The Still Point

Amy Sackville

The Still Point by Amy Sackville is a powerful debut novel which skillfully weaves together two threads one hundred years apart but linked together by the same family.

One thread involves the escapades of a newly-married Edward Mackley who sets off to reach the North Pole. He never makes it there. He dies on the frozen tundra where his body is discovered sixty years later. Meanwhile, his young wife Emily puts her life on hold, waiting for his return. She waits and waits for Edward to come home.

The second thread involves Julia, Edward’s descendent. One hundred years after Edward’s disappearance, Julia inherits the family home. She is tasked with archiving the belongings of her illustrious ancestors. Julia lives in a fantasy world. She reads Edward’s diary discovered with his body. She reads Emily’s letters to Edward which were never sent. And she spins a vibrant fantasy about their love for each other. Julia goes through the motions of living in the present. But her fantasy constantly intrudes and she finds herself trekking with Edward through blizzards and ice or with Emily living in her brother-in-law’s home while waiting for a husband who never returns. While indulging her fantasies, Julia neglects her husband and her marriage because neither is able to live up to her romantic illusions. When a revelation about Emily punctures her fantasy, Julia finally adopts a realistic attitude toward love and marriage. The novel ends on a hopeful note of reconciliation in her marriage to Simon.

The two interlocking threads are skillfully woven together punctuated with the occasional dream narrative. Sackville dips in and out of each thread and time frame in prose that is lyrical, elegant, and soars like poetry. Her diction and detailed description evoke striking images of the polar landscape, of frost-bitten bodies, and of a house pregnant with relics from the past. Her characters are well-developed and portrayed sympathetically, their complexity revealed through their interactions and thoughts. The narrative shifts from past tense to present tense coupled with an occasional direct address to the reader create a sense of intimacy as she invites us to join her in observing her characters and exploring their surroundings.

The title of the novel, taken from T.S. Eliot’s poem Burnt Norton, conveys layers of meaning. It is the intersection of time where past and current generations meet. It is a house frozen in time, laden with artifacts, relics, documents, and paraphernalia of the past. It is the still point in time for Edward and his men as they trudge across a snow-covered landscape stretching as far as the eye can see, day after day, until time, itself, freezes. It is the still point for Emily who suspends the rest of her life waiting for Edward’s return. And it is the still point for Julia who puts life and marriage in abeyance while she relives the fantasy of Edward and Emily.

The strength of this novel lies in the stunning beauty of the narrative voice. Amy Sackville’s use of immersive detail, the poetry of her diction, her skillful shifts in narrative threads, and her ability to invite the reader to pause with her on a scene is masterful. While the narrative threads in and of themselves are compelling, it is in the telling of the story that Amy Sackville demonstrates her truly exceptional talent.

Very highly recommended.

The Wind That Lays Waste

Selva Almada; translated by Chris Andrews

The Wind That Lays Waste by Selva Almada, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews, is a short novel with a deceptively simple plot where it seems as if very little happens. The narrative describes the events of a single day.

Reverend Pearson, an evangelical preacher, is traveling across rural Argentina preaching the word of God to whoever is willing to listen. He travels with his daughter, Leni. After their car breaks down on a deserted highway, they are towed to the workshop of Gringo Brauer, a mechanic. Gringo lives with his assistant, a young boy named Tapioca.

While Gringo struggles to fix the reverend’s car, the characters interact with each other, gradually revealing intimate details about their lives and vulnerabilities. The two teenagers are both motherless. Leni has vague memories of her father abandoning her mother on the side of a road. Tapioca can barely remember his mother. She abandoned him with Gringo, claiming that he is the boy’s father. The reverend is fixated on saving souls and sets his eye on Tapioca as a suitable candidate for salvation. Gringo dismisses organized religion, believing nature is the best teacher and that a person’s action is all that matters. The tension gradually and imperceptibly builds between the two adults, culminating in a climax that coincides with a fierce thunder storm and torrential rain.

Almada has crafted a very tightly structured, taut novel where every word tells. Her prose is simple, direct, and lucid. She conveys the complexity of her characters, the dynamics of their relationships, their inner conflicts and flashbacks, and she does it all in language that is sparse but effective. Her images evoke a strong atmosphere—from the graveyard of broken cars and jagged metal paraphernalia, the sweat-stained clothes and sticky bodies, the stunted trees and thirsty soil, Gringo’s bouts of convulsive coughing, and Leni silently watching the two men fight as tears roll down her face.

This is a wonderful story, skillfully executed in vivid imagery and concise diction. The narrative is deceptively simple but it packs a powerful punch.

Highly recommended.

Broken Glass Park

Alina Bronsky; translated by Tim Mohr

Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr, unfolds in the first-person voice of Sascha Naimann, a seventeen-year-old Russian immigrant living in Germany. The tragic circumstances of her young life are gradually revealed. Her mother and mother’s boyfriend were murdered by Vadim, her mother’s former husband, leaving Sascha and her young step-siblings as orphans. Her step-father’s cousin, Maria, moves to Germany to take care of the children.

Sascha is forced to grow up quickly. She assumes responsibility for her siblings and acts as translator for Maria who cannot speak German. Her narrative is dotted with frequent flashbacks to her mother and Vadim—a despicable human being tormenting the family with physical, mental, and sexual abuse, culminating in his act of double murder. Sascha tries to make sense of why her mother tolerated him for as long as she did. She heaps piles of abuse on Vadim and conjures elaborate plans for murdering him when he is released from prison. Her plans are thwarted when she learns Vadim has committed suicide in his prison cell. The news causes Sascha to snap temporarily.

