Last Train to Istanbul

Ayse Kulin; trans. John W. Baker

Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin, translated by John W. Baker, alternates between France and Turkey in the years between 1940-1943 and includes the Nazi occupation of France.

The focus is on Selva, the Muslim daughter of a prominent Turkish pasha. Because she married a Turkish Jew against her father’s wishes, Selva and her husband move to France to start a new life for themselves. When the Nazis occupy France and begin rounding up the Jews, Selva works with Turkish diplomats in France to smuggle Turkish and non-Turkish Jews out of Nazi-occupied territories to find safe harbor in Turkey. The non-Turkish Jews are furnished with fake identity papers by the Turkish Consulate and are taught a smattering of Turkish words to bluff the Nazi officials. Their harrowing journey through enemy lines takes place on the last train to Istanbul.

The secondary thread, which occurs in Turkey, involves Selva’s sister, Sabiha, and her husband, a diplomat working in the foreign ministry. As Turkey tries to retain its war-time neutrality in spite of intense pressure to enter the war, Sabiha’s marriage seems to be falling apart. She misses her sister and feels estranged from both her husband and her daughter. Eventually, she seeks the assistance of a therapist.

Although the story had a lot of potential, the execution was very poor. Some of the problems may have been due to the translation. The writing was stilted and riddled with clichés; the dialogue was stiff and unnatural. There was too much exposition throughout, and whole sections which explain Turkey’s diplomatic maneuvers to remain neutral during the war were better suited to a history book. The main characters were not well developed. They are portrayed stereotypically, acting and speaking as mouthpieces, not as individuals. Lengthy back stories were attributed to several minor characters on the train, but since they did little to advance the narrative, their presence was an unnecessary digression. There were a lot of dangling threads, including Sabiha’s marital crisis and her sessions with her therapist, all of which made no sense, went nowhere, and detracted from the main focus.

Once the characters got on the train, the novel’s pace picked up. There were fewer digressions. The focus shifted to the journey—the strongest part of the book. Tension was palpable as the passengers navigated through each train stop in Nazi territory. They endured the many document checks along the way and were able to survive through quick-thinking and collaboration. But although the last section of the novel was handled relatively well, it did not redeem the novel as a whole.

It is unfortunate that a story as important as Turkey’s role in helping Turkish and non-Turkish Jews escape from Nazi-occupied Europe should suffer from poor writing and poor execution.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Olga Tokarczuk; trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, is a murder mystery told in the very original and authentic voice of a feisty woman in her 60s. She prefers the company of animals to humans, talks to ghosts, believes astrology governs our lives, and suffers from a series of ailments. Her name is Janina Duszejko.

Janina Duszejko (she hates her first name and constantly has to correct the mispronunciation of her last name) is an eccentric, elderly woman living in a remote Polish village near the Czech border. She is dismissed by many as a batty old woman with a penchant for traipsing around the countryside, spouting weird notions about astrology and horoscopes, claiming animals have souls and are capable of avenging themselves for the atrocities perpetrated on them by humans. She reserves her special brand of anger for hunters, accusing them of murder. She is a constant thorn in their sides, heckling them and destroying their animal traps. Her passion and advocacy for animals is fearless.

Janina is never happier as when she is outdoors surrounded by the flora and fauna of nature. She reads the signs in nature with a meticulous eye for detail. It is due to her astute observations in nature that when a neighbor is found dead in his home, she is convinced she knows who the culprit is. But the neighbor’s death is just the beginning. Three other bodies turn up mysteriously. The police are baffled. Janina’s hilarious letter-writing campaign announcing the killers and citing historical precedence of animal revenge as evidence is summarily dismissed. After all, who is going to pay any attention to a dotty old woman who scours the countryside talking to animals?

Janina has many admirable qualities. She willingly trudges in the cold and snow to help an animal in distress. She imbues nature with an ethic and generosity of spirit she finds sadly lacking in humans. Much of her philosophical pronouncements and observations of human behavior ring true, giving one pause. She is capable of great civility and literary prowess, discussing translations of William Blake over cups of tea with Dizzy, one of her former students. The connection to Blake is reinforced since the title of the book and the opening epigraph of each chapter are taken from his works. And although suffering from many ailments, Janina never hesitates to help a neighbor in need. Her quirky narrative voice is an absolute delight. Janina is funny in spite of her craziness—or, perhaps, because of it.

Olga Tokarczuk has created a lovable, crazy, quirky, eccentric, and hilarious figure in Janina. Her prose is lyrical and elegant, with a distinctive eye for detail and for juxtaposing seemingly unrelated objects in refreshing and enlightening ways. In Janina she has created an unforgettable character.

A brilliant story unfolding in lyrical prose through the endearing voice of a memorable narrator. Olga Tokarczuk’s consummate skill as a writer makes her a truly deserving recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Highly recommended.

The Blue Fox

Sjón; translated by Victoria Cribb

Winner of the 2005 Nordic Council Literature Prize, The Blue Fox by Sjón, translated by Victoria Cribb, is part fable, part fairy tale, part myth, and part magical fantasy.

Set in Iceland’s stark, wintery landscape in 1883, the novella is divided into four parts. Part I describes Reverend Baldur Skuggason hunting a blue fox and ends with him firing his rifle and killing the fox. Part II focuses on Fridrik Fridjonsson and Abba, his young assistant who suffers from Down’s syndrome. It includes Abba’s tragic backstory of her victimization and abuse, and her death at the age of thirty. Part III transports us back to the snowy mountains where Baldur, having triggered an avalanche when he shot the fox, is now wounded and trapped in the snow. He hallucinates. Metamorphoses occur: the fox becomes human; the human becomes animal. Baldur consumes the fox’s heart, wears its fur, and lusts after a vixen in heat. Part IV sews together the two seemingly disparate threads. The narrative’s non-linear progression gradually unfolds to reveal the true nature of the reverend, leaving one to ponder who is the real animal in the story.

