Tag Archives: Goddess

The Past is Epic

Don Winslow’s City of Dreams is the second installment in the Danny Ryan trilogy. As with City on Fire, the first installment, Winslow continues to be inspired by Homer and Virgil, as he sprinkles quotes from the Iliad and the Aeneid throughout. For example, City of Dreams opens with this from the Aeneid: “Of wars and a man I sing, An exile, driven on by fate.” Referencing these ancient epics might be a gimmick, but it works because the quote describes Danny Ryan as much as it does Aeneas, though I would argue the series, so far, has more in common with the Odyssey. Let me know when I start sounding pompous. Oh, wow, that was fast.

The story opens with a potential bang. It’s 1991 and Danny Ryan is in the California desert. He’s on his knees and someone is holding a gun to his head. So suck it, Homer, that’s how you start an epic. Virgil, meanwhile, is wondering how we got here. Fortunately, there’s a flashback to provide that answer.

Danny and his small crew of Irish mobsters are fleeing Providence, Rhode Island, after losing a gang war to the Italians. His wife has just died of cancer, so his infant son comes with him. His elderly, alcoholic father is along for the ride too. They make it to San Diego doing off-the-books jobs. Life is tough, but at least he’s still alive. Soon a shadowy government figure gives him an opportunity to make some real money – the kind that could provide him a new life. It sounds too good to be true. No one ever gets a new life, right? “You might get a fresh start, a second chance, but your old life stays with you.” Danny should say no but he says yes. And so the story goes until Danny lands in the desert giving the side eye to that pistol.

The futility of trying to escape your past is the major theme here, and many of the characters, at least the ones who didn’t die in City on Fire, return. To the reader’s delight, that includes Danny’s mother. She’s a modern-day goddess who knows the secrets of many powerful people.

Lots of things happen, and lots of poor decisions are made as Danny travels to the desert. His brief foray in the movie business is chief among those poor decisions. To Danny’s great surprise, Hollywood is making a movie of the gang war he barely survived. Anyone who’s seen a Martin Scorsese movie knows Hollywood “gets off” on the “exploits of real-life gangsters.” There’s much humor here, but for Danny there’s also unneeded publicity. More poor decisions are made.

Hollywood is all about reinventing yourself, and Danny tries but he’s no movie star. He runs all the way to the city of dreams to get away from his past, “But nothing is more persistent, more patient, than the past. After all, the past has nothing but time.” City of Dreams is a great read and a welcome installment in the Danny Ryan trilogy. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do; it leaves the reader wanting a third installment.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Victory City – Miracles at Work

Salman Rushdie knows how to tell an engaging story filled with humor and tragedy. He’s done so time and again, and Victory City is the latest addition to his catalogue.

The story opens with the purported recent discovery of an epic poem written by Pampa Kampana in southern India during the 14th century. The narrator is a “spinner of yarns” who retells the story in “plainer language.” The epic begins with an unknown king losing a “no-name” battle. This unlucky king is beheaded by the opposing army. The women in the conquered city are even more unlucky. As tradition demands, these women commit suicide by walking into a bonfire. That’s what Pampa’s mother does – leaving the nine-year old an orphan who must now fend for herself.

After witnessing the mass suicide, Pampa makes a decision. “She would not sacrifice her body merely to follow dead men into the afterworld.” A goddess (also named Pampa) hears this and grants her a blessing that changes young Pampa’s life. She begins to speak with the majestic voice of a goddess and becomes a prophet and miracle worker.

The goddess tells Pampa “you will fight to make sure that no more women are ever burned in this fashion, and that men start considering women in new ways, and you will live just long enough to witness both your success and failure.” That takes 247 years. And sometimes a blessing can be a curse, because 247 years means she will see everyone she loves die.

A few years later Pampa gets hold of magic seeds, and from these seeds Bisnaga (meaning Victory City) grows. In Bisnaga women are free to work at any job they want. The arts are not frivolous. “They are essential to a society’s health and well-being.” But one person’s art is another person’s porn, and every action has a reaction. Each success is countered by religious extremism until the prophecy is finally fulfilled.

No surprises here – Rushdie has personal experience with religious extremism’s brutality, and concerns about religious extremism are as relevant today as ever. So the story is absorbing for that reason alone.

But this is Salman Rushdie, so the story is much more than a battle between feminism and religious patriarchies. It is also about the importance of stories, because even Pampa doesn’t live forever. People die and cities collapse into ruins, but some stories live on. “All that remains is this city of words. Words are the only victors.” But that assumes the stories survive – that books and women aren’t fuel for bonfires.

Remember, Pampa’s poem opens with a forgotten king and a no-name battle. His story did not survive time’s ravages. And it is only through chance that Pampa’s does – after 450 years of silence. According to our “spinner of yarns” the poem was only recently found in a clay pot among ancient ruins.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

The Maidens – Do You Dare Defy a Goddess?

If you like Dan Brown and Paula Hawkins (and many people do, myself included), you will enjoy the first 87% of Alex Michaelides’ The Maidens. It’s a fast-paced suspenseful mystery in the Gothic setting of present-day Cambridge University where the sexy ancient Greek literature professor, Edward Fosca, leads a cult dedicated to the goddess Persephone.

It’s a small cult. Only six of his “special” female students are in it. They are the maidens, and they’re special because they’re super hot. They have strange rituals, and we’re pretty sure R-rated sex is involved.

Tara is a maiden, and she is friends with Zoe. Mariana is Zoe’s aunt. Zoe calls Mariana and tells her she’s scared, but she won’t say why. The following day Tara turns up murdered in such a grisly fashion Hollywood must have directed it.

Mariana jumps on the next train to Cambridge. Meets a clumsy, creepy guy. Then meets Professor Fosca on campus and immediately decides he’s the killer – instead of Clumsy Creepy, who keeps showing up at strange times and odd places. Professor Fosca has an airtight alibi, but Mariana isn’t concerned about that.

So Mariana must be a brilliant detective if she’s going to solve this mystery. Nope. She’s a group therapist. But to be fair, the Cambridge police appear to be on holiday, so Mariana might be the best option. Except she is still mourning her beloved husband. He died a year ago. And she has big-time daddy issues. Does her grief and the trauma of her childhood blind her to the possibility that Professor Fosca is not the killer? While she’s trying to sort that out, two more maidens die ritualistically, and Hollywood officially has a joy boner.

This novel has literary pretensions. There are brief discussions of Euripides’ plays. Every once in a while Tennyson is mentioned. Mr. Michaelides has read a lot of literature, but he’s not interested in writing it. He has a MA in screenwriting, and he is clearly trying to write a Hollywood blockbuster. To his credit, he may have done just enough to have succeeded. Time will tell.

Unfortunately the last 13% of the book is a rushed mess. It will leave you feeling confused and cheated. It seems like Mr. Michaelides was having a good old time writing this book and then realized his deadline was the next day so he hurriedly pasted together an ending. One so implausible Dan Brown would blush. An ending so unsatisfying it just might be a misdemeanor in Virginia.

It’s as if a Greek goddess, perhaps Persephone herself, appeared in his bedroom just before he wrote the final chapters and said here’s your ending. And Mr. Michaelides said this makes no sense. To which Persephone demanded do you dare defy a goddess? He did not.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor