Retro Reads discussion

Spoilers are okay here, but if you include spoilers be sure to uncheck the 'add to my update feed box'.

Thanks to everyone who asked for a link to my Pinterest Trade Wind board. I've put it here because there may be spoiler pictures for first time readers of the book:

https://www.pinterest.com/hanneybean/...

Hope you enjoy!

Excellent idea, Hannah! I know everyone will enjoy your board.

Hannah, I love your pinterest board. It's so evocative! Have you done boards for other books?

Nice pinterest board Hanna.

I'm almost done and found this just as good as the first time. The horrors of slavery and the slave trade - I have no words. And that it was such a common fact of life and not much could be done about it, despite Hero's sometime foolish and naive attempts to fix the world.

And the cholera epidemic and the lost children!

I did find this in the back of my 1960s edition I had to share:

M.M. Kayes is the great-niece of Sir John Kaye, the eminent Victorian biographer and author of the standard history of the Indian Mutiny, The Sepoy War. M.M. Kaye herself spent a considerable amount of time in India, both as a child and later with her husband who is a regular soldier. She has written a number of detective novels, but her best-known book Shadow of the Moon is a historical novel about the Indian Mutiny.

I'm thinking The Far Pavilions hadn't been written yet. I see of a list of her books at the start of my edition, and couple I hadn't heard of before. Off to investigate.

Well this is interesting. See my comment above about books listed in my edition of Kaye's that I'd never heard of. According to the Amazon listings (taken with a grain of salt, of course) I come up with this:

Later than you think is AKA as Death in Kenya

House of Shade looks like a three in one of her mysteries. Amazon.

Night on the Island is the same as Death in the Adamans

I would so like to see some of the older covers. No luck so far.

Nice discovery on the books, Misfit. I had never heard of these other names.

Jaima wrote: "Hannah, I love your pinterest board. It's so evocative! Have you done boards for other books?"

Thank you Jaima.
Yes, I've created Pinterest boards for "Thornyhold" by Mary Stewart, "West with the Night" by Beryl Markham, "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" by R. A. Dick and "Rebecca" by Daphne duMaurier. It's fun to try and visualize my favorite novels through photos.

Misfit wrote: "Well this is interesting. See my comment above about books listed in my edition of Kaye's that I'd never heard of. According to the Amazon listings (taken with a grain of salt, of course) I come up..."

House of Shade is the same as Death in Zanzibar.

I'd like to read House of Shades/Death in Zanzibar now. It was interesting reading in the afterword that it references Rory Frost as an ancestor of one of the characters in that book, and Kaye decided his story needed to be told. Somehow that made me feel a little more kindly toward Rory.

I did appreciate the nuanced view of the whole slavery problem, but I thought Kaye whitewashed it somewhat as far as the "good owners" and guys like Rory who avoided the worst treatment of the slaves. I just don't think slavery is ever benign, even when the slaves are treated well.

Also interesting to me was how Hero felt the evil in the treasure room. I don't buy into the cursed treasure idea myself, but I liked the idea here. And I think Hero and Rory will be better off without it anyway; it's not like they're hurting for funds.

And could those two really find lasting happiness together? I'm just not convinced. Clearly Hero has forgiven the rape, but Rory's thoughts about their differences on the last page are spot-on.

I didn't realize there was a tie in to Death in Zanzibar. My edition doesn't have an afterwards.

I will definitely be reading more of Kaye's works.

Kathy wrote: "I will definitely be reading more of Kaye's works."

She's the best. One thing I did forget to mention, and one I've taken away from each of her historical novels. Eastern and western mindsets will never see eye to eye, and it's unfortunate we don't learn from history's lessons.

Yes, she does point that out.

Misfit, I think you're completely on target about the East-West theme.

I wonder if she may also be suggesting that when Western colonialists 'go native', like Rory, they risk losing or destroying everything that makes European/North American civilization distinctive or worthwhile?

And then there is the whole theme of Western naivete, as embodied by the European and American women who become useful idiots, aiding and abetting a palace coup. ugh!

Misfit wrote: "I didn't realize there was a tie in to Death in Zanzibar. My edition doesn't have an afterwards."

Neither did I when first read it in Chinese. I only "read" the postscripts in the audio book version 2 weeks ago, and was wondering what exactly House of Shadow was. Thanks for the information. :)

BTW I enjoy her autobiography very much! Sadly only the third vol. was published in digital form, which is the only format fit for me as I'm in Asia (Taiwan) and couldn't access printed copies easily.

I love that Pinterest board, Hannah--and you're right about Edward Fox as Rory!

Misfit wrote: "Well this is interesting. See my comment above about books listed in my edition of Kaye's that I'd never heard of. According to the Amazon listings (taken with a grain of salt, of course) I come up..."