The diction, especially in Parts I and III where Sjón describes Iceland’s unforgiving landscape, reads like a series of lyrical poems. The short paragraphs on each page surrounded by copious white space reinforce the poetic quality as well as the snowy, white landscape of the setting. Sjón takes us inside the minds of the hunter and hunted as they try to outmaneuver each other. The hunter stalking the hunted, the hunted evading the hunter, is described as if in slow motion. Our sympathies lie with the exquisitely described beautiful blue fox. And when she raises her head for the last time, the bullet that ends her life reverberates throughout the stark landscape.

A combination of fable, fairy tale, myth, and magical fantasy, Sjón has written a visual masterpiece in hauntingly beautiful prose. The narrative addresses the theme of good versus evil; innocence versus guilt; charity versus hypocrisy; compassion versus bigotry; the pristine beauty of the natural world versus the cruelty, corruption, and avarice of man. And like all great fables and myths, the relevance of its message transcends time and place.

Highly recommended.

Lost City Radio

Daniel Alarcón

Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcón takes place in an unnamed South American country in the aftermath of a civil war. The population continues to experience disappearances, curfews, unlawful imprisonment, and torture. In the hope of reconnecting with the missing, people tune in every week to hear Norma, the host of Lost City Radio. She reads the names submitted to her of missing relatives, friends, and loved ones in an attempt to reunite them with their families. When a young boy arrives at the radio station with a list of names of missing loved ones from his village in the jungle, Norma is shocked to discover her husband’s name is on the list. She has spent the last decade of her life since his disappearance waiting for him to come home.

The narrative alternates between the present and the past. The past takes the form of a series flashbacks which reveal the backstory of Rey, Norma’s husband; their meeting; his arrest and torture for being a suspected member of the Illegitimate Legion, a group actively engaged in overthrowing the oppressive government; their marriage; and his periodic disappearances in the jungle, ostensibly to research the medicinal properties of certain jungle plants. The present takes us through Norma’s day at the station; her meeting with the young boy; the discovery of her husband’s name on the list of missing. It concludes with reading their names on the air, including the name of her husband, which may be considered a subversive act.

Alarcón skillfully captures the experiences of a society living under an autocratic government. History is re-written; maps are re-drawn; villages and city landmarks are re-named. An official policy is adopted of erasing traces of the past both physically and in the collective and individual memory. People don’t know who can be trusted and who is an informant for the government. They have nowhere to turn for help if a loved one is carted off to an unknown destination never to reappear, again. Arrests are made on the flimsiest of suspicions. Just the appearance of being friendly with someone deemed a suspect or of asking too many questions is enough to get you arrested. Torture is inflicted with impunity. Young men, barely old enough to have facial hair, enter villages waving their guns, terrorizing the population, demanding food, and kidnapping children as recruits. Censorship, self-censorship, and fear of reprisals are woven into the fabric of everyday life.

The impact on the population is devastating. A universal fear permeates every aspect of life. Flashbacks come in half-suppressed thoughts and intrude on the present in unexpected ways, triggered by a smell, a sound, or an image. Questions remain unanswered. Should one even try to remember? Is it better to cultivate amnesia? Is it safe to ask about a missing relative or a loved one? What recourse is there for justice when living under a totalitarian government?  

It would be easy to dismiss the novel as depicting a dystopian society, as an exaggeration of the horrors that could happen. But it would be a mistake to do so. Millions of people across the globe currently live under tyrannical regimes where they are forced to consume a daily diet of injustice and oppression. The novel serves as a reminder of the fragility of democratic institutions and of the urgency to safeguard those institutions to preserve democratic freedoms.

Highly recommended for its perceptive depiction of a society living under tyranny.

The Good People

Hannah Kent

Hannah Kent is a gifted writer. She has an uncanny ability to immerse the reader in the climate, culture, landscape, dialogue, atmosphere, and fabric of life in the setting of her novels. She did it in Burial Rites by transporting her reader to early nineteenth-century Iceland. And she has done it again in The Good People.

This time the setting is in Ireland’s Fesk valley during the mid-1820s. The novel is loosely based on a true story of Ann/Nance Roche who was acquitted of murdering an infant supposedly possessed by fairy (“the Good People”).

The novel opens with the death of Nora Leahy’s husband, Martin. Her daughter died earlier in the year, so Nora is left as the sole caretaker of her grandson. Although he started life as a normal baby, Micheál has regressed since the death of his mother. And at four-years-old, he is neither able to speak nor move. His limbs flail, his stare is vacant, and he reeks of urine and vomit. He is totally reliant on others to take care of him and spends most of his waking hours screeching. Realizing she can’t cope without help, Nora hires fourteen-year-old Mary Clifford as her maid.

The situation in the surrounding countryside becomes increasingly bleak. A healthy man inexplicably drops dead; cows aren’t producing milk; crops aren’t surviving; food is running scarce; a baby is stillborn; a woman catches fire. The villagers look for someone to blame. They focus on Micheál, convinced he is a changeling possessed by fairy. They also turn their suspicion on Nance Roche, an elderly woman who uses traditional methods for healing. They are encouraged to do so by the priest who argues superstitions, natural healing methods, herbal medicines, and midwifery are the work of the devil. He targets Nance Roche as the source of evil and misfortune.

Increasingly frustrated with Micheál’s situation and convinced he is a changeling, Nora seeks help from the priest. When none is forthcoming, she asks Nance to heal her grandson by using traditional means to rid him of fairy. With Mary Clifford as an unwilling accomplice, the three resort to increasingly drastic measures to “cure” Micheál. The consequences are tragic.