The narrative voice is initially strong. Sascha is intelligent, street-smart, tough, resilient, observant, and determined. She can also be funny, vulnerable, tender, compassionate, and fiercely protective of her younger siblings. But, above all, she is consumed with anger and rage. Her voice is engaging and convincing. But it begins to fall flat when she seems to fall in love with an older man and, for no apparent reason, sleeps with his son. She later sleeps with a complete stranger because he happens to share the same name as the man she ostensibly loves. Her romantic entanglements are confusing and aimless. As a consequence, her voice loses much of its strength and focus. Her story drifts into that of a lovelorn teenager. The plot becomes haphazard, lacking purpose, direction, and the urgency that characterized its opening pages.

This is Alina Bronsky’s debut novel. The writing is fast-paced, vigorous, and engaging. Bronsky’s talent lies in writing first-person narratives. She has an ability to create interesting, complex, and believable characters that generate sympathy. Although she is able to do so to some degree with Sascha, her skill is more finely honed in her subsequent novels where she is more successful in capturing voice and motivation and in tightening narrative structure and focus.

Recommended.

The Lambs of London

Peter Ackroyd

The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd is a fictional glimpse into the lives of Mary and Charles Lamb and their erstwhile friend, William Ireland. The setting is late 18th century, early 19th century London.

We meet the Lambs as adults. Charles spends his days at the office and his nights drinking at local pubs. Mary leads a cloistered life at home, relying on her brother for intellectual engagement and discussion. The novel’s beginning is promising in that it focuses on the Lambs. But then it veers toward William Ireland and his ostensible discovery of new works by Shakespeare. The shift to William Ireland, his fraught relationship with his father, his Shakespearean “discoveries,” and the quest for their authentication becomes the primary focus of the narrative, relegating Charles and Mary Lamb to the margins.

The novel is a quick and easy read and, as a work of fiction, its deviations from historical facts about the Lambs are irrelevant. The story line had potential. The relationship between Charles and Mary would have been fertile ground for exploration. Unfortunately, it is never fully developed. The characters, as a whole, are not fully realized. Mary is the most interesting character in the narrative. She is an intelligent, articulate woman suffocating under the social conventions of the time. Her predictable attachment to William in the narrative is subordinated in importance to his obsession with promoting his discoveries as the genuine works of Shakespeare. Why she descends into madness and murders her own mother is hinted at but, again, never fully explored. This, too, would have been fertile ground for greater development. Although William Ireland’s ostensible motivation to commit fraud is to earn his father’s approval, the extreme measures he takes to gain that approval are unconvincing. Even the title of the book is misleading as the focus is not so much on the Lambs as it is on William Ireland and the reception he receives for his ostensible discoveries.

The strength of the novel lies in its ability to evoke London at the turn of the century. The details are immersive. The muddy Thames, London’s bustling streets, its colorful street characters, and its pungent smells are captured in all their squalor and glory. The few glimpses of the Lambs and their excursions into literature are a delight. The novel held out promise, but its shift in focus from the Lambs to William Ireland diluted its potential.

Recommended with reservations.

Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States

James C. Scott

It has been generally believed that state formation was a consequence of the domestication of animals and plants. The theory was that when humans no longer had to hunt and gather food, they settled down in agricultural communities which eventually evolved into the modern state. In Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, James C. Scott argues this is a false narrative. He proposes an alternative narrative for state formation based on more recent archaeological and historical evidence.

Focusing his analysis primarily in ancient Mesopotamia as the birthplace of the earliest state, Scott cites evidence showing sedentism and animal and plant domestication existed at least 4,000 years before the appearance of agricultural villages. The one did not give rise to the other. Instead, states materialized with the gradual emergence specifically of domesticated grain crops that required labor for planting and harvesting. Unlike other crops which grow underground, grain is visible, portable, storable, ripens at the same time, and, more significantly, is measurable for tax purposes. And with that comes the need for a large pool of laborers; hierarchically structured societies; tax collectors; city walls to prevent grain-theft by non-state dwellers (stigmatized as “barbarians),” and as a deterrence for a mass exodus of laborers.

Movement between sedentary and non-sedentary populations was fluid in either direction. Scott argues the shift to sedentary communities was not necessarily advantageous. Non-sedentary populations were mobile when they needed to be, ate a more diverse diet, and the dispersed nature of their communities impeded the rapid spread of disease. The more densely populated areas, especially those sharing living space with animals, were subject to the rapid spread of epidemics, viruses, and parasites; ate a diet poor in proteins consisting primarily of cereal grains. They were taxed, their movements restricted; and their labor exploited to serve the elite.

The study is full of fascinating insights, for example, while we domesticated animals and crops, they domesticated us as evidenced by the development of our husbandry skills; the “collapse” of states may simply mean population dispersion, not disappearance; the “barbarians” living outside of state control were healthier and happier than their sedentary counterparts; the birth rate of sedentary populations outstripped the nomadic birth rates in spite of their higher mortality rate; writing was invented to tabulate crop production and allocation; state formation was about intentional control over reproduction of crops, animals, and people; slave labor was essential to state formation; states were fragile entities vulnerable to crop devastation and the spread of disease among people and animals; states grew in size by absorbing more of the surrounding resources, displacing the neighboring population who either had to move further afield or be absorbed into the state.

This is a fascinating study articulating an alternative narrative for the shift from non-sedentary to sedentary populations and the consequences of the shift. Although a lay audience may require a dictionary for some of the technical terms, the effort is well worth it.

Highly recommended for those interested in the study of early populations and state formation.

Burnt Shadows

Kamila Shamsie

It is a saga of two families whose lives are inextricably intertwined. It is an epic tale sweeping across continents over a sixty-year period. Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie begins in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945; goes to India just before partition in 1947; to Pakistan in 1982-1983; and concludes in New York and Afghanistan in 2001-2002.

