Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad

Ibn al-Sai, translated from the Arabic by Shawkat M. Toorawa

Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad by Ibn al Sai, translated from the Arabic by Shawkat M. Toorawa, provides a fascinating glimpse into the words and deeds of the consorts of caliphs over a five-hundred-year period. The earliest consort is Hammadah Bint Isa, the wife of Caliph Mansur (she died around 780 C.E.); the latest is Shahan, the consort of Caliph al-Muntasir (she died around 1254 C.E).

Ibn al Sai was a literary scholar, historian, and librarian. Born in Baghdad, his dates are 1197-1276 C.E. With unfettered access to official archives of the caliphate, Ibn al Sai wrote history books of which only few fragments have survived. Consorts of the Caliphs is his only work to survive in its entirety.

To compile this work, Ibn al Sai poured over archives and meticulously recorded the chain of oral transmission to authenticate his biographical research concerning each of the 39 women included in his work. There are anecdotes about the women, their personal narratives, poems, and charitable donations. The exorbitant amounts paid to purchase them are recorded, as are the precious gems and copious gold coins they received when called upon to compose a pleasing impromptu poem.

Consorts were referred to as wives, concubines, or slaves. But these were not slaves in the traditional sense. These women were well-respected and loved. Some were wealthy, owning palaces and wielding enormous influence with the caliphs and their sons. They were accomplished poets and singers. Many frequently surpassed their male counterparts in impromptu competitions in poetry and singing, earning the respect of the court. Some endowed law colleges; established lending libraries from their personal collection; funded the building of bridges and the reparation of infrastructure; and gave generously to the needy, especially women and children. Their deaths were mourned; their funeral services were frequently led by caliphs.

These brief biographical sketches shatter stereotypes and challenge the notion that the consorts of the caliphs were one homogenous, sexually exploited group of women. They were intelligent, articulate, resourceful, influential, witty, accomplished, talented, respected, generous, and loved. They had distinct personalities and assumed a variety of roles in the caliphs’ courts. To read about them and to hear them speak in their own voices through their poems going back 1,200 years is nothing short of fascinating. And what makes this work even more astonishing is that nearly 1,000 years ago, an Iraqi male scholar recognized their importance and diligently and methodically conducted and documented research to preserve their legacy for posterity.

This scholarly edition, produced by the editors of the Library of Arabic Literature, includes an introduction explaining methodology, maps, family trees of the caliphs, footnotes, a thorough index, and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

Highly recommended as an invaluable resource for shining a light on the consorts of the Abbasid caliphs.

Shadow

Karin Alvtegen; translated by McKinley Burnett

Shadow by Karin Alvtegen, translated from the Swedish by McKinley Burnett, is a gripping, page-turning mystery in which the crime is not revealed until late in the novel. The novel grapples with the following questions: How far are you willing to go to preserve your humanity? How far are you willing to go to protect what is yours? What price are you willing to pay to retain public acclaim? The answers are shocking.

The setting is Stockholm. A four-year-old boy is abandoned in an amusement park. He carries a note: “Take care of this child. Forgive me.” No explanation is given.

After that cryptic opening, the narrative jumps forward three decades. Marianne Folkesson, a social worker, is tasked with sorting the belongings of the recently deceased ninety-two-year-old Gerda Persson. Marianne searches for names of relatives and friends to notify them of the death. She finds books stacked in the freezer by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Axel Ragnerfeldt. The books have personal hand-written dedications to Gerda, signed by the author. A place to start, she thinks, and begins her enquiries.

Marianne learns Gerda was the long-time housekeeper of the Ragnerfeldt family. She later learns Gerda has named a Kristoffer Sandeblom as her sole beneficiary. But when contacted by Marianne, Kristoffer claims he has never heard of Gerda Persson and has no idea why he is named in her will. Kristoffer conducts his own investigation in an effort to solve a mystery plaguing him all his life. Who is he? Who are his parents? And why did his mother abandon him at an amusement park when he was four years old? The mystery thickens.

Alvtegen’s characters are realistically drawn, distinct, and well-crafted. The surviving members of the Ragnerfeldt family are an unsavory bunch. Axel’s middle-aged son is a philandering alcoholic. His mother is cold-hearted, self-absorbed, and arrogant. His long-suffering wife is miserable in her marriage. Except for Marianne, all the characters are haunted by personal demons which are revealed through their flashbacks and interiority.

An abandoned four-year-old boy, a Nobel Prize winner and his family, the death of their nine-two-year-old housekeeper thirty-five years later. These are seemingly disparate threads. Alvtegen develops each thread along parallel lines, moving back and forth in time, and alternating between threads. Eventually, all the threads converge. The connection is unveiled. A series of lies, deceptions, thefts, and infidelities are revealed, culminating in a horrendous crime buried for thirty-five years.

Alvtegen skillfully builds the suspense, layer upon layer, with the narrative taking many unexpected twists and turns. She delves into back stories and drops clues until the pieces gradually fall into place to reveal the full extent of the horror. She adroitly explores the long-term impact of crimes, of decisions rippling with lasting repercussions, and of childhood trauma. She clothes it in a spell-binding, dark mystery that keeps one guessing until the very end.

Highly recommended.

Swimming Home

Deborah Levy

The opening pages of Swimming Home by Deborah Levy establish an atmosphere of impending disaster. Kitty Finch is behind the steering wheel, driving recklessly while telling her passenger she loves him. Her passenger is nervous and regrets sleeping with her. With that ominous prologue, we go back in time to the beginning of the week.

