| The Calcutta Chromosome ~ Amitav Ghosh |
[Oct. 1st, 2009|05:09 pm] |
This book hooked me from page one, and didn't let me down. It's the most suspenseful story I've read in a while, full of conspiracy and Illuminati and sci-fi technology and history. Published in 1995, it's set in the near future, and 1995, and the end of the nineteenth century. It reminded me of Snow Crash and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence and maybe even The Da Vinci Code if I'd read it (which I didn't), only in India, and with malaria. Oh, also? It's more William Gibson than William Gibson himself. (Only in India instead of Japan. And with malaria.) The Ava/IIe computer (character?) is one Gibsonesque piece of technology; there are a few others. This book is extremely fun - pure page-turning escapism, and a perfect example of a "wild ride" (see this journal's user info). If Ghosh's other books are anything like this one, I'm a groupie for life. |
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| Unaccustomed Earth ~ Jhumpa Lahiri |
[Sep. 24th, 2009|05:03 pm] |
I picked this up thinking it was a novel, but it's another book of short stories by Lahiri. I barely remember Interpreter of Maladies, which I read when we lived in Japan; I just remember that I loved it enough to give to a friend so she could enjoy it, too. (Bringing books here wasn't an option. As when we moved from Texas to Japan, only rare books survived, with beloved re-read paperbacks being given away or sold.) But I do remember thinking of Interpreter of Maladies that Lahiri wrote the way I always wanted to. Sentimental and nostalgic, full of longing, hopeful and hopeless. Storms of emotion. The plots of the stories aren't lacking at all - they have beginnings, middles, and ends - but nothing out of the ordinary needs to happen for the reader to be drawn in to the characters' worlds.
So no shootings, no stabbings, no outrunning the law, no tight situations. Just real life, which is rife enough with tragedy and regret and missed opportunities. These eight stories are about relationships. Father and daughter, mother and daughter, brother and sister, husband and wife, house mates. The other central theme of the book (given away in the title) is of children growing up in America with Indian parents, a cultural divide preventing the generations from ever understanding each other (making Lahiri a Bengali Amy Tan, I guess). The last three stories follow two childhood friends into adulthood and middle age, as their lives intersect and then part again, the reader breathlessly waiting for them to quit missing each other, and unite for good. I was taken by complete surprise by the ending, somehow, though all the clues were in the symbolism, foreshadowing the outcome all along.
I've lazily tagged this book with the "India books" tag, but most of the characters are more American than Indian, and only two pages of action occur in Calcutta. Calcutta is always there, though, its name dropped in every story, as a memory, as an idea. Contrast. Context. |
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| Madinah: City Stories From The Middle East ~ Joumana Haddad, editor |
[Sep. 22nd, 2009|06:50 pm] |
Madinah is a collection of ten short stories from ten middle eastern cities, edited by Joumana Haddad, the author of the story set in Beirut and the only female author of the ten. All but two of the stories are translated from the original Arabic, Turkish, or Hebrew.
Each of the ten stories centers around loneliness or some kind of loss, most of the protagonists missing someone they never had, instead of someone who went away. Least tortured are Istanbul's "The Award" by Nedim Gursel,, Akka's "The Passport" (Ala Hlehel) and Dubai's "The Week Before The Wife Arrived" (Fadwa al-Qasem). In "The Award", an award winning author is back in Istanbul for the first time since violent riots separated him from his girlfriend. "The Passport" centers around a man about to journey to Britain from Akka when war reaches his city, rendering his trip impossible; the reader shares his denial, his desperate criminal act, and his resignation to reality. In "The Week Before The Wife Arrived", a Jordanian man copes with the staleness of his marriage by playing while the wife is away.