The central figure is Hiroko Tanaka, a Nagasaki resident. The novel opens with her as a twenty-one-year-old and engaged to a man of English and German descent. When the atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, Hiroko loses her fiancé and her father. In addition to her emotional and psychological scars, Hiroko carries disfiguring burn scars on her back. Having lost everything in Nagasaki, she decides to make a clean break. She visits her fiancé’s half-sister, Elizabeth Weiss, who lives in India with her husband, James Burton. There she meets and marries Sajjad Ashraf, a Muslim employed by the Burtons. The partition in India forces the newly-weds to relocate temporarily to Istanbul then to Pakistan which they call home for nearly twenty years until Sajjad’s untimely death. Hiroko then relocates to New York to live with Elizabeth. The ties connecting the Tanakas, the Ashrafs, and the Burtons extend to their respective children, Henry Burton and Raza Ashraf, and to Henry’s daughter, Kim Burton.

Shamsie skillfully infuses the different time frames and locations with historical and political events. Through Hiroko’s eyes, we see Nagasaki in the aftermath of the atomic bomb. We see the escalating tensions in India between British colonists, Hindus, and Muslims. From neighboring Pakistan, we see Afghanistan’s armed struggle against Russian occupation. And in New York, we see the aftermath of 9/11.

Set against the backdrop of global conflicts over a period of nearly sixty years, this family saga wrestles with a number of complex issues. Scenes throughout reveal cross-cultural conflicts, racism, cultural understanding, cultural arrogance, ethnocentrism, loyalty, sacrifice, family, othering, betrayal, and the displacement of a civilian population. The four sections are seamlessly woven together with transitional passages to explain the leaps in time and location. The characters are unique, believable, and speak in authentic voices.

Shamsie’s portrayal of Hiroko is particularly effective. She emerges as independent, loving, strong, tender, adaptable, and the anchor which binds the narrative and families together. Her fluency in several languages illustrates how language facilitates understanding and appreciation of a culture. But fluency in languages and dialects can also have catastrophic consequences, as evidenced by Raza. Having inherited his mother’s language skills, Raza sets in motion a series of events which end tragically. Hiroko’s character also contrasts racism with acceptance of the other. When Kim Burton seeks understanding for reporting an Afghan Muslim to authorities solely on the basis of a shared religion with the 9/11 terrorists, Hiroko responds with, “Should I look at you and see Harry Truman?” Enough said.

A very powerful and compelling novel showing the impact of global conflicts on the lives of individuals. Told with compassion and sensitivity in immersive, riveting language.

Very highly recommended.

The Happy Marriage

Tahar Ben Jalloun; trans. André Naffis-Sahely

The Happy Marriage by Tahar Ben Jelloun, translated from the French by André Naffis-Sahely is in two parts. Part 1 unfolds from the perspective of a highly successful Moroccan Artist from an upper-class family in Fez. Part 2 unfolds in the first-person point of view of his wife, a young woman from a poor village in Morocco. The narrative chronicles the deterioration of their marriage from two entirely different perspectives.

The novel opens in the year 2000 in Casablanca with the artist having suffered a severe stroke leaving him semi-paralyzed and speechless. He is helpless, frustrated, and embarrassed by his condition. His narrative alternates between Morocco and France at different time periods. He recalls his life and the early days of his marriage in France when both he and his wife were initially very happy and very much in love. He flashes back to describing his affairs with a parade of women before and during his marriage, expressing no remorse for his philandering. He depicts his wife as totally irrational, borderline insane, and prone to bouts of physical and verbal abuse. As he regains movement and speech, he dictates his version of events to a writer friend.

Part 2 is in the first-person voice of his wife. She discovers the manuscript of her husband’s version of events and presents her side of the story which, not surprisingly, does not correspond with his version. She is a poor Berber village girl who endures both classism and racism from her husband’s family. After their first couple of years of marital bliss, her husband turns into an ogre. She describes him as controlling her with money, demeaning her in public, embarrassing her, flaunting his infidelities, and abandoning her with their children while he gallivants all over the world exhibiting his paintings.

Ben Jelloun captures a marriage in crisis through the contrasting views of his characters who reveal as much about themselves as they do about each other. Although he projects himself as the hapless victim of a tyrannical wife, the artist emerges as selfish, egotistical, and self-absorbed. He is oblivious to his wife’s needs, justifies his infidelities and secrets, and harbors patriarchal views of marriage. The wife, on the other hand, has a modern approach to marriage. Her expectations for loyalty, fidelity, honesty, equality, and mutual respect are thwarted by her husband’s behavior until, by her own admission, she turns into a nasty, vengeful, embittered, and vindictive human being. The children barely receive a mention in either version as if their welfare is incidental to the marital feud.

His exposure of the marriage through contradictory lenses enables Ben Jelloun to illustrate the conflicting tensions within race, class, and age disparity. But the fundamental conflict that undergirds all others is the clash between a traditional, patriarchal view of marriage with a modern view of marriage. The couple inhabit two different worlds. Ben Jelloun skillfully interrogates both perspectives leaving the reader to reflect on whether either perspective is reliable—if at all.

A thought-provoking novel.

A Long Petal of the Sea

Isabel Allende; trans. Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson, is a family saga that begins in Spain just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and concludes decades later in Chile. The narrative focuses on two families, the Dalmaus and the Del Solars. Their lives intersect in unexpected ways with the full consequences becoming evident decades later.

When General Franco comes to power in Spain, the brutal bloodbath and killings begin, forcing thousands to make the difficult trek over the mountains to escape to France. Victor Dalmau, an army doctor, arranges for his mother and Roser, his pregnant sister-in-law, to escape while he stays behind to help the wounded and dying on the battlefield. Eventually, Victor escapes to France, and with the help of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, he and Roser sail on the Winnipeg with other refugees to establish themselves in Chile. While in Chile, Victor has a brief affair with Ofelia Del Solar, the daughter of a prominent family.