The setting is a tourist villa in Nice, France. Joe is on holiday with his wife, Isabel, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Nina. With them are Isabel’s friend, Laura, and her husband, Mitchell. They wake up on a Saturday morning to find a woman floating in the swimming pool. Isabel dives into the pool to retrieve the woman who has, presumably, drowned. But the woman is not dead. Her face surfaces from the water, gasping for breath. Enter Kitty Finch. She emerges from the pool, stark naked.

What follows is a week in which the characters exhibit signs of depression and dysfunction. Joe, a poet, is haunted by a childhood trauma of being smuggled out of Nazi Poland as a five-year-old. His parents and two-year-old sister did not survive the Polish death camp. Isabel is a war correspondent haunted by images of carnage and dismembered bodies. Laura and Mitchell are shop owners who are losing their business. Nina is torn between her parents. And Kitty Finch is a certifiable manic depressive who is off her medications. Invited to stay with the group, she becomes the focus, weaving in and out of conversations while exhibiting frenetic behavior.

The characters clothe their personal demons in a restrained, external veneer. Kitty is the only character who fully exposes her demons and vulnerabilities, both physically and mentally. She is also the only character who spends much of her time prancing around in the nude.

Deborah Levy generates an atmosphere fraught with tension and dripping with a sense of menace. The plot, carefully and methodically constructed, leads to its inexorable and shocking conclusion. Levy moves through the characters revealing the extent of their depression through their interiority. The elusive Kitty flits among them, and despite her unpredictable mannerisms, she, alone, has insight into Joe and Isabel. Kitty has intentionally injected herself into the group for a purpose. It is not until the end of the novel that her purpose is revealed.

This is a compelling read with fleshed out, memorable characters, and an intricate plot which unfolds in precise, spare, and suggestive language. Shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, this short book packs a powerful punch.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

Kathleen Rooney

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney celebrates the life and achievements of Margaret Fishbank, a 1930s highly successful advertising copywriter known for quirky, offbeat, and humorous poems. In the Author’s Note, Rooney describes how delving into Fishbank’s archives inspired her to create her fictional character, Lillian Boxfish.

It is 1984 on New Year’s Eve. Eighty-five-year-old Lillian Boxfish decides to walk along the streets of her beloved Manhattan to have dinner at her favorite restaurant as she has done every New Year’s Eve for decades. Wearing her mink coat, brightly colored lipstick, and with a hat perched on her head, Lillian heads out undeterred by the seamy streets of Manhattan or the possible dangers lurking around each corner.

As she strolls, she reminisces about her life—her arrival in Manhattan, her success at R. H. Macy’s which eventually led to her being the highest paid advertising woman in America, marriage, motherhood, divorce, and subsequent nervous breakdown. Her journey back in time includes some of the historical highlights of twentieth century America, including prohibition, AIDS, and rap music.

Lillian’s eye for detail is commendable. She observes various landmarks along the way, decrying some of the changes in her once familiar environment. She pauses in front of buildings, recalling their significance. Here is the first apartment she shared with her good friend, Helen. This is the restaurant where she has celebrated New Year’s Eve for decades. And here is where she and her husband ate their last meal together while finalizing their divorce.

Lillian does more than just walk and reminisce. She interacts with strangers, engaging them in conversations prompted by her insatiable appetite to learn about people and their experiences. Strangers reciprocate with a solicitous concern for her welfare as an elderly woman traipsing alone at night on the streets of Manhattan. Her eye for detail enables her to home in on their personalities. That same eye for detail knows the nooks and crannies of Manhattan, its past and present, its good and bad. Through Lillian’s eyes, the city comes alive, basking in her love.

Unfolding in the first-person point of view, Lillian’s voice is delightful, funny, energetic, piercingly honest, and sparkling with an acerbic wit tempered with generosity and kindness toward those in need. She is charismatic, charming, entertaining, and can talk herself out of almost any sticky situation. But she is not without flaws, which renders her a more believable character.

What makes Lillian Boxfish such a delight is her appetite for life, and her sheer determination to walk the streets of her beloved city, undaunted and unafraid. Eighty-five-year-old Lillian Boxfish will not let anyone or anything deter her from doing what she loves best. And for that she deserves our praise. And for crafting an endearing portrait of an unforgettable octogenarian, Kathleen Rooney deserves even greater praise.

Highly recommended.

The Arsonists' City

Hala Alyan

The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan is a multi-generational family saga about a Lebanese/Syrian family. The patriarch is Idris Nasr, a Lebanese, married to Mazna, a Syrian. Their three children are Ava, Mimi (Marwan), and Naj (Najla). Apart from Naj who lives in Beirut, the family all live in America. Set mostly against the backdrop of a Lebanon emerging from sectarian tensions and civil war, the novel covers a span of about 40 years. The focus is on Mazna and her adult children. Their challenges and personal demons are gradually revealed through temporal shifts and locations alternating between Damascus, America, and Beirut.

The novel opens in 1978 when Zakaria, a young Palestinian refugee, is murdered in Lebanon in an act of sectarian revenge. The novel goes back to 1965 to introduce a young Mazna in Damascus, an aspiring actress with dreams of becoming a Hollywood movie star. Through a mutual friend, she meets Idris in 1978 who becomes totally besotted with her. And through Idris, she meets Zakaria. The three become involved in a love triangle when Mazna and Zakaria fall passionately in love and make plans for a future together. Their love affair comes to a screeching halt with Zakaria’s murder.

Shortly after Zakaria’s death, Idris is accepted in medical school in California. He proposes to Mazna with lures of Hollywood fame. A broken-hearted Mazna accepts his proposal, resigning herself to a marriage with a man she does not love. Forty years later when Idris decides to sell the Beirut ancestral home he inherited from his father, he causes a family uproar. The family converges in Beirut to hold a memorial for Idris’ father and to protest the sale of the home.