The other stories are sadder still. Tel Aviv's "Meningitis" (Yitzhak Laor) mourns a soldier who wasn't who people thought (and wasn't who the reader thought, either), through the eyes of the mentally ill only son of a military-obsessed father. Alexandria's "Midnight on the Outside" (Gamal al-Ghitani) follows a young man to a new city, leaving his seaside small town (and a woman he loves) for employment, only to realize, broken, that he can never go back to her or his family. "There’s No Room for a Lover in this City" by Yousef al-Mohaimeed is set in Riyadh, where men may not meet with women, and if they try, they may not recognize them through the niqab, so a man regresses to childhood animism and falls in love with an object instead. In Latakia ("City of Crimson," Nabil Sulayman) acts of violence and terrorism rob a man of his ability to love his wife and daughter, to recognize any emotion than hatred. In Elias Farkouh's "Amman’s Birds Sweep Low", adults can explore and play together like they did when they were children, but when reality kicks in, their social classes divide them. In "The Reality and the Record," by Hassan Blasim, an Iraqi ambulance driver seeks refuge after being kidnapped and released by insurgents. His story was written for him when he was forced to appear in broadcast messages to the Americans, and now he must rewrite it for the officials who can give him a new life.
My favorite was "Living it Up (and Down) in Beirut", written by the editor, Joumana Haddad. The story is one of war and sex and passion and girlish dreams (and loneliness, again) but the language and style of the story telling is poetic and literary. We get to read Haddad's original words, as this is one of the only stories in the collection written in English and not requiring translation, so there isn't much of a filter between the author's pen and the reader's eyes. I read "Living it Up (and Down) in Beirut" first, because when I opened the book to the middle in the bookstore, it drew me in, but I would have read it last if I'd realized Haddad was miles ahead of the others in terms of maturity and talent. |
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| City of Glass: Douglas Coupland's Vancouver |
[Jul. 26th, 2009|03:51 pm] |
Douglas Coupland writes characters. The setting is already written - Vancouver. This beautiful collection of essays about Vancouver's architecture, wildlife, terrain, and people makes me want to visit Vancouver more than ever. It perfectly matches the settings of jPod, the film Everything's Gone Green, and many of his other works, and includes passages from Polaroids From The Dead and Life After God. If you're a Coupland fan who hasn't read this book - read it. |
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| The Banana Tree Crisis ~ Isankya Kodithuwakku |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|01:23 pm] |
I bought this book of short stories because I so enjoyed a collection called Zillij by another female Sri Lankan author, Ameena Hussein. I wasn't disappointed. Published six years after Hussein's Zillij, in Kodithuwakku's The Banana Tree Crisis we find a new set social issues to explore, among the web of civil war, immigration and repatriation, and religion: The Tsunami, the families displaced or ripped apart by it, and the effects of its aftermath on gender roles.
The first story, after which the collection is named, is a humorous one. One neighbor, a Sri Lankan, wants to cut down an old banana tree, while another neighbor, an American, fights to save it. He tries to take the issue to court, but his lawyer laughs. "Oh, you know, the serpent could be the terrorists and your neighbour is Sri Lanka and you're the US telling Sri Lanka to go for peace talks instead of war!"
The next four stories are poignant and thoughtful, with "The Cricket Match" being perhaps the collections best example of the short story form. Each story paints an extremely vivid picture of the aspect of Sri Lankan life it captures, but most of them seem to wrap up before they're finished, with the plot summarized at the end. Most Kodithuwakku's stories read like they'd be great novels, as if she condensed them or published outlines of novels as short stories. One of her "short" stories is fifty pages long.
In the last two stories of this collection of seven, "Buffer Zone" and "Shallow Canoes," the men of the families have lost their sources of livelihood, leaving them unequipped, depressed, and ineffectual. In "Shallow Canoes," a women's organization from Australia arrives on a devastated peninsula to empower the local women by giving them (and only them) fishing boats. Some women discover news sides to themselves, while others suffer domestic violence at the hands of their husbands, who feel unable to be the heroes they believe they should be.
The back of the book jacket says of Kodithuwakku, "She hopes the reader will appreciate these stories and prove wrong her parents' prediction of the dire future she faces as a writer rather than a mathematician." I can't speak for her future as a mathematician, but Kodithuwakku certainly has a bright future as not just a writer, but perhaps as well a journalist or activist.
This book and others can be purchased at http://www.vijithayapa.com. (Direct link here) |
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| Digging to America ~ Anne Tyler |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|07:40 pm] |
I was so ready to be judgmental about this novel.