Establishing themselves in Chile, Roser and Victor become contributing members of society. She is a prominent musician and Victor is a well-respected physician. But their lives are uprooted again after the military coup that establishes Pinochet as the iron-fisted ruler of Chile. They move to Venezuela with their son until it is safe for them to return to Chile. Spanning several decades, the novel concludes with Roser’s death and Victor, now in his eighties, reconnecting with events from his past.

Allende weaves the story of Franco under Spain and Chile under Pinochet throughout the narrative. Although these political events were initially treated as the backdrop, they assume greater prominence as the novel progresses. And that is when the novel begins to suffer from an excess of exposition—a mechanical telling of events in the form of “this happened, then this, then this.” The focus of the novel shifts from the characters to a narrative of the political upheavals in Spain and Chile. The characters recede into the background; the language becomes passive and prosaic; the pace slows considerably; the dialogue becomes stilted and perfunctory; and the story bogs down in a recounting of the political situation.

Allende discloses in the Acknowledgements she has a personal connection to the events and to the characters. She was inspired to tell their story and admits, “This book wrote itself, as if it had been dictated to me.” While Allende’s desire to tell the political events that impacted her friends and family deserves respect, the preponderance she allocated to the political situation in the narrative may have been better suited to a work of non-fiction. Her efforts to weave it in with the fictional narrative were not entirely successful and did not do justice to either of the narrative threads.

Recommended with reservations.

American Indian Women

Patrick Deval; trans. Jane-Marie Todd

American Indian Women by Patrick Deval, translated from the French by Jane-Marie Todd, brings to the forefront a group that has largely been neglected in historical and anthropological studies of American Indians. In this wide-ranging study, Deval relocates American Indian women from the margins to the center, highlighting the pivotal roles they played in the spiritual, political, and cultural lives of their communities. The study includes the role played by prominent American Indian women and others who are not so famous but who are no less worthy of respect and admiration.

Deval divides his exploration into different categories: women as guardians of tradition; their role in American Indian spirituality; their function in first encounters with the Spanish, the English, and the French; their contributions during the nineteenth-century and to the education of their children. He includes their portrayal in modern mass entertainment and Hollywood and concludes with their literary, artistic, and political efforts to resist the dominant culture’s efforts to erase their culture, traditions, and language.

Women performed multiple roles within their communities. They used their extensive knowledge of the plant world to feed their people, to heal illnesses, and to exert power in religious ceremonies. They served as warriors, guides, and interpreters. They were sought for their wisdom and knowledge and as purveyors and guardians of culture and tradition.

The study is wide in scope and intent on correcting many of the misconceptions harbored about American Indians in general and about American Indian women in particular. It is valuable as an educational tool. One of its greatest assets is its inclusion of a wealth of black and white photographs dating from the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century. The photographs are mainly of American Indian women. They are breath-taking. Some depict mother and child in a tender embrace; some show women performing various tasks; and some situate women in their natural environment. But the most moving are the close-ups of women’s faces which exude strength, wisdom, suffering, and fierce determination. These images are beautiful, mesmerizing, and haunting.

Highly recommended.

How It All Began

Penelope Lively

How it All Began by Penelope Lively is a delightful novel that illustrates how a single incident sets off a series of ramifications on the lives of characters linked together in a tapestry of interlocking threads.

The catalyst that precipitates the butterfly effect is the mugging and subsequent injury of Charlotte Rainsford, an elderly widow. Because Charlotte has broken her hip, she is obliged to move in temporarily with her daughter Rose and son-in-law Gerry. Her injury sets off a chain of events which include the discovery of an illicit love affair; an on-again, off-again divorce; a pompous, deluded, elderly academic dabbling in a T.V. series; the disastrous consequences of an upscale interior designer’s meeting with an ostensibly wealthy client; and the blossoming of a tender romance between a married woman and an immigrant. Along the way are the backstories of each of the characters.

Charlotte, the central character, is a charming, independent, retired teacher of literature with a passion for reading. Her injury affords her the opportunity to keenly observe her daughter’s marriage, comparing it with her own. To fill up her time while recuperating, Charlotte volunteers to teach an immigrant the fundamentals of reading. She draws him in by introducing him first to children’s stories and gradually working him up to more advanced stories as his reading skills improve. Their conversations about reading and the passion they share for stories were some of the most delightful aspects of the novel. Charlotte is witty, engaging, sensitive, perceptive, and compassionate. Her observations about life, marriage, children, and aging are astute. These observations intermittently weave in and out of the novel sandwiched between the events unfolding in the lives of the other characters.

What makes the story so delightful is Penelope Lively’s narrative voice. The tone is informal and engaging. Her wide range of characters are sympathetically drawn and well-developed, each speaking with a unique voice. Particularly successful are Lord Henry’s ego-inflated, out of touch and out of time prognostications. Lively moves nimbly between characters and flips back and forth in time with great ease. She has an astute eye for physical and emotional detail. She knows what to say and what to leave unsaid, trusting her reader to fill in the blanks. Her asides and commentary reflect her perceptive observations and insights concerning the quirks and foibles of human behavior. She does it all with a delightful sense of humor and in a language that is informal, upbeat, and engaging.  

An entertaining read that provides a light interlude to be sandwiched between more heavy reading.

Highly recommended.

An Imaginary Life

David Malouf

David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life envisions the life of the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso in the first century CE after Emperor Augustus banishes him to Tomis, a desolate village bordering the Black Sea, on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, at the edge of civilization. Malouf imagines the author of Metamorphoses recounting his own experience with metamorphosis through his first-person voice.

Deprived of the comforts of a life of luxury in Rome, Ovid endures an existence stripped to its bare minimum at Tomis. He lives in a hut, relies on others to survive, and since none speak Latin, is bereft of speech until he learns to speak their language. He is painfully self-conscious of his status as an outsider, viewed with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity by the villagers.

Ovid’s transformations are gradual, internal, and experienced in separate stages. First, he learns the villagers’ language, joins them on their hunts, assists with net-making, and cultivates an appreciation for their lifestyle, recognizing it as one more grounded in reality than his previous life in Rome. He sheds his former identity and is born anew:

It is about to begin. All my life till now has been wasted. I had to enter the silence to find a password that would release me from my own life.

One day, Ovid sees a young feral boy in the distance. The boy is captured and brought back to the village where Ovid becomes his caregiver and teacher. He tries to tame the wildness out of the boy and teach him the ways of living among humans. But circumstances change and, in an ironic twist, the novel concludes with the boy as guide and Ovid as student.

In lyrical, luminous language, Malouf explores the boundary between civilization and nature. He uses Ovid as his vehicle to articulate a metamorphosis from an urbane existence to one of total immersion in the natural environment. Ovid learns from his feral companion to read and appreciate nature and to live in total harmony within it. His final transformation, a merger with the earth from where he sprang, is accepted with total peace and equanimity.

The narrative unfolds in a beautiful, poetic prose laced with mysticism and mythology. It includes flashbacks to Ovid’s childhood, recollections of dream sequences, and meditations on his life. From his initial assessment of living with barbarians, Ovid re-fashions himself twice over. By releasing his former self, he embraces his new identity, first as one of the villagers and then as a student of nature learning at the feet of a child master teacher.

The novel can be interpreted on multiple levels. It is an allegory, situating Australia at its center, and representing Ovid’s metamorphoses as a culture’s gradual acceptance of and appreciation for the indigenous people and their knowledge of the environment. It conveys the wisdom and re-prioritization that can come with aging. It is an account of the internal metamorphoses and life-altering experiences of the author of Metamorphoses. And, finally, it recounts a man’s quest for self and belonging.

Recommended.

The Book of Night Women

Marlon James

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James is a sweeping masterpiece set in a late eighteenth century Jamaican sugar plantation. The central character is a slave named Lilith.

Born into slavery, Lilith is singled out because of her green eyes. She is fortunate in that she is not required to perform the back-breaking task of working in the fields. As soon as she is old enough, Lilith becomes a house slave at the Montpelier Estate. There she interacts with other house slaves and is taken under the wing by Homer, the female head house slave. She experiences close-up the inhuman and demeaning treatment of slaves by slave-owners and overseers. She recognizes the hierarchy among slaves and sees how they are pitted against each other. Eventually, she becomes embroiled in a slave plot to rebel against the slaveowners.

In addition to describing the horrific conditions of slavery, this coming of age story shows Lilith struggling to understand herself and her identity as a woman and a slave. She feels torn between two cultures, aspiring to be recognized and treated as a desirable young woman but constantly being reminded of how she is perceived as nothing more than chattel. Her back is riddled with scars as a result of the frequent lashings she receives. She witnesses the unimaginable brutality perpetrated on slaves. She gravitates between hatred for slaveowners and a strong desire for acceptance, recognition, and love. Her feelings become increasingly conflicted when she finds herself developing a push and pull attachment to the Irish overseer who shows her tenderness and consideration.

The novel bristles with detailed and graphic description of unimaginable acts of physical and sexual violence. Frequent references to human body parts, especially female body parts, punctuate the narrative. Limbs are cut, torsos are lashed, flesh is burned, eyes are gouged, heads are severed, and every orifice of the human body is raped, tortured, or both. Marlon James does not sugar-coat the violence. His explicit descriptions are not for the faint-hearted.

What makes this novel an astounding achievement is the narrative voice, the identity of which remains a mystery until the end. The narrative unfolds in the rhythm, dialect, and syntax of Jamaican English. The dialogue is rendered realistically. James captures the ebb and flow of the vernacular so adroitly that one gets the sense of overhearing an actual conversation.

A narrative voice that is spell-binding; a cast of well-developed, strong, and highly complex female characters; description that immerses the reader in time and place; and an intricate plot that captivates from beginning to end—these are just some of the factors that make this a remarkable achievement.

Very highly recommended.

Sisters

Daisy Johnson

Sisters by Daisy Johnson is a haunting tale about the unnerving bond between two sisters, September and July. Born ten months apart, the sisters are in their teens when the novel opens. Their mother is taking them to their aunt’s secluded, ramshackle house in Yorkshire to escape from some ominous event hinted at throughout the novel but never fully revealed until the end.

September and July are as inseparable as twins joined at the hip. They fuel each other’s thoughts, finish each other’s sentences, and share each other’s sensory perceptions. September, the oldest, is abusive. She taunts July, pinches her, punches her, and demands complete submission. Prone to cruelty and a violent temper, September has complete control of July’s movements and activities. July acquiesces. She submerges her identity since she craves her sister’s love and approval. The two function independently of their mother who is severely depressed and spends most of her time locked away in her bedroom.

The novel unfolds primarily through July’s first-person point of view. Her jarring shifts in time and place and the fragmentary nature of her narrative mirror her seemingly fragmented mind and shifting mental states. Snatches of the past mingle with present-day events. She taunts the reader with glimpses of the ominous event that precipitated their hasty departure to Yorkshire. Above all, she exhibits an almost hypnotic obsession with September, allowing her to intrude on her thoughts and control her behavior while harboring feelings of intense love and hate mingled with fear.

The family’s tragic past is unveiled in bits and pieces that gradually fit together like a jagged puzzle. Daisy Johnson skillfully evokes a haunting, unsettling atmosphere that permeates the novel from beginning to end. The tension is palpable. A sense of foreboding threads its way throughout. Even the Yorkshire house, ironically named “Settle House,” is anything but settling. It is assigned a section in which it seemingly assumes the form of a living organism with its dark passages, closed doors, unidentified noises, and suggestion of harboring spirits of people long since dead.

This is a deftly executed narrative depicting social and psychological dysfunction, sibling rivalry, sibling love, family relationships, and the psychological trauma of separation. Although not as riveting as Everything Under, it is, nevertheless, a compelling read delivered by a talented author.

Highly recommended.

Pavilion of Women

Pearl S. Buck

Pavilion of Women by the 1938 Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck takes place in 1940s China. The central character is Madame Wu, the elegant, competent, and beautiful mistress of the large Wu household. Married and the mother of four sons, Madame Wu is judicious, diplomatic, serene, loved, and respected by all. The novel opens on her fortieth birthday, a momentous occasion for her. She calmly announces her decision to end physical intimacy with her husband and choose a second wife for him to satisfy his carnal needs.

The announcement is greeted with shock and plummets the household in turmoil. Her husband is mystified by her decision and initially refuses her offer. But Madame Wu is adamant. With the help of the local marriage broker, she selects a young girl that meets her requirements and cements the deal. She then proceeds to arrange a marriage for her third son. She treats people as if they are pieces on a chess board, moving them at will. Her goal is to settle the affairs of her family so she can be relieved of responsibilities toward others and experience the freedom she has longed for throughout her marriage. But her plans go awry and her household falls apart.

Pearl Buck’s portrayal of Madame Wu is particularly effective. She depicts her as unflappable, elegant, beautiful, intelligent, and, above all, determined to fulfill her duty. But in spite of her serene exterior, Madame Wu is deeply unhappy and lonely. Although she has all the comforts of life, she has never connected with another human being until she meets Father André, her son’s tutor who happens to be a European renegade priest and to whom she bares her soul. He accuses her of selfishness, of badly misjudging male/female relations, and of treating young women as if they were nothing more than breeding vessels to be bought and sold. Falling in love for the first time in her life, Madame Wu experiences an epiphany and proceeds to rectify her past mistakes. She follows the example set by Father André by showing greater tolerance for human weakness and supporting the pursuit of freedom by others. 

The tension between a traditional life-style and the influx of Western ideas and attitudes is brought to the forefront by the characters, their conflicts, and the choices they make. The characters are realistically portrayed and well-developed. The first half of the novel depicts life in the Wu household with great sensitivity and with an eye for detail that captures the intricacies of manners, behaviors, and traditions of Chinese upper-class society. The second half of the novel becomes more introspective, focusing on Madame Wu’s philosophical conversations with Father André as he exposes her to Western ideas. This section loses much of the vibrancy of the earlier section. The philosophical pronouncements seemed contrived. And the gradual intensification of Madame Wu’s feelings toward Father André and her constant self-examination tend to drag the narrative down.

In spite of these few shortcomings, the writing is excellent and immerses the reader in upper-class life in China of the 1940s.

Recommended.

The Memory Police

Yoko Ogawa; translated by Stephen Snyder

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder, unfolds in the first-person voice of a female aspiring novelist. She lives on an unnamed island where the population is kept under strict surveillance by the draconian Memory Police.

Objects randomly disappear from the island—birds, roses, photographs, calendars, books, etc. The inhabitants immediately incinerate all the disappeared objects they have in their possession in a ritual symbolizing collective memory erasure. The edict is enforced by the Memory Police who conduct unannounced searches in people’s homes to ferret out any trace of non-compliance. People accommodate and adapt, minimizing the disappearance as a minor inconvenience. Their memory of the disappeared object or of what life was like before its disappearance gradually fades with time. Individuals who cling to memories and hide disappeared objects are hunted down by the Memory Police and are disappeared without a trace.

The narrator is aware of the nearly daily disappearances and seems only slightly disturbed by the situation until her editor comes under suspicion. With the help of an old family friend, she hides her editor in a secret chamber under the floorboards in her house. The disappearances continue until, finally, human limbs disappear and all that remains of the narrator is her voice.

Interspersed throughout the novel are excerpts from the narrator’s story of a young typist who loses her voice and can only communicate by typing out the words. Her teacher eventually imprisons her, controlling every aspect of her life. She becomes totally reliant on him and is terrified of escaping her prison even when given the opportunity. This story within a story parallels the main events in that both the narrator and the character she creates are stripped of their individuality, simultaneously experiencing a loss of self and a loss of freedom.

The novel illustrates the premise that control of a population relies on mind manipulation far more than on physical incarceration. If people believe dissension results in torture and death, they will internalize their oppression by inhibiting their thinking, movements, and aspirations for fear of stepping out of line.

Told in simple, subdued, unemotional language, the narrative illustrates the vital role memory plays in fighting oppression, and the deleterious impact the collective erasure of a remembered past can have on freedom. One of the most insidious aspects of the situation is the collective amnesia that sets in and the complacency with which most of the inhabitants, including the narrator, handle each disappearance. Motivated by fear, they accommodate the disappearance and treat the gradual erosion of self and of freedom with equanimity. As their world shrinks, their capacity to experience the world shrinks until all that remains is a disembodied voice.

Highly recommended.

Just Call Me Superhero

Alina Bronsky; trans. by Tim Mohr

Alina Bronsky’s Just Call Me Superhero, translated from the German by Tim Mohr, is told through the strong narrative voice of seventeen-year-old Marek. It is a compelling coming-of-age story in which the narrator learns about self-acceptance and the value of human connection.

Marek’s face has been badly disfigured by an attack from a Rottweiler. His facial scars make it difficult for him to smile. He is very self-conscious about his looks, wears dark glasses to hide behind his disfigured face, and refuses to look at himself in the mirror. He disrespects his divorced mother, shows no sympathy for her, and addresses her by her first name. When his mother tricks him into a joining a support group for young people with disabilities, Marek more fully reveals his nature. He is cynical, resentful, self-absorbed, homophobic, insensitive, callous, irreverent, and tactless. He is also intelligent, observant, and very funny.

Referring to the support group as “the cripple group,” Marek coolly assesses each of its members, including the leader whom he facetiously dubs “The Guru.” His attention is immediately drawn to a young, beautiful woman in a wheel-chair. As much as he resents the group, he agrees to join them on a week-long bonding retreat organized by the Guru. But when he receives news of his father’s sudden death, Marek is forced to cut short the retreat to attend his father’s funeral.

Forced to help with the arrangements of his father’s funeral, Marek steps outside of himself and begins to show growth. He attends to the needs of his mother, young step-mother, and six-year-old step brother. He displays genuine concern for others, and is especially solicitous towards his mother and young step brother. He is shocked when his support group unexpectedly shows up to pay their respects. It slowly dawns on him that although people, including his young step-brother, may initially recoil at seeing his face, they ultimately move beyond his appearance and accept him for what he is and not for the way he looks. The novel concludes with Marek removing his dark glasses and looking at his reflection in the mirror.

The novel explores an age-old theme: how much of our identity is tied up with the way we look? Marek learns people may initially judge you by your physical appearance, but, ultimately, how you look withers in significance to how you treat others. Alina Bronsky gives the theme a refreshingly new treatment by injecting laugh out loud humor, vivid imagery, keen observations, nimble pacing, well-developed characters, and a narrator who comes to recognize who we are is defined by the love we show for others.

A compelling coming-of-age story and a delightful read.

Highly recommended.

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power

Sady Doyle

In Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Sady Doyle examines the influence of patriarchy on culture and media; describes how patriarchal norms fuel attitudes toward women and women’s roles; and illustrates the way in which acts of violence against real women are intertwined with popular cultural depictions of women, with each feeding off one another and reinforcing one another. Doyle divides her feminist exploration into three parts: patriarchal strictures on daughters, wives, and mothers.

Doyle provides a historical perspective going all the way back to Aristotle and his claim that women are deviant males. She traces the concept through the ages and includes Freud’s contribution that women are traumatized because they don’t have a penis. Doyle argues the patriarchal projection of women as monsters, deficient, and deviant ultimately stems from fear of the power of women and their capacity to reproduce. Labeling women as monsters represents the extreme and violent lengths patriarchy is willing to go to punish women for daring to disrupt or undermine patriarchal control.

The real-life crimes Doyle describes are of women murdered, persecuted, tortured, dismembered, and flayed. The examples horrify. Some women suffered from mental illness; some were driven to madness; and some were murdered simply because they were strong, independent women who refused to cower down to their husbands. Her analysis of horror movies depicting pubescent girls was particularly insightful. She argues the male lens portrays young girls transitioning to womanhood as something other than human, as demonic, possessed by the devil, ineffable, and spewing all manner of filth from every orifice of their bodies. Her analysis of The Exorcist analyzes scenes from the movie in terms of cultural revulsion at menstruation and a girl’s sexual awakening.

In spite of some of the deeply alarming content, Doyle avoids saturating her book with doom and gloom. She lightens the tone by injecting humor and sarcasm where appropriate and is not averse to poking fun at herself. Her research is impressive, as is her ability to synthesize the experiences of real-life women with fictional portrayals in movies and books depicting woman as monster. The scope of her analysis is wide, stretching all the way from Shelley’s Frankenstein to Jurassic Park. She concludes with a call to action for all women to celebrate and embrace the monster within. An extensive resource guide, notes, and index are included at the end of the book.

Although prone to the occasional hyperbole, the work is highly recommended for its contribution to feminist scholarship. It will appeal to those interested in understanding how popular culture serves to reflect and reinforce patriarchal norms which are designed to oppress women and restrict their choices.

Island of a Thousand Mirrors

Nayomi Munaweera

Island of a Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera tells the story of the Sri Lankan civil war which raged from 1983-2009, claiming over 80,000 lives. The events leading up to and including the civil war between the Sinhalas and Tamils unfold in the voices of two young women on opposite sides of the ethnic divide.

Part 1 of the novel focuses on Yasodhara and her Sinhala family. Yasodhara describes the beauty of pre-war Sri Lanka with its pristine beaches, unpolluted ocean, abundant fish, colorful sunsets, succulent fruits, and aromatic foods. This section, with its immersive description of the lush landscape, also introduces her grandparents, parents, and sister. Yasodhara has an eye for detail and exhibits a delightful sense of humor as she highlights her family’s quirks and foibles. With tensions increasing between the Sinhalas and Tamils leading up to the civil war, Yasodhara’s family use their resources and contacts to leave Sri Lanka for Los Angeles.

Part 2 opens with the first-person voice of a young Tamil woman, Saraswathi. It then alternates between her voice and the voice of Yasodhara. Saraswathi’s dreams of becoming a teacher are shattered when she is brutally raped by army personnel who then abandon her for dead. She staggers home only to be told her “spoiled” woman status leaves her no option but to join the Tamil insurgency. She is indoctrinated by the Tamil Tigers and demonstrates her prowess in becoming a killing machine with a lust for revenge, butchering government forces and innocent civilians with no compunction. Her path collides with Yasodhara and her sister who have returned to Sri Lanka to work with orphaned children. The consequences are devastating.

The novel has many strengths. It immerses the reader in the culture, prejudices, and tensions evident in Sri Lankan families both before and during the war. It is a powerful illustration of the universal brutality of all wars with each side perpetrating horrendous atrocities while claiming the moral high ground. It shows the impact on innocent civilians who are brutalized by one side or the other, their young forcibly recruited to join the ranks of fighters and their women used as instruments of war. Fighters on both sides are so brutalized they de-humanize the enemy, maiming and killing at random. And those who survive the horror suffer internal scars that may never heal. Through her graphic description of the violence and devastating impact of civil war, Munaweera demonstrates a universal truth about war: it is brutal and it brutalizes.

The novel’s greatest strength lies in its diction, rhythmic language, and immersive detail. The sights, sounds, smells, and atmosphere of Sri Lanka are evoked in lyrical, vivid prose. One can almost bite into the succulent mangoes, luxuriate in the warmth of the ocean, and feel the languid summer heat. The natural beauty of this tropical island, captured in breathtaking imagery, is later contrasted with the horror of corpses and mutilated limbs situated on full display in villages to terrorize the population. The immigrant experience of adjusting to life in America is realistically reflected in the struggles with outsider status as well as in the initial bewilderment and humorous observations on cultural differences. The characters are well-developed and authentic. Both Yasodhara and Saraswathi are portrayed with sympathy and depicted as caught up in circumstances completely beyond their control.

This is a powerful and deeply moving novel unfolding in exquisite, captivating language. It evokes the lush beauty of Sri Lanka skillfully contrasting it with the brutality of war on a people and its land.

Highly recommended and well deserving of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize for the Asian Region.

Fifteen Dogs

André Alexis

Fifteen Dogs: An Apologue by André Alexis is a fable about dogs that begins with a wager between Hermes and Apollo. Apollo is convinced that any animal given human consciousness would be even more unhappy than humans. Hermes disagrees. The wager is later modified to specify happiness or unhappiness at the moment of death. The two gods bestow human consciousness on fifteen dogs who happen to be staying overnight at a Toronto veterinary clinic. The fifteen dogs escape from the clinic. Their fate is observed by the two gods as if it were a spectator sport.

We follow each dog as he/she tries to adjust to a newly developed consciousness and self-awareness. Before long, a fight for supremacy ensues. Some dogs reject their new ways of seeing and speaking and want to return to their doggy consciousness. They brutally murder those who oppose them. One dog becomes a poet and manages to escape their wrath. Another becomes devious and conniving, carefully engineering the deaths of the remaining dogs before he dies a painful death of poison. In the end, the poet is the lone survivor. Deprived of vision and hearing and suffering from an aging body with multiple ailments, he experiences an epiphany before being put to sleep on the cold, metal slab in the veterinary clinic. He recognizes the value of the gift he was given. He has a final vision of his beloved master and his spirit soars with happiness as he takes his final breath. Hermes wins the wager.

The novel has echoes of Animal Farm and The Lord of the Flies. The premise is interesting, but the execution is disappointing. The dogs fail to engage the reader. Their characterizations are not fully developed; their motivations are never adequately explained. Why did some choose to reject their new consciousness? Why were they so adamantly determined to crush opposition? Why did one suddenly experience a spiritual awakening but only after he had torn his former comrades to shreds?

The novel raises some interesting questions. Can we resist the pressure to abandon our individuality and conform to group behavior? To what extent are we willing to sacrifice principles in order to survive? Once we have familiarized ourselves with a different culture, can we ever view our own culture in quite the same way and/or retreat to the way life used to be? Is violence part of our human nature? Does the acquisition of knowledge necessarily alienate us from our community? Does knowledge come at too steep a price? These and other questions are dangled but never fully explored or explained.

There should be some internal logic to an allegory. It should have some correspondence to what it is ostensibly allegorizing, in this case whether human consciousness and human language is a blessing or a curse. But this novel failed in its exploration of these weighty issues. Instead, it presents us with haphazard events in which dogs run around helter skelter, behaving in ways that are erratic and inexplicable.

If the intention was to provide an insightful commentary on human behavior by using a fable about dogs as its vehicle, it simply failed to deliver. The book has won awards, but it just didn’t do much for this reader.

The Translator

Leila Aboulela

The Translator by Leila Aboulela is the love story of Sammar, a young Sudanese widow, and a Scottish professor.

The novel opens a few years after the death of Sammar’s husband, a student at an Aberdeen university. After taking his body back to Khartoum for burial and leaving their young son with her mother-in-law, Sammar has returned to Aberdeen. She supports herself by working as an Arabic translator at the University. She grieves for her husband, is isolated and lonely. She gradually emerges from her shell and finds herself attracted to Rae, a Scottish professor specializing in Islam. The two work closely together, their friendship developing into love. The situation is complicated since Sammar is a devout Muslim and will not marry outside her faith. Torn between the dictates of her faith and her love for Rae, Sammar decides to sacrifice her chance for love. She returns to Khartoum, reconciled to her fate as a lonely widow. It is only after she gives up hope of ever finding love that her prayers are answered, her patience rewarded.

Sammar is a complex character, not without her faults. She exhibits little remorse for leaving her son with his grandmother. She seldom thinks of him, treating him as a nuisance she has happily discarded. She lashes out at Rae when he rejects her conditional proposal of marriage. Her self-awareness comes to fruition when she later recognizes the selfishness of her motives and prays for forgiveness. Some of the most moving passages are those that describe the peace and solace she derives when reciting the Qur’an, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and bowing down in prayer. Ultimately, she shows a great deal of courage in relinquishing her job and returning to an uncertain future in Khartoum all because she does not want to deviate from her faith. It is refreshing to see a female character who remains true to herself and her beliefs, one who refuses to sacrifice her identity for love and marriage.

Sammar’s fluctuating feelings are conveyed with delicacy, alternating seamlessly between her memories of the past and her current situation. She illustrates the immigrant experience of being caught between two worlds, epitomized in the contrast between the grey, cold, and lonely landscape of Aberdeen with the color, warmth, vitality, and community of the Khartoum she remembers.

Aboulela’s style is elegant and understated. Her language is rhythmic and poetic; her words subtle and restrained. This is a quiet, tender love story minus the hoopla and fuss. It is the story of two people from two very different cultures and lifestyles who gradually draw closer together to become one.

A beautiful story told in language that flows with grace, lucidity, and elegance.

Highly recommended.