Hannah Kent skillfully evokes the atmosphere of rural life in early nineteenth-century Ireland. The rural poor live in cramped dwellings, frequently sharing them with goats and chickens. They breathe the pungent smells emanating from the animals and their droppings. What diet there is consists mostly of potatoes. Irish fairy lore, superstition, folk beliefs, and rituals are woven into the fabric of their everyday lives. The belief in their efficacy to ward off evil spirits is deep-seated but conflicted due to the influence of Catholicism.

Kent’s prose vividly evokes the setting and its inhabitants. The rural landscape and harsh climate are ever-present and described in sensuous detail. The dialogue is richly textured with Irish diction and idioms. The characters are drawn with compassion and authenticity as they struggle with poverty, fear of the unknown, grief, hunger, superstition, scapegoating, and the erosion of traditional beliefs. The prose is lyrical; the quality of research is impressive. A tragic and haunting tale, beautifully written. Hannah Kent is a truly gifted storyteller.

Highly recommended.

The Break

Katherena Vermette

The Break by Katherena Vermette focuses on four generations of Métis women from the same family. The Métis are of mixed European and indigenous descent originating in Western Canada.

The story begins with Stella, a young Métis mother who witnesses a violent attack just outside her home. The police are called in to investigate. Since there is no body, the police dismiss the incident and imply Stella may have imagined the whole thing. But when a young girl is admitted to the hospital having been brutally raped, the police begin a thorough investigation.

The story unfolds primarily through the multiple perspectives of four generations of women related to the young victim. All are descended from the matriarch of the family, the great grandmother, known as Kakoom. Emily, the victim, is Kakoom’s thirteen-year old great grand-daughter. The perspectives alternate between the sisters, aunts, nieces, friends, and acquaintances. Included is the lone male perspective—a young Métis police officer who is sympathetic to the victim and her family.

Each of the women reveals her backstory as she struggles to cope with the horror of what has happened to Emily. What emerges from their stories and from their current situation is their exposure to violence. In one way or another, all the women have been victims of violence, whether directly or indirectly. They have become hardened and suspicious toward the outside world as a result.

These are women who have had to be strong in order to survive. Threaded throughout their narratives are stories of addiction, domestic violence, sexual assault, gang violence, distrust of the system, exposure to police apathy, and floundering relationships with men. Sons are present, but fathers are noticeably absent. The women have only each other and their traditions to cling to for support. They band together in times of crisis, surrounding Emily in a cocoon of love and support.

Vermette effectively contextualizes the challenges facing these women as members of the Canadian Métis community. The characters are sympathetically drawn as each struggles with her own personal demons and tragedies. Unfortunately, the constantly shifting perspective of this very large cast of characters is problematic. The family tree at the beginning of the book helps to alleviate some of the confusion. But it doesn’t bode well when one has to frequently refer to it to situate one of the many women within the family. In addition, the constantly shifting perspectives does not allow a strong connection to be forged with any of the characters. We are given barely a glimpse of a character’s past or current situation before the perspective shifts to someone else. This has the effect of diluting character development, with no one character emerging as fully developed.

A dark and intense intergenerational family saga that sheds light on the plight of Métis women in Canada. The story is very powerful; the language, beautiful; the execution, problematic. This is not an easy read because of the nature of the subject matter.

Recommended with some reservations.

Stay with Me

Ayobami Adebayo

A finalist for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo is an impressive debut novel.

The setting is Nigeria. The narrative unfolds in the first-person voices of a young married couple, Yejide and Akin. The voices alternate, describing the same events from two different perspectives. There are also alternating shifts in time from the mid-1980s to 2008. These provide the back story of how Yejide and Akin met in university, fell in love, married, and were later torn apart by circumstances and events.

Yejide and Akin are initially presented as a happily married couple. Akin is an employee at a bank and Yejide owns a successful hair salon. They seem to have everything going for them with one exception. Even after four years of marriage, medical tests, and fertility procedures, Yejide has failed to get pregnant. Family members intercede and force Akin to take on a second wife to provide him with children. Understandably, conflicts ensue. Yejide resorts to desperate measures to get pregnant. And because he loves his wife and wants to save his marriage, Akin resorts to his own desperate measures to ensure his wife’s pregnancy. Their marriage falls apart as the lies, deceptions, secrets, and manipulations gradually surface.

Against the backdrop of a Nigeria subject to political upheavals and military coups, Yejide and Akin experience personal tragedies at the deaths of their children due to sickle-cell disease. The couple is subjected to intense family pressure to participate in traditional rituals to ward off the evil spirits that ostensibly plague their family. With her third pregnancy, Yejide determines not to get too attached to her child, fully anticipating she will die young as did her former siblings.

Adebayo knows how to tell a story that sustains reader interest with its many twists and turns, shocking revelations, dramatic tension, and skillful use of suspense, all of which pack a powerful emotional punch. The intimacy generated by the first-person voices of Yejide and Akin affords them the opportunity to describe the intense familial pressure they experience and to explain why they made the choices they did. We may not agree with their decisions, but we can understand and sympathize. The characters are multi-dimensional, flawed, and conflicted. Their voices are authentic, their plight generating compassion. The supporting cast of characters are equally well-drawn, especially Akin’s brother, Yejide’s in-laws, and her multiple step-mothers.

Woven into the fabric of the narrative are elements of Nigerian culture, traditional beliefs, customs, food, and folk tales. The plot is well-constructed with shocking revelations periodically interspersed throughout the narrative to sustain reader interest until the surprise ending. The novel lays bare the extent to which people are willing to sacrifice their core beliefs in order to satisfy their fundamental need for love and acceptance.

Highly recommended.