Firstly, it came free with purchase of a women's magazine - I was on a layover when my plans fell through, and I was without a book. The shop in the hotel had only magazines, some of which were wrapped with complimentary "beach reading" paperbacks. The other reason I was so prepared to be harsh was that an author with a name like "Anne Tyler" had written main characters that are Korean and Iranian. I assumed the characters would be shallow and stereotyped.
A few pages in, I had to admit to myself that my review would read, "It wasn't bad. I sort of liked it."
By the second chapter, I was hooked on this beautiful, beautiful story. Two sets of childless parents decide to grow their families by adopting babies from Korea. The families meet for the first time when the baby girls arrive on the same flight to Baltimore, and become as close as one family. That is, they share all the agony and obligation and loss that family members endure together, with very little of the careless fun that mere friends are permitted to enjoy. Next thing they know, it's love. Family isn't blood lines or DNA or physical traits. Family is love.
And Anne Tyler can write some characters, alright. I will be seeking out her novels in the future. |
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| Transmission ~ Hari Kunzru |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|03:43 am] |
Recommended to anybody who liked Coupland's Microserfs or jPod.
I don't want to say too much about the story, because it was a little too predictable at times, and I would hate to spoil it for you. I'm sure you like being surprised as much as I do. 'Course, I have a near-superhero ability to foresee story arcs and endings.
I expected something more epic, like Kunzru's The Impressionist. (I've never written about The Impressionist here. I wonder why?) Transmission is quicker, more playful. I love the last page.
A blurb on the cover compares it to Zadie Smith and Chuck Palahniuk. Hm. |
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| 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth ~ Xiaolu Guo |
[May. 29th, 2009|03:37 pm] |
A few pages into this book, I was reminded of Douglas Coupland. Plausible but unbelievable causes and effects, interspersed with photographs that don't seem to have much to do with the story; a story within the story that is penned by the narrator; onslaughts of colorful relevance; and many, many quotable passages that you just want to underline or read out loud to somebody.
Halfway through reading it, I finally looked at the back cover and noticed a blurb comparing 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth to Generation X. So there you are.
This is a very entertaining and quick read, painting a vivid picture of life as a "ravenous" nobody in Beijing. As a narrative, it is accurately summed up in the title: Fragments. It's a story that started before the first page, and is nowhere near finished by the last.
In the acknowledgments, the author tells us about the challenge of translating a book she'd written in Chinese ten years earlier. Not only was she critical of her own work and dying to change it completely, but the modern Beijing of ten years ago was no longer modern at all. I've only been to Beijing a handful of times, but I think she (and her translators) nailed it.
It's good. I liked it. |
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| Five Point Someone ~ Chetan Bhagat |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|10:40 pm] |
This is Bhagat's debut novel, and while it isn't the worst book I've ever read, it's incredibly amateur.
( I blame the editor rather than the author... )
There was some good suspenseful action near the end ("The Longest Day of My Life, parts I through VI"), which makes me think it would be a decent film. The cover of the printing in my hands claims Five Point Someone is "soon to be a major film by director Ritesh Sinha," but I guess that never happened. And according to Wikipedia, an upcoming film called Three Idiots (starring Aamir Khan) is "rumoured to be loosely based on a famous novel, Five Point Someone by Indian writer Chetan Bhagat, though it is denied by [director] Hirani."
(Oh, with this entry I debut my "debut novel" tag. Later I'll go back and tag debut novel articles I've posted in the past.) |
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| Tabitha On Her Own ~ Quinn Collard |
[Apr. 9th, 2009|07:57 am] |
(For the sake of full disclosure, the author is my friend. I have to mention this, because I'm about to say a lot of good things about this book, and I don't want to be like those people who review their friends' books on Amazon and pretend to be impartial critics while cheerleading for the book in ambiguous terms that make one wonder whether the reviewer even read the book.)
I think this is a perfect book. It's historical fiction for a young adult target readership, written, edited, and published by Ms. Collard herself.