In this character-driven novel, Alyan excels in creating authentic, believable, and multi-dimensional characters beset with sibling jealousies and rivalry, marital bickering, simmering resentments, petty squabbles, thwarted aspirations, and ongoing deceptions. The ebb and flow of their relationships as they push away from one another or pull toward one another realistically capture the complexity of family dynamics. Each character is fully fleshed out, unique, flawed, and realistically drawn. The dialogue is natural with its pauses, hesitations, things said, and things left unsaid. Secrets buried for forty years bubble to the surface. Added to the mix are first and second generation struggles with issues of forced migration, displacement, fractured identity, questions of belonging, assimilation, and loss of homeland.

This complex, multi-layered novel grips the reader from the first pages of its riveting prologue depicting a revenge murder to the last pages depicting the resiliency of the Nasr family bond. Alyan’s finely drawn characters, intricate storytelling, masterful pacing, and sparkling prose attest to her skill as an accomplished writer well-deserving of the accolades she has received.

A compelling family saga. Highly recommended.

The Children of Jocasta

Natalie Haynes

The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes is very loosely based on the Theban plays of Sophocles. As Haynes acknowledges in her Afterward, she plays “fast and loose with the myth,” deviating in significant ways from the Oedipus/Antigone myth.

The novel shifts back and forth between two timelines, two perspectives, and two story lines. It opens with the first-person point of view of Ismene as the youngest child of Oedipus and Jocasta. Her mother is dead; her father is exiled; and her two brothers, with the assistance of their uncle Creon, rotate annually for the kingship of Thebes. Ismene’s story is replete with palace intrigue, including attempted assassinations; treason; the deaths of her two brothers; and the clandestine burial of Eteocles, the brother accused of treason. Ismene’s story ends with her heading to Corinth to seek her father.

The second timeline takes place years earlier. It unfolds in the third person-point of view with a focus on Jocasta. She is a fifteen-year-old betrothed to King Laius. Hers is an unhappy marriage that includes the presumed still-birth of her first child. After Laius’ death, Jocasta becomes queen, marries Oedipus, and has four children. Her thread ends with her death. The plague, known as “the reckoning,” plays a prominent role at the end of Jocasta’s reign.

Poetic license grants an author the right to modify a myth as he/she sees fit. But Haynes’ deviations are so significant that the novel bears little resemblance to the original. The Sphinx is transformed to a gang of armed robbers who attack travelers. Ismene, not Antigone as in the original, defies Creon and buries her brother. And Haynes’ decision to assign nicknames to the children is a jarring deviation. Ismene is Isy; Antigone is Ani; Eteocles is Eteo; Polyneices is Polyn; and Haemon is Haem. The incongruity of these nicknames leaps off the page, posing an unnecessary and baffling disruption.

The most problematic issue is with deviation from the very essence of the myth. The crux of the Oedipus myth hinges on incest and the discovery of the incest. Haynes chooses to reduce the incest to a mere rumor with no definitive proof. Oedipus summarily dismisses the rumor, attributing it to a wicked, old woman’s desire for revenge. Jocasta doesn’t dismiss it quite so readily, but she hangs herself without ever confirming its truth one way or the other. By casting doubt on the incest, Haynes has effectively stripped the myth of its reason for being. The unwitting incest forms the essential core of the story. Without it, the story of Oedipus, Jocasta, and their troubled progeny loses its dramatic intensity.

Haynes is to be commended for giving voice to Jocasta and Ismene and centralizing their experience. She succeeds in capturing palace life and the hustle and bustle of the city market in vivid, sensory detail. But the work suffers from lengthy expositions—too much telling and too little showing. The characters are underdeveloped, uninteresting mouthpieces. The dialog is strained and doesn’t flow naturally. The shouting match between Eteocles and Polyneices borders on the farcical. And by diminishing the incestuous relationship between Jocasta and Oedipus to nothing more than rumor-mongering, Haynes has obfuscated the very core of the myth and deprived it of its very essence and considerable power.

The Remainder

Alia Trabucco Zerán; trans. Sophie Hughes

The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes, is set in Chile after the end of the Pinochet dictatorship and the restoration of democracy. It focuses on three individuals whose parents were allies involved in the struggle to overthrow the dictator. The chapters alternate between the first-person narrative of Iquela, the young woman whose mother was one of the anti-Pinochet activists, and the rambling stream of consciousness of her quasi-sibling and childhood friend, Felipe, whose father was killed for his political activities. Weaving in and out of both narratives are drug-induced hallucinations that blur the lines between what is real and what is imagined.

The novel opens with a 1988 flashback as a young Iquela recalls the gathering in her home on the day the radio announcer declared Pinochet had lost the election. There is tension in the room with Hans, a German, accusing Iquela’s father of being a snitch. Iquela doesn’t fully understand what is happening. She is more concerned with emulating Hans’ daughter, Paloma, who is a few years older than her.

Years later, Iquela is on her way to pick Paloma up from the airport. Paloma’s mother has died, and her daughter is honoring her wish to be buried in her native Chile. But a volcanic eruption diverts the plane carrying her mother’s body to Argentina. So Felipe, Iquela, and Paloma rent a hearse to retrieve her mother’s corpse for burial in Chile.

It is the telling of this simple plot which makes it a compelling read, earning it a place on the short list for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. The chapters are numbered in reverse order, beginning with chapter 11. The numbered chapters consist of Felipe’s rambling stream of consciousness. He sees dead people everywhere and has assigned himself the task of counting the corpses so the number tallies with the official death toll with no remainders. His narrative is haunting, confused, and confusing. It unravels as one sentence, pages long. Felipe’s instability is reflected in violent acts and obsession with gore and death.