Disoriental

Negar Djavadi; trans. by Tina A. Kover

Disoriental by Negar Djavadi, translated from the French by Tina A. Kover, won several writing awards in France. And deservedly so. The title word combines the disorientation characterizing the immigrant experience with that of families moving from the orient to Europe. It also applies to the disintegration of a large, cohesive family unit uprooted from its homeland to scatter all over the globe.

The novel opens at a fertility clinic in Paris. Our narrator is Kimiâ Sadr, a young Iranian immigrant awaiting her appointment to be artificially inseminated. This pivotal moment in her life prompts her to explore who she is and where she came from by going back in time to describe her extended family. She does so in a series of fragments and anecdotes populated by great grandparents, grandparents, parents, six uncles, aunts, two older sisters, and cousins.

The first part of the novel (“Side A”) introduces the Sadr family, an upper class, flamboyant medley of characters. One side of the family is originally Armenian, the other Iranian. Beginning with her great-grandfather Montazemolmolk with his harem of fifty-two wives, Kimiâ traces the generations until she arrives at her parents Darius and Sara. Her father, a journalist, wrote articles critical of the Shah’s regime and of the Khomeini regime that followed since both stifled democratic institutions and brutally clamped down on dissidents and freedom of expression. His life in danger, her father escapes to Paris and arranges for his wife and daughters to join him. With her mother and sisters, Kimiâ experiences the harrowing journey of being smuggled out of Iran to Turkey before finally arriving in Paris.

Side B describes Kimiâ’s coming of age in Europe, her struggles with her sexual identity, her increasing estrangement from her family, and her search to find an anchor in a foreign culture. One of the great strengths of this book is Kimiâ’s manifestation of the struggle facing new immigrants. In order to be re-born in the culture of their adopted country, immigrants are obliged to sever themselves from the fabric of their original culture. Kimiâ’s parents are shadows of their former selves, never able to fully adapt to life in France because their hearts and minds remain in Iran. Her sisters marry and successfully assimilate but try to preserve some vestiges of their traditional culture to pass on to their children.

Djavadi skillfully weaves recent events of Iran’s turbulent history into Kimiâ’s narrative. Footnotes are conveniently included on the political and historical events to assist readers unfamiliar with Iran’s recent history. The narrative unfolds in a non-linear fashion. The scene in the fertility clinic is peppered with multiple journeys back to different points in time, anchoring Kimiâ to her family and culture. The anecdotes and fragments are immersive, capturing in evocative detail the sights, sounds, and smells of the characters populating her life, from the way they look, to their activities, to the food they eat.

But perhaps the greatest strength of this novel lies in the narrator’s voice. Kimiâ frequently addresses the reader directly. Her tone is intimate, as if she is sharing her life story with a close friend. She can be funny, informative, serious, sarcastic, complex, confused, and conflicted. But throughout it all, she is authentic, engaging, charming, and believable.

This is a compelling narrative capturing the immigrant experience of an upper-class family while seamlessly threading it with the personal and political history that drove them to flee their homeland.

Very highly recommended.

The Bear and the Nightingale

Katherine Arden

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden is a magical fantasy combining elements of Russian folktales, fairy tales, an indigenous belief system, and Christianity. The folk and fairy tales are deeply rooted in the inhabitants of a small, isolated village in 14thC Russia (known as Rus) where winter is harsh, lasting most of the year and bringing with it fierce snow drifts that virtually paralyze the community.

Into this setting enters Vasilisa, a daughter born to Pyotr, the leader of the community. Her mother dies giving birth to her. She is raised by a kindly nurse who nourishes her love of fairy tales and folk tales. Even as a child, Vasilisa is different. She sees and talks to spirits and demons no one else can see. She honors ancestral traditions and feeds the household spirits to strengthen them as they fight to ward off evil. She defies gender norms of the time through her rebellious spirit, and by romping in the forest, riding horses, preferring the company of animals to people, and harboring an indifference to her appearance.

Conflicts arise when her father re-marries a woman who is ostensibly a devout Christian but who is haunted by demons. The conflict is exacerbated with the coming of a new priest determined to rid the people of their traditional beliefs while urging them to accept Christianity. Vasilisa straddles both worlds. She attributes the ensuing crop failures, harsher winters, and evil spirits lurking ever closer to her home to the abandonment of the traditional beliefs and rituals that nourished her community for centuries. A fiercely independent Vasilisa sets off on a quest to fight the force of evil to save her village. As this is the first book in a trilogy, the ending of the novel promises more adventures for Vasilisa.

The novel has many strong qualities. The blending of folklore, fairy tales, and the characters who populate them was interesting. The description of the setting with its harsh winters, heavy snow drifts, and the hungry family huddling around the oven for warmth effectively transport the reader to a different time and place. But the plot was unnecessarily confusing with its many twists and turns, talking horses, spirits coming back from the dead, household guardians, a dark god in the form of an evil bear whose brother is the not-so-evil winter demon king. There was too much happening, too many characters, with too many incidental details that did little to contribute to the main story line. The plot would have benefited from a tighter focus, fewer distractions, and stronger character development.

Recommended for readers of magical realism.

The Unpassing

Chia-Chia Lin

The Unpassing by Chia-Chia Lin explores the challenges of assimilation experienced by a Taiwanese immigrant family of six in Alaska. Set against Alaska’s beautiful but stark landscape and its unforgiving climate, the family struggles to adjust to life an unfamiliar country while dealing with personal grief.

The story unfolds through the first-person voice of Gavin, the eldest boy in the family. It flashes back to 1986 when the family experienced a terrible tragedy. Gavin was ten years old at the time. He wakes from a week-long coma after contracting meningitis to learn his three-year-old sister, Ruby, died from the virus.