It's smart and sensitive, and the characters somehow are excellent role models without it ever feeling forced. There is no writing "down" to a young audience. The characters are complex and believable, without any stereotypes or cliches. I don't mention this because this is Collard's first book. I bring it up because there is a great deal of writing "for girls" out there that fails not to condescend, with "teenage girl" characters where there should be "real people" characters. And although romantic love makes an excellent subplot in any story, so much writing for women and girls features boyfriend acquisition as the resolution of the story. This book gets it right.
First of all, the setting is vivid and captivating - it's wartime, and everybody is missing a brother, boyfriend, husband, or father who is "over there." News of the war comes by telephone, letter, or newsreel. With Tabitha, the reader sees 1944's America from every angle - at home, on farms, in trains, in hospitals, at social events, and at Vassar College. The details are sharp and consistent, and showcase the care that Collard took to construct a historically accurate world for her characters.
Then there's Tabitha. She's a smart girl from a loving family, and while she's never been spoiled, we can tell that she had a pretty easy life before the war started. Now she's growing up and leaving home, and losing her innocence as she discovers how hard life can be. Everywhere she looks, somebody is going through something rough. Sex is now on her radar, and so is mental illness. For the first part of the story, we're with her on a farm, driving tractors and spinning wool for the war effort. Then she starts university, and starts discovering what kind of person she is growing up to be. The most important theme in the young adult genre - fitting in - is explored with depth and maturity.
As for the writing itself, it couldn't be better. The story is always moving forward, without getting caught up in dry exposition. Dialogue between characters is balanced (and often fun). Scenes and chapters open and close exactly where they should. The ups and downs of Tabitha's year are interesting and kept me turning the pages. And I even had to use a dictionary a few times. Quinn Collard has a great future as a novelist.
(Obviously, I would love it if you supported Ms. Collard by buying her book. You can order Tabitha On Her Own here, at Quinn Collard's Lulu store. I know some of you would really like it, and I bet all of you can think of a friend or family member who'd like to receive it as a gift.) |
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| The Middleman and Other Stories ~ Bharati Mukherjee |
[Apr. 9th, 2009|05:19 am] |
This collection stands for everything good about the short story form - the microscopic view of an individual's transformation (or stasis) in a crystallized moment in a gritty, Cheeverian* world. I definitely will read more by Bharati Mukherjee.
The common thread is immigration, from different parts of the world, to different parts of the world (but largely to the USA and Canada). Mukherjee takes us through initial journey, homesickness and culture shock, youth, aging, fitting in, earning a living, repatriation, and relationships. The last story, The Management of Grief, revolves around the aftermath of Air India Flight 182.
( *Mukherjee uses the word 'Cheeverian' in this longish quotation behind the cut ) |
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| Sister of My Heart ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
[Mar. 14th, 2009|11:26 am] |
So ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nativeinformant instructed me not to read Mistress of Spices, which did nothing but pique my curiosity, Ms. Informant, especially after I read a summary of it. But I resisted it when I saw it in a used book shop, and instead picked up Sister of My Heart.
Know what? I really liked it!
I thought the writing was solid, and the story was a good one (if a little frustrating because of all the longing and secrets and sorrow and tragedy). I quickly cared for the vivid characters, and I wasn't put off or distracted at all by the alternating (first person, chapter by chapter) point of view. Gods and goddesses leap from every page, without becoming cartoon-like or cliche. I did predict the twist midway, but the ending wasn't spoiled for it.
Throughout the book, I kept remembering a conversation I had a couple of years ago with my husband and a Bengali friend, about The Namesake. My husband was saying of the characters, "What's wrong with these people? Why are they so intense?" and my friend explained, "Bengali culture is very sad." Those words kept coming to me, as Anju and Sudha experienced heartbreak again and again. Bengali Culture is Very Sad.
And apparently, Bengali men are sickeningly romantic and sentimental, if the characters in this book are believable. Adult men behaving like crushy preteen girls, pining and waiting forever and treasuring little mementos. I don't buy it, but it's sweet. In the end, though, this book has nothing to do with romantic love - it's sisterly love, with a heaping side of female empowerment. It's beautiful.
