1. When I read somewhere that Lynn Shepherd set her novel, Tom-All-Alone's, in about the year 1850 and riffed on characters, settings, and plot details from Bleak House and The Woman in White, I decided to read all three books. Today I finished Shepherd's book and completed reading all three novels.
It turns out that Lynn Shepherd also, anachronistically, riffed on Jack the Ripper. Introducing a serial murderer into her tale underscored what fueled this entire novel: Lynn Shepherd imagined the worst that might be true about some of the characters in the novels she drew from and delved really deeply into the squalor and depravity of 1850s Victorian London and told a story with scenes depicting a variety of crimes, abuses, and morbid deeds that sickened me.
So, on a visceral level, the novel disturbed me. Intellectually, the novel intrigued me in that Lynn Shepherd out-Dickensed Dickens, especially as she delves deeper than Dickens did into just how debased she imagines Mr. Tulkinghorn to be and she creates a character named Mr. Jarvis who is a perverted version of Dickens' John Jarndyce. So what intrigued me? When I read Bleak House, I, too, imagined Mr. Tulkinghorn capable of bottomless evil. Lynn Shepherd fleshed this out. I also feared, when Dickens first introduced John Jarndyce in Bleak House, that he was going to turn out to be a creepy character. He wasn't in Dickens' book, but Lynn Shepherd imagined a Darth Jarndyce, named him Jarvis, and developed what you might call Jarndyce's evil twin.
I enjoy writing about how I experience books and movies. I do not enjoy making recommendations. I know that from reading online reviews of Tom-All-Alone's that some readers had a similar experience reading the book that I had. It disturbed them. Others found excitement in what disturbed me and one reviewer even referred to us who were unsettled as "scaredy cats"! Ha! I plead guilty!
So, I'm happy I followed through with reading all three books. I can see myself returning to Bleak House and The Woman in White, but I seriously doubt I'll ever read Tom-All-Alone's again.
2. I made a quick trip to Yoke's for a few items, including walnuts that Debbie needed in order to make a batch of pesto. She chopped up the bunch of arugula Liz gave her and some cilantro (instead of the traditional basil) and food processed it with olive oil, walnuts, grated parmesan cheese, and garlic (I might have left something out). I made us a pot of penne. Our pasta with pesto dinner was superb.
3. Debbie and I enjoyed an uplifting and entertaining close to our evening by watching three episodes from the first season of Monk. Debbie has watched the entire Monk canon, but I only saw episodes on occasion when I visited Mom. Mom and I enjoyed Monk a lot. Tonight was awesome. Watching Tony Shaloub got me interested in watching again the first (I think) two movies I ever saw him in: Big Night and Galaxy Quest. I'm wondering if those movies will have a similar scintillating impact on me in my sixties that they did when I first saw them in my forties. I hope to find out before too long.
Guess whose day it is today? Stu writes a limerick about this mythical character:
Tall Tales are just stories with “more”!
With folks we have come to adore.
The largest of these,
With mighty axe did cut trees.
And whose exploits were never a bore.
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