Rather than openly grieving and sharing their loss, each family member reacts to the trauma by withdrawing emotionally. Their failure to discuss Ruby’s death prevents them from healing. Gavin’s profound guilt at infecting his sister permeates his perceptions through the rest of the novel as Ruby is never far from his mind. The mother, a strict, harsh, abrasive, and distant matriarch, is prone to erratic behavior and fits of verbal lashings. The father, riddled with grief at the death of his daughter, tries to do what is best for his family, but he is fragile and not up to the task. Gavin’s older sister, Pei-Pei, is headstrong and determined to go her own way. Five-year old Natty, the sibling closest to Ruby in age, cannot comprehend her loss. He worries she may be lost in the woods and insists they look for her.

Compounding the family’s grief is their poverty and alienation at being in an unfamiliar country. Gavin inherits his parents’ distrust of outsiders, including medical personnel and police. He feels his “otherness” in school because of the way he looks, dresses, and the food he eats. His life at home is fraught with an underlying tension ready to surface at any moment. His mother seethes with resentment at his father, constantly reminding him of his failures and inadequacies.

Gavin struggles to find a secure foothold, to make sense of what is happening as he watches his family slowly unravel before his eyes. His narrative unfolds in a series of half-understood, murky events peppered with snatches of his parents’ conversations. The absence of a cohesive plot reinforces his sense of bewilderment. The structure is episodic in nature. By the time Gavin is able to piece together what happened to Ruby, his parents have separated. As an adult, Gavin visits his extended family in Taiwan. But, here, too, he is an outsider. His feelings of alienation and separation haunt him wherever he goes. He recognizes he will “un-pass” for the rest of his life.

Told in spare, haunting prose, this is a complex, understated novel that intertwines several themes: the challenges facing a first-generation immigrant family; coping with the traumatic loss of a child; suppressed grief; isolation; alienation; poverty; the struggle to survive; detachment as a coping mechanism; a coming-of-age story; the failure of adequate parenting; the search for identity; the pain of childhood trauma; and the long-lasting legacy of outsider status.

A compelling novel exploring challenging and difficult themes. Highly recommended.

The Familiars

Stacey Halls

The setting for Stacey Halls’ The Familiars is 17th-century England during the Pendle Hill Witch Trials. It is told in the first-person voice of Fleetwood Shuttleworth, the wife of Richard Shuttleworth. Both Fleetwood and Richard are historical figures.

Having suffered multiple miscarriages, Fleetwood is desperate to give birth to a healthy baby. She meets Alice Grey, a young midwife, and clings to her as her only hope to survive and to give birth to a healthy baby. She places complete trust in Alice and the healing plants and herbs she provides. But this is 17th century England, a time when women healers and midwives, whose knowledge of medicinal plants and herbs were transmitted from mother to daughter for many generations, were viewed with suspicion by male authorities. These women were hunted down, persecuted, tortured, and executed in part to curry political favors with powerful male elites, in part to keep women afraid, and in part to reinforce a patriarchal power structure designed to subordinate women.

When Alice Grey is accused of witchcraft, Fleetwood spurs into action to save her midwife in a frenzy of activity as Alice’s trial looms on the horizon. Fleetwood visits Alice in prison, travels across the countryside talking to people who knew Alice, and obtaining letters that prove her innocence. When all appears lost, Richard Shuttleworth saves the day. He speaks in support of Alice during her trial and provides letters of her innocence obtained by Fleetwood.  

The novels strength lies in showing the corrupt system which accused these women, put them on trial, and executed them on the flimsiest of evidence. Much of the evidence was hearsay fueled by politicians eager to make a name for themselves by persecuting helpless, impoverished women. This was not just a war against women healers who were poor and illiterate. It was a war waged against all women to intimidate them and reinforce their subordinate status.

Although the narrative had potential, it fell short. With its exclusive focus on Fleetwood, the opportunity to shed insight on the women put on trial as witches was squandered. The characters were superficial and uninteresting, frequently speaking in clichés. The events felt contrived, including the hurried ending with the last-minute rescue of Alice Grey.

Probably the most problematic issue was Fleetwood’s transformation. From a meek and mild nobleman’s wife intimidated by her own household servants, she transforms into a courageous pregnant woman who dashes about the countryside on her horse, determined to rescue her midwife. She goes to unseemly places, interacts with unseemly men and, yet, somehow, manages to emerge relatively unscathed. She defies her husband and challenges an unscrupulous former magistrate intent on his political advancement at the expense of innocent women. Although she rails against the injustices toward women, she casually accepts her husband’s betrayal as if it were an acceptable norm. Above all, she risks her life, her marriage, and her freedom to save a midwife. And she does all this at the ripe, old age of seventeen.

An entertaining novel but it stretched the limits of credibility.

Weep Not, Child

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

Published in 1964, Weep Not, Child by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o tells the story of a young boy growing up during a period of civil unrest between British colonial authorities in Kenya and the indigenous population—a period of escalating tensions and the Mau Mau uprising. The events are seen through the eyes of a child.

As a young boy, Njoroge is full of hope and potential. His ambition is to obtain an education. With family support, he passes the required exams and is the first boy in his village to attend high school. He feels the weight of the village on his shoulders and dreams of his education as a means to better equip him to support his people. Meanwhile, the country suffers from escalating tensions between the indigenous population and the white government; harsh repercussions for workers striking for a living wage; increased brutality; killings; the Mau Mau uprising; disappearances; and torture.

The struggle is multi-faceted. It pits one family member against another. It is a struggle over land appropriated by the white colonists from the original owners. It is a struggle to control resources. It is between Kenyans co-opted by the colonial powers to fight against their own people. It is between Christianity and the indigenous belief systems. It is between those who believe Western education as the only weapon to achieve justice and those who take up arms against the oppressor. It is between those who have hope in the future and those who have lost all hope.