Alternating with Felipe’s numbered chapters are Iquela’s chapters, indicated by a parenthesis, as (  ). Her narrative is more conventional and easier to understand even though it is peppered with flashbacks. Iquela constantly dips in and out of the past as if it has never left her. She is haunted by her mother’s constant reminders of the past and is burdened by her mother’s refrain, “I want you to know that I do all this for you.”

The faltering children of former activists, a city smothered in ash, the ubiquitous presence of corpses—real or imagined—and the search for a missing corpse powerfully evoke the complexities of a traumatic, inherited past. The fractured narrative, lyrical diction, vivid imagery, and powerful symbolism capture the trauma experienced by the children of militants. Haunted by their parents’ past activism, the protagonists are the remainders, burdened with the corpses of the past and seeking a way to bury them.

A compelling narrative capturing the long-lasting trauma of military dictatorships on subsequent generations.

Jane Austen: Her Life

Park Honan

Through extensive research of diaries, letters, and memoirs by Jane Austen and her family, Prof. Park Honan paints an all-encompassing portrait of Jane Austen and her times in his biography, Jane Austen: Her Life. This 400+ page biography includes family trees, a bibliography, extensive notes, and an index.

Prof. Honan does more than just delve into Austen’s personal life. He explores the social, cultural, political, and economic climate of her time and traces the influences on her writing. He argues it was her family, especially her brothers and her sister Cassandra, who had the greatest influence on her work. She was an astute observer of people, frequently incorporating their words and mannerisms into her writing. And she was an avid reader. As a young woman, she was shy in the presence of strangers, enjoyed parties and balls, but was not averse to making snide remarks about people with whom she had little respect or tolerance. She was happiest when surrounded by family and a close circle of friends.

By situating each of her novels in its social and cultural context, Prof. Honan provides valuable insight into Austen’s work. He analyses her novels and traces some of the words and ideas articulated by her characters to those of real individuals with whom she interacted or whose works she read.

This is a thoroughly exhaustive study of Austen—perhaps, a little too exhaustive because Prof. Honan includes copious details and meandering digressions, many of which have little relevance to either Austen’s life or her work. For example, he delves into extensive details about Britain’s war with France, including several pages of information about various sea battles. He provides lengthy genealogies of even the most minor characters who briefly made Austen’s acquaintance and who had no obvious influence on her life or her work.

Flooded with copious amounts of information, the reader has to sieve through what is relevant and what is of little or no significance to Austen’s life. This is unfortunate because there is much to be admired in the study. But the inclusion of tedious and lengthy details which have no bearing on Jane Austen or her work detract from an otherwise informative biography.

Recommended with reservations.

The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

Herta Müller; translated by Philip Boehm

The Fox was Ever the Hunter by Herta Müller, the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, is translated from the German by Philip Boehm. It takes us to late 1980s Rumania, just before the fall of the dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. The focus is on four friends: Adina, a teacher; Paul, a physician; Clara, a factory worker; and Ilie, a soldier. Pavel, working for the secret police, infiltrates the group when he becomes Clara’s boyfriend.

The narrative consists of a series of staccato images designed to create an atmosphere of oppression, fear, and paranoia. The effect is cumulative as Müller builds layer upon layer of fragmented depictions of a population suffering from malnutrition, hunger, poverty, corruption, distrust, betrayal, and constant surveillance. The children are malnourished and disfigured, their hands covered with warts, their teeth black. They are taught to be cautious at a young age. One child tells Adina his mother warns him about the pervasive presence of drawers with listening ears to be found even in trees and fences. The natural environment assumes a quality of foreboding. The town’s poplar trees are variously described as menacing. Pollution and industrial waste run rampant. The animals are so hungry a cat will devour her own young.

The atmosphere throughout is surreal. There is no respite in sleep because even dreams are the stuff of nightmares. The characters speak in whispers, observe events in silence, and go through the motions of living. They are numb to suicides; to the sound of shots fired at someone trying to escape by swimming across the Danube; to the ever-watchful eye of the secret police; to disappearances and interrogations; to a man with a hatchet blade lodged in his skull; and to Ceausescu’s larger-than-life image leering at them from every corner.

The central image is the fox rug in Adina’s apartment. She comes home to find someone has severed the fox’s appendage. One day a tail is cut off; another day, it’s a hind leg; and then it’s a foreleg. The goal is to intimidate her by letting her know the security service has unfettered access to her apartment and that she and her friends are under surveillance. Big Brother is everywhere. And Big Brother is watching her.

This collage of fractured images, fragments, bits and pieces of daily life coalesce to form a haunting and terrifying portrayal of Romania under the Ceausescu. The constant shifts and disjointed narrative work to present life from all its splintered angles until a totality of the experience emerges. While the style and content make this a challenging read, the effort is worth it for those interested in understanding the spiritual, moral, and physical suffocation of life under a brutal dictatorship.

The One that Got Away

Zoë Wicomb

The One that Got Away by Zoë Wicomb is a collection of twelve short stories set in South Africa and Glasgow. The stories depict characters at crossroads either because of a change in circumstances or because they have a choice to make while straddling two cultures.

Confronting questions of identity, the characters explore where they came from and their contentious relationship with the past. They delve into the nature of their connections with spouses, friends, and family, as well as their social and cultural environment. The stories include a man who feels at a loose end; a woman who abandons her responsibilities as wife and mother by refusing to leave her bed; a pair of former high school friends discovering they now have little in common; a young girl navigating her life in Glasgow; a cleaning lady who steals a scarf; and a man returning a library book. A character in one story may turn up as related to or connected with a character in another story.

