Unfinished Portrait

By Anthea Fraser    Copyright 2010

The publisher of this book promotes it as a mystery story, but in reality the story is more similar to a romance, of the soap opera variety. There are mystery elements to the story, and they are moderately engaging, but the dominant soap opera storyline is tedious and boring.

The main character is Rona Parish, who is a newspaper and biography writer. She is apparently in her thirties, although this fact isn't apparent until mid-way through the book. Her character seems more like a woman in her fifties. Rona's husband is an artist, and they have no children.

The story is presented as a third person narrative, so the other characters each have their own story lines. The other main characters include Rona's mother, father, and twin sister.

The mother and father are divorcing, but meanwhile they are each involved in love affairs with other people. The twin sister is also having a love affair. It is a rather revolting element of this book that so much of the story involves these complicated and slightly disreputable relationships while the author attempts to present the characters as saintly individuals. Unfortunately, the narrative for much of the book consists of discussions about these characters and their disreputable relationships. As mentioned earlier, this book is promoted as a mystery story, but three-fourths of it is actually a soap opera about this family and their love affairs.

In addition to all the romances, the characters also spend a tremendous amount of time scheduling get-togethers and meals. There is also an interior decorating and remodeling subplot that keeps surfacing.

The mystery subplot is introduced in the first chapter, but then it is only discussed occasionally until the final chapters. The mystery involves an artist (a painter) who disappeared a year and a half ago, and in the first chapter Rona's publisher contacts Rona with a proposal to write a book about the artist.

The artist was a disagreeable woman and her best friend had apparently committed suicide recently. The artist's family and friends and the suicide victim are moderately interesting characters. Each of these characters have semi-hidden motives against the artist, as well as against each other. Unfortunately, it is difficult to follow the motives of these characters or the facts and clues regarding the artist's life and relationships because the mystery plot scenes are rather few and far between. The plot keeps getting interrupted by Rona's family and their rather seedy love affairs.

The mystery story scenes that are presented in the first part and middle parts of the book make it seem like a rather tame and mundane mystery of the cozy variety. So readers will be surprised at the end of the story to discover that a great art forgery is involved as well as violent murder and kidnapping and attempted poisoning.

The solution to the mystery in the final chapters actually make the book seem a bit schizophrenic. Because until the end of the book, it seemed like a cozy murder mystery, but at the end it attempts to be a great adventure and thriller.

The author may have been trying to offer variety by presenting three genres of stories (mystery, romance, adventure). She may have hoped it would distract readers from the fact the characters are dull, the story tedious, and the conclusion exaggerated. But if that was the case, the author failed because the variety of genres just make this book confusing. So this book is just a waste of time.

Globish

By Robert McCrum    Copyright 2010

The word Globish is a combination of the words Global and English, and the author of this book is attempting to popularize the word. He argues that the English language is becoming the basis of a new worldwide language.

The subtitle of this book is "How the English Language Became the World's Language." However, if readers are looking for a linguistic history of how the English language has developed over the centuries, and how it is changing in our current times, they will be disappointed. This book doesn't deliver what it promises. It barely touches on word and grammar history.  Instead, it is a breezy history of political and social events involving English speaking people. The format is similar to Winston Churchill's book, "A History of the English Speaking Peoples."

The author of Globish begins with a discussion of the origins of England. The history of England began with the fall of the Roman empire.  Then there were invasions by Anglos and Saxons from Germany and Normans from France.  And then there was a migration of England's people to the United States, Australia, and India.

Then after the second world war, when the United States became a world superpower, the English language was spread by American businesses and military to secure it's place as the dominate global language.

The author also discusses the technology of the Internet as another force propelling the spread of the English language. English is the language of the Internet, because the Internet and personal computer's were invented in the United States. The author then ends the book by discussing how English is spreading in China because of trade relationships and economic development.

If readers are interested in linguistic history, this book won't interest them because it is almost entirely about political and social history. But if readers are interested in political and social history, this book still won't interest them because it simply skims over centuries of history from a high level, and also with a highly biased viewpoint.

Readers will know from the start the author is not a serious thinker or academic, because he discusses Barack Obama as though the current American President represents a serious influence on the spread of English. Several times in the book he discusses Barack Obama and always in glowing terms. No serious book on the history of the English language has any need to mention Barack Obama. Also, further proving the hack status of the author is the fact he even manages to work in an insult of Sarah Palin.

This book is too silly to waste any time on. The English language is without doubt an international language, and it will certainly form the basis of future languages. It is similar to Latin in the days of the Roman empire. But this book doesn't contribute anything to understanding the history of the English language or predicting its future.