Njoroge is swept up in forces completely beyond his control. He witnesses the collapse of village ties and the disintegration of his family. His father is tortured to death; one brother is incarcerated; and the remaining brothers have been killed. His hopes of an education are dashed, and his one love rejects him. He changes from being a child full of hope and promise to young adult full of despair. The outcome is bleak.

Told in simple, almost rhythmic language, Weep Not, Child is a complex, multi-layered exploration of the deleterious impact of colonialism on every aspect of the lives of the indigenous population. It also shows how the colonizer becomes increasingly brutalized in a desperate attempt to hold on to what he deems is rightly his. For a short, quick read, the novel packs a powerful punch.

Recommended.

Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths

Helen Morales

In Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths, Helen Morales, a classics professor, interrogates classical myths through a feminist lens.

Using a variety of Greek and Roman myths, Morales contests traditional interpretations of myths to glean their current relevance and to show their continuing influence on our culture. She argues some myths reinforce a patriarchal agenda, while others can be reclaimed to challenge the dominant ideology by unveiling their subversive power. Her insights are fascinating. For example, she argues that the killing of girls and women by men can be seen as continuing the legacy of Greek heroes lauded for killing Amazons since they rejected male domination. She claims the words of Hippocrates have been misappropriated by the diet industry “to promote misery and sickness” and to enforce gender and racial norms. She traces the policing of dress codes for girls and women back to the gunaikonomoi, the women controllers of ancient Greece who enforced women’s dress and behavior as a means of control. And Euripides’ The Bacchae is interpreted as a cautionary tale of the dangers and futility of trying to control women.

Morales deconstructs several rape narratives and shows how they inform our perspectives on sexual violence. The myth of Procne and Philomela demonstrates the refusal of rape victims to be silenced and the importance of women’s collaboration to effect retaliation against abusive men. Antigone is faulted for acting alone. The myth of Erysichton is interpreted as an allegory for climate change. Abuse of the environment is connected to the abuse of women. Myths are explored for their gender fluidity. And Morales celebrates Beyonce for casting herself as a pregnant Venus in photographs and for her APESHIT music video with Jay-Z at the Louvre. By dressing as African goddesses in her stage performances, Beyonce makes visible black women’s pasts.

Some of Morales’ insights and connections are intriguing. Some have barely a tenuous link with the myth. But all are interesting. Morales peppers her discussion with personal anecdotes about her herself and her daughter. Prior familiarization with the myths is unnecessary since she provides brief summaries. She comments on modern interpretations and iterations of the myths. By shifting the focus and changing the lens, Morales opens up the myths to new interpretations, thereby demonstrating their power and continued relevance. Her writing is engaging, accessible, and witty. Her contribution to feminist critiques of Greek and Roman myths is both refreshing and welcome.

Highly recommended.

Cry, the Beloved Country

Alan Paton

The opening lines of Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country exemplify the beauty and sheer lyricism of his diction:

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond the singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa. About you there is grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the titihoya, one of the birds of the veld.

Paton sustains this level of lyricism for the rest of the novel. His language sings, rolls, and skips along the tongue, much like the poetry of Dylan Thomas. The beautiful language accentuates the poignancy and heartbreak of the narrative as the story unfolds.

Set against the background of a South Africa fraught with racial tensions and the injustice of apartheid, an elderly Zulu pastor, Stephen Kumalo, sets off for Johannesburg in search of his sister, Gertrude, and his son, Absalom. Unfamiliar with large cities, Kumalo is bewildered by its size and activity. Fortunately, several people generously give of their time to assist him in his search. He retrieves Gertrude from a life of prostitution. He eventually locates Absalom, finding him in a jail cell awaiting trial for murdering a white man.

Threaded throughout this tragic story are insights on the impact of imperialism: the exploitation of the indigenous population, the struggles they face, the desperation and poverty, the breakdown of the family unit, the loss of a cohesive belief system, and the corruption and betrayal of those in relative positions of power. Paton takes an even-handed approach to the challenges. While castigating a system built on segregation and economic exploitation, he scrupulously avoids portraying the struggle as black against white. The corrupt and the advocates for equality and racial justice can be found on both sides of the racial divide, as are their acts of forgiveness, kindness, compassion, and generosity.

The characters are authentically rendered in a series of heart-wrenching scenes. Kumalo’s encounter with Absalom as he grapples to understand why and how his son could have killed a man is deeply moving. His son’s confused and halting replies reflect his fear and inability to fully grasp what has happened. A distraught James Jarvis, the victim’s father, as he reads the final words of his son, is heart-wrenching. Ironically, his son was composing an eloquent statement advocating for racial justice before he was so tragically interrupted. But perhaps the most poignant scenes are those between James Jarvis, the father of the man who was killed, with Stephen Kumalo, the father of the man who killed him. Overcome with emotion, Kumalo struggles find the right words to apologize for his son’s senseless act. The shared pain of the two fathers is rendered with compassion and delicacy.

This is a beautiful story, beautifully rendered with compassion and understanding.

Highly recommended.

Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem

Michael Schmidt

Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem by Michael Schmidt explores various aspects of this very ancient poem from Mesopotamia. In this relatively short but densely packed book, Schmidt provides an overview of the discovery of the clay tablets scattered across the Arab world, Turkey, and southern Iran; the fragmentary nature of what has survived; the many translations, interpretations, and iterations; its influence on modern writers; and speculations as to why the poem continues to fascinate.

Gilgamesh is a work in progress. There is no single, complete copy of the poem. It is a patchwork of fragments from different time periods, in different languages, discovered in different locations. Some of the many gaps can be plugged by referring to a more recent tablet, while others cannot be filled at all and are indicated by ellipses and/or plus signs. To complicate matters further, the meaning of the cuneiform symbols has changed over time, so the same symbol may mean something different elsewhere. And as new discoveries are made, the meaning behind existing symbols will have to be revisited.

A chapter is dedicated to each of the 12 surviving tablets. Schmidt outlines the content and weaves in and out of the Old Babylonian and Standard Babylonian texts while examining the differences between them. He compares different translations of the same passage, critiquing them and noting where a translator has been lax by taking unwarranted liberties with the text or by injecting a modern perspective on this ancient poem. He is not shy about expressing his opinions, arguing that because the nature of the poem is “uncertain, porous,” it has attracted a variety of translations. He eschews translations not performed by Assyrioligists since they have not relied on original sources but are translations of translations. And he will not suffer any distortions when it comes to a translation although he does allow for imaginative retellings that don’t claim to be translations.

What emerges from this study is Schmidt’s unwavering passion for the poem and his insistence that it should be allowed to speak for itself so as to be appreciated on its own terms. He is wary of translations that aim for accessibility to a modern audience by glossing over the poems “otherness.” He celebrates the original scholars who poured over the tablets, meticulously and conscientiously deciphering each symbol. And he describes the intense sensation he experiences when handling one of the copyist tablets.

Michael Schmidt has offered a very informative and engaging commentary on the life of this very ancient poem and the challenges it presents. His work is informed by his unabashed love for the poem and his attempts to dive into its possible meanings while adhering faithfully to the actual text.

Highly recommended for its informative exploration of this very ancient, enigmatic poem.

The Red Sofa

Michèle Lesbre; Trans. Nicole Ball and David Ball

The Red Sofa by Michèle Lesbre, translated by Nicole Ball and David Ball, is a quiet, unassuming novel consisting primarily of flashbacks exploring the interior landscape of Anne, the central character.

Seemingly adrift in the world, Ann sets off to locate her former lover, Gyl. Although it had been twenty years since they last saw each other when he took off to live in Siberia, they had continued to communicate through letters. When his letters end abruptly, Anne is convinced he is in trouble and needs help. She decides to find him.

She travels on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Her journey to the small village where Gyl presumably lives takes several days. Punctuated by bouts of sleep, Anne alternates between describing the desolate Russian landscape and observing her cabin companions. The swaying motion of the train lulls her into reflecting on her own life and past loves in a series of flashbacks.

Prominent throughout these recollections is her friendship with Clémence Barrot, an elderly neighbor in her Paris apartment building. She remembers her first meeting with Clémence. She remembers Clémence firmly ensconced on her red sofa. She remembers Clémence pulling out an old photo of her first love which she kept hidden behind the sofa cushion. She remembers sitting next to Clémence on the sofa as she read her stories of courageous women of the past who defied convention and fought for justice. And she remembers how they celebrated these women by raising a glass to them in a nearby café. The two of them connect. Their bond deepens. They exchange stories of their loves and lives. It soon becomes apparent to Anne that Clémence has led a life of passion. Her zest and enthusiasm to embrace all life has to offer is unwavering in spite of her frail body and failing memory.

Anne drifts seamlessly in and out of flashbacks in a dream-like state lulled by the rhythmic movement of the train. She describes the train ride, her observations of the passengers, her previous relationships, Gyl, and her unlikely friendship with Clémence. Peppered throughout her interior meanderings are expressions of self-doubt. When her sought-after meeting with Gyl fails to materialize, she returns to Paris eager to share her adventure with Clémence only to learn that Clémence has died.

What starts off as a train journey through the Russian landscape gradually assumes a different dimension. It becomes a transformative experience. The Anne who returns to Paris is no longer adrift or disenchanted with life. Paying homage to her deceased friend, she goes to the river where Clémence died and reads her a poem that celebrates life. She feels Clémence’s presence so deeply, she seemingly imbues her persona. The novel concludes with Anne embracing her friend’s love of life, making it her own.

A quiet, thoughtful novel that packs an emotional punch.

Recommended.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers

Set against the backdrop of a small town in the deep South where violence, poverty, prejudice, and economic discrimination abound, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers poignantly explores loneliness and the yearning for human connection.

The central figure is John Singer, a deaf-mute. The novel opens with Singer and his closest friend, Spiros Antonapoulos, also a deaf-mute, on their daily routine of work and home. The two keep to themselves and rely solely on each other for company. All is going well until Antonapoulos’ behavior becomes seriously problematic and he is institutionalized. Singer is broken-hearted, bereft of his only companion.

With his world turned upside down, Singer changes his routine. He leaves the home he shared with Antonapoulos, rents a room in a nearby house, and eats his meals at a local café. Gradually, he attracts a disparate group of people who hover around him like moths to a flame. They include Mick Kelly, the homeowners’ young daughter who harbors a secret passion for music; Jake Blount, a Marxist alcoholic; Dr. Copeland, a black physician, alienated from his own children and with a burning ambition to educate the black community about their oppression; and Biff Brannon, the lonely café owner.

The characters are sympathetically drawn. They drift in and out of Singer’s room sharing their dreams, frustrations, and heartaches. Each feels better after the encounter, convinced Singer is a kindred spirit who understands. He is their only source of comfort, someone who listens. Meanwhile, Singer, who understands little of what they say, welcomes them warmly, offers food and drink, smiles pleasantly, and nods sympathetically. The conversations are one-sided, not only because they don’t understand sign language but because Singer shares nothing of himself, remaining a blank slate for their projections.

The irony is that as each character projects on to Singer what he/she wants to believe, Singer projects on to Antonapoulos in the same way. He, too, needs to be heard. His devotion to his friend is palpable. He visits him laden with gifts, which Antonapoulos dismisses. He pours his heart out to him in a flurry of sign language, which Antonapoulos ignores. His enthusiasm is not reciprocated as Antonapoulos is more intent on food than he is on his friend. And yet Singer continues to make excuses for him, convincing himself that their bond is unique and unbreakable, and that he, alone, understands him.

An omniscient narrator alternates between the characters, revealing their innermost thoughts. The tragedy lies in their inability to alleviate their loneliness by communicating honestly with one another. They talk at cross purposes, misunderstand, miscommunicate, and prevaricate. Their hunt for connection and a sympathetic ear leads them to Singer whom they endow with wisdom and insight. In reality, he barely understands them and cannot respond to their deepest outpourings.

At twenty-three years old, Carson McCullers was able to fathom the depths of loneliness and the need to be heard with a level of maturity and sophistication far beyond her years. Her portrayal is heart-felt, timeless, profound, and starkly desolate.

A masterpiece and highly recommended.

The Law of Inheritance

Yasser Abdellatif; trans. Robin Moger

The Law of Inheritance by Yasser Abdellatif, translated by Robin Moger, is a series of vignettes that tell the story of a young man growing up in Egypt in the 1990s. The snapshots include stories of his Nubian grandfather and the family’s relocation after their village was flooded by the Aswan Dam; recollections of his childhood and schooling; his involvement in the student riots at Cairo University in the 1990s; his pill-popping experimentation with hallucinogens; and his fledgling attempts at becoming a writer.

The fragmentary nature of the vignettes is reinforced by a lyrical prose that give it almost a dream-like quality. The movement is fluid. The vignettes move back and forth in time; characters appear, disappear, only to reappear later. Questions of belonging and identity permeate the atmosphere. Bouts of smoking and pill-popping with friends pepper the narrative as does the fate of family members and school friends. The student riots and violent reaction of the authorities is described in chaotic, almost surreal terms. The overall impression is of a series of snapshots revealing a people in transition, floundering to find a foothold and struggling to forge connections in a changing society.

Unfolding in poetic prose, these fragmentary sketches and memories, shifts in time, and the depiction of a generation adrift encapsulate the zeitgeist of Cairo as it experiences the dramatic changes of the 1990s.

Recommended.

Three Men in a Boat

Jerome K. Jerome

First published in 1889, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome has withstood the test of time and remains a comic masterpiece. The three men are George, Harris, and J, the narrator; the dog is Montmorency, an intrepid fox terrier. Ignoring Montmorency’s whimpering objections, the three men decide to take a boat trip on the River Thames to cure them of their maladies—real or imaginary.

What follows is one hilarious episode after another. From the hysterical scene where they pack for the trip to the self-inflicted mishaps during the actual boat ride, the various antics of the three men and their dog will have the reader doubled over with laughter. J includes hilarious anecdotes, recollections, and digressions along the way, which he tells with very dry humor and a pinch of sarcasm. He evokes in vivid detail the charming and idyllic scenery of the river and its surroundings. The serenity prompts his reveries back to a time long since passed where toil and trouble were presumably non-existent. He peppers the narrative with interesting historical tidbits about the various locations they pass—which poet lived in the area, the location of the historic signing of the Magna Charta, the many locales where Henry VIII chased after Anne Boleyn, and so on. He reflects on the meaning of life, laughs at himself and others, and pokes gentle fun at some of the foibles of human nature, including his own peccadillos.

The humor is timeless. The dialogue between the three buddies is fresh, witty, unpretentious, and injected with irony and sarcasm. In addition to its laugh out loud humor, what makes this book so delightful is its ability to strike a nostalgic tone—a time when life was much simpler, when boating along the river afforded an escape from the frantic hustle and bustle of life.

A deliciously funny book and one that is highly recommended for anyone in need of some hearty laughter.

Tortilla Flat

John Steinbeck

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck is a charming story loosely based on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The central figure of King Arthur is Danny. His knights are a motley crew of itinerant paisanos, men of mixed Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and Caucasian heritage. A hillside in Monterey, California, is Camelot. And King Arthur’s round table where the knights gather is Danny’s ramshackle home.

The story opens when Danny, much to his dismay, inherits two houses. He lives in one and rents another to his friends. In one of their drunken reveries, these gallant friends accidentally burn the house down. Although he chastises them, Danny is secretly relieved to be rid of what he considers to be the burden of owning two houses. He allows his friends to settle in with him. Other homeless friends gradually filter in until there are five people and several dogs living with Danny—Pilon, Pablo, Pirate, Jesus Maria, and Big Joe Portagee.

The only ambition in life of these goodly knights is to spend their days and nights drinking, spinning yarns, philosophizing about life, carousing with women, and drinking, again, until they pass out in a drunken stupor. They eschew worldly possessions. Their activities are punctuated with the occasional brawl and the theft of other people’s property which they rationalize by claiming it is for a good cause—the purchase of more wine. Their intentions may be good, but more often than not, they are waylaid by personal considerations.

Although they appear to be lawless vagabonds, this motley crew of friends adheres to a strict code of honor with only the occasional lapse in judgment. They are swift and severe in punishing the transgressor but equally quick to forgive the wrongdoer and embrace him back into their fold. They have a fierce loyalty to each other and are willing to share their few, meagre worldly possessions.

The diction is simple, honest, and engaging with the occasional use of “thee” and “thou” thrown in for good measure to echo the Arthurian legends. Their antics and dialogue are peppered with humor. Each character is meticulously drawn and has a distinct personality. Their warmth, generosity of spirit, and compassion shines through their bedraggled clothing and humble surroundings.

The narrative flows seamlessly in prose that borders on the poetic. Humor ripples through the pages. And although Steinbeck pokes fun at his characters’ antics and ribaldry, he paints them with a gentle and loving paintbrush so they emerge from his pages as endearing and warm. Under their rough, drunken exterior, these paisanos have hearts of gold.

Highly recommended.