Several of the stories rely on the stream of consciousness technique, so it can be confusing to distinguish between a person’s thoughts and what is actually happening. The stories are uneven, some being stronger than others. All explore questions of identity and cultural belonging. Wicomb shows identity as a fluid construct. How and where we locate ourselves is in constant flux in an ever-changing world. Her stories capture a moment in time in which her characters discover something new about themselves, about their relationships, and about the world around them. They seem to be in a liminal or in-between phase in which the old ways of thinking and doing have lost relevance, but new ways have yet to materialize. The conclusions to her stories are open-ended, and, just as in real life, resolution remain elusive.

A thought-provoking collection of short stories.

Miss Iceland

Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir

Miss Iceland by Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir, translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon, is a subdued, quiet novel about three close friends who are frustrated misfits in society. The setting of the novel is Reykjavik in 1963. The first-person narrator is Hekla, a young, talented writer named after a volcano. She leaves the family farm to pursue her literary dreams in Reykjavik. Her two close friends in Reykjavik play a prominent role in her life.

Hekla’s friend, Jón John, is harassed for his homosexuality, marginalized by society, and perceived as a criminal and pedophile. His dream of being a theatrical costume designer is thwarted. The only work he can find is on fishing trawlers where he suffers from sea sickness and constant harassment by the ship’s crew for being gay. He graciously welcomes Hekla into his home, buys her clothes, sews her outfits, confides in her, encourages her to write, makes no demands on her, and embraces her as a soul mate.

Hekla’s other friend is Ísey, a frustrated writer. Ísey is married, has a young baby daughter, and is pregnant with her second child. Being a wife and mother consumes her time and stifles her creativity. She is lonely and alone with her baby all day long, finding little inspiration in life. She maintains her sanity by writing imaginary conversations with strangers and recording imaginary events. Hekla provides a much-needed reprieve from her friend’s humdrum existence by showering her with library books, treats, and adult conversation.

And then there is Hekla, a gifted writer who has to combat virulent sexism. She is expected to adhere to societal norms by either becoming a wife and mother like Ísey or a sexually exploited play toy. She rejects both roles. As a talented female author, she struggles to get published in a male-dominated literary world and submits some of her work under a male pseudonym. Her relationship with her poet/boyfriend ends when he learns she is a talented writer.  

The characters are well-drawn and authentic; their frustrations expressed in clear, unadorned language. The strength of the novel lies in Hekla’s voice. She maintains the tone of an emotionally detached observer, never getting upset or revealing her thoughts. Although she sympathizes with her friends’ predicaments, she doesn’t get entangled with their fate. She doesn’t judge, condemn, or criticize. Her voice is firm, straightforward, and droll. She is unruffled by the upheavals in her friends’ lives, by her jealous boyfriend, or by the harassment from male patrons while working at her waitressing job. She refuses to compromise herself, her focus being on her creative output.

The novel ends on an ambiguous note. A volcanic eruption is creating a new island, suggesting new beginnings and a transformation of the status quo. But it also ends with Hekla suggesting her former boyfriend submit her manuscript under his name to increase its chance of publication. He agrees and claims the book as his own. One wonders how much change the status quo has undergone since, once again, another man is appropriating a woman’s work.

At a time in which homophobia and sexism run rampant, this quiet, poignant tale shows the role of friendship in diminishing alienation, supporting creativity, and encouraging self-fulfillment.

Recommended.

The Lost Soul

Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones; illustrated by Joanna Concejo

In the short story/parable, The Lost Soul, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and illustrated by Joanna Concejo, Olga Tokarczuk, recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, offers a profound meditation on finding inner peace. The text is minimal but inspirational.

A man wakes up one morning to experience an existential crisis. Feeling empty and experiencing a loss of identity, he is diagnosed with a case of lost soul. His doctor explains people are so busy running from one place to the next that their souls are unable to keep up with them. He advised finding a quiet place and waiting patiently for his soul to catch up. The man follows the doctor’s advice and waits until he is reunited with his soul. Finding inner peace and attentive to the natural beauty around him, he buries instruments of time and travel and enjoys life at a leisurely pace to accommodate his soul.

This very simple but beautiful story invites reflection. Enhancing the text are the finely detailed, monochromatic drawings of Joanna Concejo. Her illustrations are intricately drawn with pen and pencil. Shading is used to great advantage, whether to reveal the skeletal branches of a tree, the delicate petals of a flower, the windblown grass, the wooden floorboards in the cottage, or the wavy locks of hair on a head. All are shaded in greys and blacks with the occasional burst of green from a plant. Splashes of color are introduced once the man reunites with his soul. The final pages are plush with greenery and flowers to reflect the serenity that comes with slowing down, breathing deeply, and smelling the flowers.

With illustrations that feast the eyes, this is a charming parable for young and old, alike.

In the Country of Men

Hisham Matar

Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men unfolds in the first-person voice of nine-year old Suleiman living in Gaddafi’s Libya and struggling to make sense of the events disrupting his life. Whether it is through his omnipresent, larger-than-life images or through the brutal actions of his revolutionary army and secret police, Gaddafi’s presence haunts the pages of the novel.

Suleiman witnesses the escalating horrors of living under a brutal dictatorship. The father of his best friend is arrested by the Revolutionary army, beaten and kicked before being swept away to an unknown destination. The father later appears on television “confessing” his crime of treason. He is publicly executed at a sports stadium to the resounding cheers of the crowd. Not long after, Suleiman’s father is arrested. He returns home so badly beaten and bruised that Suleiman doesn’t initially recognize him, thinking a monster is sharing his mother’s bed. Eventually, Suleiman’s parents decide to get him out of the country for his own safety. He is sent to Egypt where he completes his education and becomes a pharmacist.

Whether he is describing the burst of flavor when eating mulberries or the public execution as it plays out before his narrator’s eyes, Matar writes in vivid, immersive description. Suleiman’s observations are recorded in minute details, lending an air of verisimilitude to the writing. But there is disconnect and incongruity between his interpretation of what he sees and reality. He refers to his mother’s “illness” and her “medicine” bottle. In reality, his mother is a drunk who becomes reckless after having too much to drink and who burdens her son with stories of her forced marriage. He perceives the secret police agent stationed outside their home as a reliable friend. He compares the condemned man’s resistance to walking up the gallows to a shy woman’s resistance to being coerced on to the dance floor. His confusion is compounded by the knowledge his parents shelter him from the truth although he doesn’t know why.

Violence, fear, torture, surveillance, house searches, disappearances, gender oppression, and lies are daily occurrences in Suleiman’s life, leaving a lingering impact with far-reaching consequences. His confusion and fear manifest in bouts of cruelty and violence toward others. He betrays a friend’s confidence, physically wounds a playmate, and intentionally tries to drown the beggar, Bahloul.

Through the voice of his nine-year-old narrator, Hisham Matar captures the long-term, debilitating impact on a child growing up under an oppressive regime. Suleiman’s life, friends, and family have all been disrupted by forces he doesn’t understand. As an adult living in exile in Egypt, he feels lost, emotionally distant, empty, and alienated. When he looks back at his childhood at the end of the novel, he recognizes his personal trajectory took the shape it did due to political forces completely beyond his control.

Hisham Matar has produced a compelling first-person narrative of a child’s experience with living under a brutal dictatorship.

The Rain Heron

Robbie Arnott

The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott builds a world with mythic qualities that conveys an ecological message about the importance of reciprocity in human interaction with nature.

The novel is in four parts. Part 0 establishes the mythic qualities of the rain heron and its magical powers to generate and withhold rain. It is designated Part 0 because it happens in a mythic realm, before recorded time when our ancient ancestors lived in harmony with nature and believed in its magical powers. Part 1 introduces Ren, a middle-aged woman who fled a military coup to live in a cave in the mountains. Soldiers, led by the relentless Lieutenant Zoe Harker, discover her hideout and torture her until she agrees to lead them to the rain heron. Part 2 takes us back to Zoe’s adolescence where she witnesses the catastrophic consequences of disrupting the reciprocal relationship with nature. In Part 3, Zoe, whose eye has been gouged out by the heron when she captured it, is on a road trip to take the bird to the animal sanctuary. And Part 4 sees another road trip in which Zoe returns the rain heron to its natural habitat.

This is a world in which climate change occurs rapidly, impacting the livelihood of local villagers. It is also a world in which civilians are fearful of military brutality. Lives are disrupted; villages are vacated; and nature wreaks havoc with the weather. The culprit is humanity’s greed and short-sighted desire to dominate nature. Catastrophe ensues when we assume nature’s resources are unlimited and that we can take and take and take without considering long-term repercussions. Nature can and does retaliate with a vengeance. Our environment becomes impoverished; our traditions are lost; our humanity is diminished.  

After illustrating the disastrous consequences of the human instinct to dominate nature, the novel offers a redemption of sorts. It shifts from third person point of view to first person point of view as the final section unfolds in Zoe’s voice to reveal her atonement and restitution. But her transition from a cruel, heartless lieutenant to a penitent human eager to make amends is not entirely convincing and seems somewhat implausible.

Arnott excels in describing the natural environment in vivid and evocative detail. The vibrant colors of the squid as it sucks human blood is visually striking. The majestic heron’s transformations are breath-taking. The powerful imagery of the natural environment assumes an almost mythic resonance. This blend of myth with reality in which myth has a direct bearing on the internal and external environment is reinforced by Zoe. After losing her eye, she experiences an epiphany. She “sees” the truth, echoing Sophocles’ classical myth of Oedipus in which truth comes at a price. The novel suggests in order to re-establish a balanced relationship with nature and redeem ourselves, we must sacrifice our need for dominance. This entails a recognition of our mutual dependence on nature and our interconnectivity with all that lives.

Recommended.

Ceremony

Leslie Marmon Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony opens with Tayo, a young Native American veteran, recovering in a Veteran’s hospital. Returning from World War II where he was held at a Japanese prison camp, Tayo suffers from acute PTSD. He experiences hallucinations, flashbacks, survivor’s guilt, alienation, and despair. He weeps uncontrollably. His concept of time and location is scrambled. Events that happened in the past are experienced in the present, triggering erratic responses. Scenes of war play before his eyes. One minute he is trudging through the Philippine jungle; the next he is vomiting at a train station.

Released from the hospital, Tayo returns to the Laguna Pueblo reservation. His friends, also veterans, seek refuge for their anger and bitterness in alcohol and senseless violence. They reminisce about being in the military because it reminds them of a time when they were treated with respect. Tayo indulges them but recognizes the futility of their actions. His quest for healing takes a different path. He visits Betonie, a medicine man who performs traditional rituals and ceremonies designed to heal. Through storytelling, Betonie explains the witchery plaguing mankind and how Tayo can help to combat it. He performs a healing ceremony on Tayo and explicates the traditions of the past. As is true of much of Native American culture, every aspect of the ritual is endowed with symbolic significance.

The healing ceremony has a restorative impact on Tayo’s mind-set. He perceives the interconnectedness of all living things and recognizes boundaries of separation are artificial, man-made constructs. He observes insects, birds, animals, the colors of the sky, the flowing streams, and majestic mountains with acuity and appreciation. He connects with nature as if for the first time and locates himself within it by embracing his surroundings.

Tayo shares his story with the elders on his return home. By reconstructing the events through storytelling, he transforms the memory of the trauma, claims it, and integrates it into his life. Storytelling becomes an act of resistance and occasions healing and empowerment. Tayo establishes a safe, restorative haven for himself in which he achieves wholeness, adopts a new way of thinking, exercises agency, and strengthens his community.

The non-linear, meandering progression of the narrative replicates the scramble in Tayo’s mind during his recuperation. The shifts in time and place occur abruptly just as they do for Tayo. The present circles back to the past, each time adding detail to a flashback and developing the narrative thread until a fuller picture emerges. The diction is richly poetic. The sights, sounds, smells, textures, and colors of the natural environment are described in vivid detail and grounded in a sense of place. By threading Tayo’s story with elements of Native American folklore, mythology, songs, rituals, and ceremonies, Silko has spun a rich tapestry illuminating a path toward healing.

A challenging read but well worth the effort.

The Blizzard

Vladimir Sorokin; translated by Jamey Gambrell

Set during an unremitting blizzard in rural Russia, The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin, translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell, mixes realism with magical realism and includes elements of the Odyssey and Gulliver’s Travels.

The plot is straightforward. Platon Ilich Garin, the district doctor, is desperate to get to Dolgoye where the villagers are plagued with a terrible disease that transforms them into flesh-eating zombies. He carries with him a life-saving vaccine. In spite of the blinding snow storm, Crouper, the local bread man, agrees to transport the doctor on his sled pulled by 50 partridge-sized horses. They set off on a journey that should take only a few hours but stretches into days. The unrelenting snow storm reduces visibility, slowing progress. The cold is piercing, the snow knee-deep. Obstacles along the way damage the vehicle, forcing make-shift repairs. Among those they encounter are a dwarfed miller and his wife, wolves, a dead giant, and drug dealers.

The doctor initially appears as a dedicated professional, determined to save lives. But as the increasingly grueling nature of the journey becomes apparent, he reveals more of his personality. He is bitter, condescending, short-tempered, violent, angry, and abusive. Although he frequently expresses remorse at his vituperative outbursts, he makes little attempt to control them. By contrast, Crouper is unwaveringly optimistic and reassuring. He is solicitous and gentle with his horses, making sure they are warm and well-fed, coaxing them to move with gentle pats and soothing words. He prevents the doctor from whipping the horses, for which he receives a punch in the face. But he is quick to forgive and unruffled by the doctor’s erratic tantrums. He is by far the most compelling and tender character.

The journey is fraught with natural and unnatural obstacles that parallel the Odyssey. The doctor’s sexual encounter with the miller’s wife echoes Odysseus’ sexual exploits. His experience with the Vitaminders’ hallucinogenic drug parallels the temptation of the Lotus Eaters. The dead giant blocking the road is reminiscent of the Laestrygonians. The fierce snow drifts that disrupt travel echo Odysseus’ experience with being tossed around on the ocean. The shifts in scale parallel Gulliver’s Travels—the miniature horses, the dwarf-sized miller who curls up on his wife’s lap, the dead giant, and the enormous snow man.

The novel lends itself to an allegorical reading. It represents a litany of the insurmountable challenges that can thwart a cause. It is man versus nature. It is man versus his inner nature and the temptations that lead him to veer from his goal. It illustrates the contrasting attitudes toward life’s challenges as represented by the optimistic, gentle Crouper and the surly, unsympathetic doctor.

Sorokin skillfully plunges the reader in the frigid temperatures and whirling snow drifts. The novel is intense; the setting immersive; the details well-drawn; and the language hypnotic, especially during the dream sequences and Garin’s psychedelic vision. In spite of the many strengths of the novel, the significance of this journey and all that transpires within it remains elusive. One is left with a feeling something is still buried in the snow or is just beyond reach.

Meet Me at the Museum

Anne Youngson

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson takes the form of a series of letters from Tina Hopgood, a farmer’s wife in East Anglia; and Professor Anders Larsen, the curator at Silkeborg Museum in Denmark. Their connection is forged around a mutual interest in the Tollund Man, a 2,000-year-old corpse unearthed in a peat bog in Jutland in 1950.

Tina initiates the letters with questions about the Tollund Man’s remarkably well-preserved corpse housed in the museum. To her surprise, Anders Larsen responds to her query. This launches a correspondence lasting a little over a year.

From the opening, formal exchange, the letters become increasingly intimate in tone with personal revelations about spouses and children, habits, likes and dislikes, and details about everyday lives. The two become familiar and comfortable with each other, freely admitting to thoughts and feelings not shared with anyone else. Tina discloses some of the doubts she experiences about her life choices; Anders discloses his struggle with the death of his wife. Their friendship flourishes. They share their joys, their dreams, and their hopes; they seek one another’s advice; they help one another sort through their thoughts. Even though they have never met face-to-face, they come to know one another more intimately than people they interact with daily. When Tina shares a shocking discovery about her marriage at the end of the novel, Anders calmly outlines her available options. The novel’s conclusion is open-ended and hopeful with Anders’ letter, once again, inviting her to visit the museum to share the experience of seeing the Tollund Man together.

The epistolary nature of the novel allows for self-revelation as each character gradually peels away the layers to disclose more of himself/herself. The strengthening bond is apparent in tone and diction. The letters are heartfelt, genuine, and touching. In their 60s, both characters reflect on their past, on lost opportunities, and on the circumstances that led them to make the choices they did. They have the maturity to figure out what is important in life and to support each other in making the necessary changes. Their intimacy is palpable; their honesty refreshing; their connection genuine.

