reading Ivan Doig's The Whistling Season is like watching a low-budget film. Without special effects or a dramatic score, the film relies solely on the strength of the story. The screenwriter's

words alone must capture and captivate the audience. Doig's novel is like one of those films. His words engage, entertain and satisfy; no cheap stunts are needed to carry the story along.

The novel opens with 61-year-old Paul Milliron pondering an unpleasant task: as superintendent of schools, he must inform residents of rural Montana that their country schools are closing. A product of just the sort of school he's been ordered to dismantle, Paul is dismayed by the job he must do. To ward off his despair, he lets his mind wander back to his own school days in Marias Coulee, Montana.

His memory takes him back to one banner year: 1909. That was the year his widower father answered an ad for a housekeeper which boldly proclaimed, "Doesn't cook but doesn't bite." Neither Paul nor his two younger brothers know what to expect, but they are shocked when stylish Rose Llewellyn steps off the train accompanied by her equally elegant brother, Morrie. Before the Millirons know it, the pair have firmly ensconsed themselves in prairie life. Rose puts the bachelor farmhouse in order, while Morrie brings his fancy Chicago education to the local one-room schoolhouse. Under Morrie's tutelage, Paul's passion for learning ignites, but not all of his experiences will be in the classroom. As the school year unfolds, Paul experiences death and terror and heartache and wonder. Most of all, he discovers that things are rarely what they seem, not even a kindly housekeeper and her dandy of a brother.

Although it does have a little mystery, The Whistling Season is no edge-of-your-seat thriller. It's a meandering, lyrical tale that won't be rushed. The pleasure is really in the journey, as Doig's every word is poetic and masterful. His characters are real and endearing, as charming as they are sympathetic. Their stories are told with a warmth and humor that enchants and affirms. Simply put, the novel is a masterpiece of old-fashioned storytelling.

There were a few things that bugged me about the book. Although I loved Doig's gentle style, I found it lacked focus at certain points. When Rose and Oliver met, I had the story pegged as a romance, but it really wasn't. The spotlight oscillates from the pair to Morrie to the plight of rural schools and back again. I would have liked smoother transitions between the various plots and themes. Sometimes the juxtapositions just felt too abrupt and jarring.

Overall, The Whistling Season is a triumph of storytelling, a beautiful tale as charming as, say, a one-room schoolhouse in rural Montana.

Grade: B+

Grading Fat Girl by Judith Moore is impossible. I've been thinking about the book ever since I finished it, and I still can't decide whether I liked it or not. One critic called it "brilliant and angry and unsettling." I agree with the "angry and unsettling," but I don't know if I would go so far as to call it brilliant. It was definitely thought-provoking, but brilliant? I don't even know if I liked it or not.

Basically, the book is a memoir chronicling Moore's life as an overweight girl and woman. From the beginning, she is frank, saying:

Narrators of first-person claptrap like this often greet the reader at the door with moist hugs and complaisant kisses. I won't. I will not endear myself. I won't put on airs. I am not that pleasant. The older I get the less pleasant I am.

And she's right. She is not pleasant. Not at all. She describes - coldly and bitterly - what it is like to be an overweight woman. From the injury of insults shouted by teenage boys, to the pain of not fitting into plus-sized pantyhose to the horror on a friend's face when she says she's in love with him, Moore tells it all. Still, in the first third of the book, I found her to be a mean, unlikeable narrator.

When Moore begins talking about her childhood, however, I couldn't stop reading. It was heartbreaking. Sad. And undeniably compelling. She endured a bleak childhood, unloved by her mother and abandoned by her father. Starved for love, she turned to food. If that sounds cliche, she offers other - more disturbing - examples of how emotionally scarred she was:

I began to chew my fingernails. I turned into a voracious eater whose meal was herself. I ripped and I tore at the flesh around my child nails; I licked, delicately and hungrily, at the blood that popped up in bright droplets at my chubby fingers' ends. I ate myself raw. (123)

The majority of the book reads like this, describing how lonely and painful she was as a child. The only glimmers of happiness in her life are imagined or real, but short-lived. She talks about the months she lived with her kind uncle, a joyous respite that was cut short when her cancer-stricken grandmother came to live with him. Life in the once happy house soon turned terrifying for young Judith, who had to sit by her mean-spirited Grammy, listening to the woman whimper, "I hurt" and "I don't want to die."

I hoped things would look up for Judith, but they didn't. She grew from an unhappy girl into an unhappy woman. In the book's forward, Moore promises not to sugar coat anything. And she doesn't. She swears, "Rockettes will not arrive on the final page and kick up their high heels and show their petticoats" (2-3), and they don't. Fat Girl does not have a nice, triumphant ending. What it does have is truth, truth so real that it hurts.

Judith Moore's writing is interesting. I mentioned that she isn't a warm and engaging storyteller. She is frank. She is honest. But, she is also coldly matter-of-fact. Her sentences are often awkward, like this one: "Uncle Carl, I don't know where he was, but we were not having the family meal with him" (176). In contrast, she offers brutal, but strong descriptions like this one about her maternal grandmother:

She was the Nazi of the barnyard, entirely businesslike in these procedures, and it seemed not to bother her when blood soaked her apron and blood dried in splotches on her bare arms and legs and in the folds of her neck. "If you want to eat you got to kill," she said, when I ran in fright from her.

You can see how ambivalent I am about this book. In one way, it is repulsive in its revelations of hate and abuse (and in several descriptions of sexual acts); in another, it is both compelling and moving. It is well-written in some respects, not so much in others. I couldn't stop reading, but I don't think I would have finished the book if I hadn't chosen it for the Triple 8 Challenge. I'm not even sure if I would recommend it to a friend. Is it angry? Yes. Is it disturbing? Yes. Is it riveting? Absolutely. Am I encouraging you to read it? Not really. I wish I could be more decisive, but I just can't. It's deeply disturbing, utterly heartbreaking, and absolutely riveting.

Grade: C

Don't you hate it when you love a book, and Hollywood announces it's making a film based on the story? You wonder if the writers/actors/producers will do justice to the words and characters that swept you away when you read the book. You cringe to think of the many, many ways Hollywood could alter - or even destroy - the work you love so dearly.

This is why I watched Stardust (the movie based on Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name) with so much anxiety. I loved the book. It was charming, magical and sweet. I hoped the movie would be the same, and that I would adore it as much as I did the book. But, I just ... didn't. Don't get me wrong - I didn't hate the film, I just didn't like it as much as I wanted to. Somehow, it lacked the magic of the book.

On the Plus Side: I did like Charlie Cox as Tristran. I thought he was loveable, with the right mix of vulnerability and inner strength. I also thought Michelle Pfeiffer was well cast as Lamia, the hag. Also, the movie, on the whole, succeeded in being whimsical and lighthearted, which was one of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much.

On the Other Hand: For some reason, I wasn't impressed with Claire Danes as Yvaine. She just seemed awkward in her role. I also think she and Charlie lacked chemistry. Some of the minor characters irritated me as well, especially the dead princes. However, I loathed what the filmmakers did to the kindly pilot, Captain Alberic. They turned him into Captain Shakespeare, a blubbering, cross-dressing fool (Robert DeNiro's most humiliating role since Jack Byrnes in Meet the Parents/Fockers). Ugh.

In general, the movie was disappointing. I really, really thought I would love it and I think I would have if Hollywood had stuck closer to Gaiman's original words and characters. Taking the Gaiman out of the story just took away the magic for me. What did the rest of you think?

My daughter had a birthday party last night, which forced me to finally get all my Christmas decorations down (yes, I do know that it is January 12). My husband suggested we leave our 12-foot tree up and just decorate it with pictures of our daughter; the fact that I actually considered this is a testament to how unenergetic I've been feeling lately! Anyway, as part of my Christmas clean-up, I removed all the books from my living room shelves (they are about 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide) and dusted my little brains out. I told my kids the faster they got the books down, the faster we could go to their school book fair (which, of course, resulted in even more books to shelve). My point is, when I got all of the books back into their proper places, I realized that I had no room for anymore! I couldn't believe it. This was after I plucked about 10 volumes off to donate to the library/add to my Book Mooch inventory.


Now, I know a lot of you resolved not to buy more books this year and I did, too, kind of. However, I have found a better solution. Instead of purchasing fewer books, I'm buying new bookshelves! Actually, my favorite handyman is going to build them into the master bedroom. Floor to ceiling shelves will line the north and south walls of the room; hubby gets the north wall (on his side of the bed) and I get the south (on my side). I'm so giddy about this I can hardly contain myself. Of course, my exercise bike will have to find a new home, buy hey, I have my priorities, right?