Hi Misfit -- if you follow this link, there are great shots of M. M. Kaye's book covers that will help hunt down some of the older editions.
http://www.mmkaye.com/

Joanne wrote: "Misfit wrote: "Well this is interesting. See my comment above about books listed in my edition of Kaye's that I'd never heard of. According to the Amazon listings (taken with a grain of salt, of co..."

Very nice website, Joanne. Thank you for posting. So many book covers and other info.

Nice find Joanne, thank you.

I just read this online short story yesterday, The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While. It's a whimsical fantasy, but it starts out with a delightful metaphor about history being like a cat. It seems apropos to Trade Wind, somehow. Or maybe I just love this so much I want to share it. :) Anyway, for your reading pleasure, here are the first few paragraphs of that story:

"History is a funny little creature. Do you remember visiting your old Aunt that autumn when the trees shone so very yellow, and how she owned a striped and unsocial cat, quite old and fat and wounded about the ears and whiskers, with a crooked, broken tail? That cat would not come to you no matter how you coaxed and called; it had its own business, thank you, and no time for you. But as the evening wore on, it would come and show some affection or favor to your Aunt, or your Father, or the old end-table with the stack of green coasters on it. You couldn’t predict who that cat might decide to love, or who it might decide to bite. You couldn’t tell what it thought or felt, or how old it might really be, or whether it would one day, miraculously, decide to let you put one hand, very briefly, on its dusty head.

History is like that.

Of course, unlike your Aunt’s cat, history is going on all around you, all the time, and is often quite lively. Sometimes it rests in a sunbeam for a peaceful century or two, but on the whole, history is always plotting, and it bites very hard. It stalks around the world, fickle and dissatisfied and often angry. It demands to be fed just a little earlier each day, until you find yourself carving meat from the bone as fast as you can, faster than you thought possible, just to satisfy it. Some people have a kind of marvelous talent for calming it and enticing it onto their laps. To some it will never even spare a glance.

No matter where one begins telling a story, a very long road stretches out before and behind, full of wild and lovely creatures performing feats and acts of daring. No matter how much a narrator might want to, she cannot pack all of them into one tale. That’s the trouble—history goes on all around the story at hand, it is what made it happen and what will happen after, all of those extraordinary events and folk and dangers and near-misses, choices that had to be made so that everything after could happen as it did. A single story is but one square of blueberries growing in one plot, on one farm, on the fertile face of the whole world. A heroine steps in, and sees a wickedness in need of solving—but she is never the first, or the last. She plays her part, blessedly and necessarily innocent of that fat old cat sneaking around the borders of her tale, licking its paws while she bleeds and fights, whipping its tail at her trials and yawning at her triumphs. The cat does not care. It has seen all this before and will see it again."

Tadiana wrote: "And could those two really find lasting happiness together? I'm just not convinced. Clearly Hero has forgiven the rape, but Rory's thoughts about their differences on the last page are spot-on.
"

Finally read it. I've neglected every single thing I planned to do today for this. I have to agree with you on this, Tadiana. At the end of the book I was left with that strange nagging feeling of...."hmmmm"...that's the only way I can describe it at the moment. That and the thing about the rape scene which I explained in the thread for chapters 27-31 are the only reasons I gave the book 4 stars. I loved everything else about it, even the development of their relationship (regardless the rape and the dubious end) and as you know it kept me up half a night. :D

Tadiana wrote: "I just read this online short story yesterday, The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While. It's a whimsical fantasy, but it starts out with a delightful metaphor about histor..."

I admire Valente's style and imagination. She tells beautiful stories that might be even more breathtaking along with illustrations. But she does much better work with short stories than novels. I actually struggled to finish the first of The Orphan's tale.

I've only read this one short story by Valente and one novel by her, but I do agree that for me her whimsical style of writing worked much better in the short story format than in a full-length novel.

Yes, I've created Pinterest boards for "Thornyhold" by Mary Stewart, "..."

I'm going to have to read all of those now, just so I can enjoy your boards!

Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ wrote: "I just read this online short story yesterday, The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While. It's a whimsical fantasy, but it starts out with a delightful metaphor about histor..."

Tadiana, that's soooo perfect! People don't seem to understand that every moment of every life is "history", and this explains it beautifully!

I just finished (you know, six years after you all up above), and although there are parts (the rape was ... inexplicable, I think, to me) that I could have done without, all in all it was what I'd call a very good example of a what a historical novel ought to be. What did I know about Zanzibar before I read this? Very little. I'm glad to have learned something this week.

And I'm thinking it was also a very timely read, as we're still in the middle of the Covid pandemic mess.

It's been fun reading your thoughts, Karlyne. Thanks for commenting! It's been a few years since I read this one.

I'm going to give Death in Zanzibar a quick read next week, just to get a glimpse of what it was like a few generations later!