Postscript: I was also warned by nativeinformant not to read Bharati Mukherjee, but I didn't realize it until after I'd bought The Middleman and Other Stories. I can't find it now, and I think I might have left it in California last week. |
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| The White Tiger ~ Aravind Adiga |
[Mar. 4th, 2009|11:49 am] |
Poll #1359621 The White Tiger
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 2How well did you like The White Tiger? Why did you pick it up? What did (or didn't) you like about it? Incidentally, care (optionally) to share your gender? |
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| The Gum Thief ~ Douglas Coupland |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|11:59 am] |
Douglas Coupland wants you to write more, and he wants you to do it by hand. From handwritten letters to your first novel, he'll show you how to do it - just write.
I do some writing myself, and recently I asked myself why I write the same characters over and over. Answer: Because I like them! And I don't mind if each of Coupland's characters is the same person (presumably himself) because I like them, too. The two protagonists of The Gum Thief are very different people, but over the first few pages, the line between them is deliberately blurred; it's a literary device, and it's the starting gun that kicks off the story.
A while ago, I read a collection of John Cheever stories, in each of which couples drink and ruin their lives. Coupland must have read the same collection, judging by the broken souls populating The Gum Thief, which has more Cheever references than you can shake a swizzle stick at.
I read this book over a year ago, and believe it or not, I held off posting a review of it until I had a camera so I could show you pictures of it.
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| The Secret History ~ Donna Tartt |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|11:00 am] |
"The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation...."
It's a thriller, a page-turner, whatever. It's Tartt's flawlessly narrated first novel, and it's so absorbing. It's about six college students in New England who are so immersed in their studies of ancient Greek classics that they don't even know man has walked on the moon, and think that the four humors are fundamentals of medicine. Every now and then, they stumble into the present, and that's fun for the reader, who becomes as cloistered as the characters. I'm happy if a book has either a perfect story or an engaging style, and this one has both. I'd recommend it to anybody. |
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| Trout ~ Colin Bacon |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|09:57 am] |
I borrowed this from ttmooney and read it in May of 2008. He was right: Firstly, "it doesn't have a single redeeming character," and secondly, "it's actually pretty good." |
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| The End of Alice ~ A. M. Homes |
[Aug. 7th, 2008|11:39 am] |
The End of Alice is my new favorite book that I can't recommend to anybody. It's horror (which I like okay) and tragedy (which I love, when it's fictional) and very literary and beautiful, but I will never scrub the images from my mind. Especially the images from the last two pages; maybe reading them repeatedly, even the next day, didn't help. The End of Alice explores every taboo and pushes it to its furthest extent, which is fun for a while. Eventually the story moves out of shocking territory into something more pure and sweet - but the reader has been warned, prepared.
Here are a couple of quotations from the jacket blurbs:
"Alice makes Nabokov's Lolita seem like Leave It to Beaver and Capote's In Cold Blood like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm..."
"Alice cannot be tossed off as another American Psycho..." |
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| I Like You (Hospitality Under the Influence) ~ Amy Sedaris |
[Feb. 25th, 2008|02:05 am] |
I Like You is the most random book I have ever read - a guide to entertaining and party planning, including highlights on how to entertain gypsies, thespians, the elderly, and oneself. Not to mention more occurrences of the word "vagina" than any Martha Stewart book I've read.
Amy Sedaris offers a lot of useful advice on decorating, preparing hors doeuvres, and keeping the pantry and medicine chest stocked for suprise get-togethers. I laughed out loud at her tips for entertaining gay men and her how-to about putting on pantyhose. ("4. Put your toes into the toe pocket and begin gently pulling hose up toward your knee. If you are applying knee-highs, you're done.")
There are scads of recipes, many of which look really appealing (Captain's Mouthwatering Bite-Size Blue Ball Cheese Balls), and some of which are just silly. ("Barbecue it somehow." "Bake. I don't know at what temperature or for how long." Or, "Jerri's Hot Fruit. Heat can of fruit on stove...")
For such a great reference book, I would appreciate an index. In the edition I have, there's no easy way to look up any one of those great cheese ball recipes, or the step-by-step instructions for making a map of Alaska out of salt, or the step-by-step instructions for washing my vagina. |
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