In writing that is poignant and reflective, Youngson has produced a charming novel about the power of words to generate an intimacy between two people who have never met.

Stoner

John Williams

Stoner by John Williams is a quiet, unassuming novel with a quiet, unassuming hero. The impact it leaves, however, is profound.

The opening pages of the novel provide a brief introduction to the life and death of William Stoner. Born in 1891 of humble origins, Stoner works on a Missouri farm with his parents. He enters the University of Missouri in 1910 to obtain a degree in Agriculture. But an encounter with a Shakespearean sonnet during a survey class in English Literature leaves him awe-struck. He experiences an epiphany that etches an indelible mark and transforms his life forever. He switches his major to English. After receiving his Ph.D., he teaches at the university until his death in 1956. Along the way, he experiences the impact of two world wars, an unhappy marriage, an estranged daughter, and a love affair with a university colleague. He finds himself embroiled in the petty departmental squabbles frequently plaguing academia. All that remains of William Stoner after his death is a medieval manuscript in the library’s Rare Books Collection contributed by his colleagues to honor his memory.

The simple and straightforward plot is not what makes this an exceptional book. Instead, it is the quality of the writing. John Williams is a magician with words, generating empathy for his unassuming hero with subdued brush strokes. Stoner’s external appearance contrasts with his interiority. It is the difference between a life as seen and a life as experienced. Beneath his demure exterior lies a heart pulsating with powerful emotions that he is unable or unwilling to verbalize. To the outside world, Stoner is mild-mannered, ordinary, shy, awkward, self-effacing, tolerant of his wife’s injustices, insecure, humble, and stoic. Internally, he is intelligent, sensitive, delicate, dedicated to the craft of teaching, and passionate about communicating the transformative power of literature to his students. He plods along, leading a life of quiet desperation while his internal life is rich and imbued with a passion for literature that renders his external life inconsequential.

Williams’ portrayal of the characters orbiting Stoner’s sphere is equally restrained, equally effective, and equally brilliant. In a few short pages, we grasp the character of Edith, Stoner’s wife, even before he does. We recognize her for the shallow, callous, cruel, and emotionally deprived creature she is. We see in Walker, the student with the disability, the arrogance with which he challenges Stoner in the classroom, and his ignorance as he spouts unmitigated balderdash during his oral exams. And in Lomax, Stoner’s colleague and later department chair, we see his petty vindictiveness as he avenges himself on a perceived injustice.

Stoner acquiesces patiently to the many losses in his life. His love for his daughter is thwarted when Edith intentionally drives a wedge between them. His relationship with his lover, Katherine Driscoll, ends abruptly when Lomax forces her to leave the university. But his love for literature and for the transformative power of its words endures. He dies knowing that, in spite of his other failures, his life has been imbued with meaning because of his dedication and unwavering commitment to his craft and to the pursuit of knowledge.  

Early in the novel, Stoner says, “He knew that Lomax had gone through a kind of conversion, an epiphany of knowing something through words that could not be put into words . . .”

That is the sense one gets in reading this novel. It is riveting, profound, bigger than the sum of its parts, and suffused with a transcendence that cannot be fully expressed in words.

Very highly recommended.

Decline and Fall

Evelyn Waugh

Published in 1928, Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall skewers British societal norms of the 1920s. It is satire at its most delicious and hilarious.

We follow the trials and travails of an unlikely hero, Paul Pennyfeather. While studying at Oxford, he has the misfortune to be the victim of a prank by alcohol-infused members of the Bollinger Club who strip him of his trousers, forcing him to run the whole length of the quadrangle in a highly unseemly manner. Summarily dismissed from Oxford for indecent behavior, he joins the ranks of a boarding school in Wales where he falls in love with the wealthy and beautiful mother of one of his students. One thing leads to another, and before too long, Paul finds himself embroiled in nefarious activities that land him in jail. With the help of friends in high places, Paul regains his freedom thanks to a forged death certificate. He assumes a new identity and returns to Oxford to complete his studies.

Paul suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with total equanimity. He takes his misfortunes with stride. He is joined by a colorful cast of characters. Among them is the bigamist Grimes with the wooden leg who fakes his own death on more than one occasion; the wig-wearing Prendergast who wants to be a church minister but is plagued with doubts; the revolver-toting Philbrick, the butler who keeps resurfacing with a new identity; Dr. Fagan, the headmaster who displays a complete lack of interest in the quality of education at the school; and the beautiful and somewhat less than Honorable Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde who runs a prostitution ring.

No one and nothing is spared Waugh’s satirical pen. British institutions come under attack, including upper classes with their notions of superiority; public schools with their staff and students; prisons with their ludicrous theories of prison reform; government with its corrupt politicians. Waugh lambasts all with a deadpan humor that elicits laughter at every corner. Hypocrisy, corruption, the class system, the old-boy network, and racism are on full display. The dialogue is particularly irresistible as it ripples with irony, humor, and sarcasm. The plot is fast-paced; the energy riveting; the characters eccentric but believable; the conversation hilarious; the satire penetrating.

Waugh clothes his critique of British society and its norms in a hilarious comedy of manners that is both entertaining and insightful.

Highly recommended.

Supernavigators: Exploring the Wonders of How Animals Find their Way

David Barrie

Supernavigators: Exploring the Wonders of How Animals Find their Way by David Barrie documents the research uncovering fascinating insights on the navigation of animals, especially insects and birds. Although Barrie does mention larger animals, like crocodiles and elephants, he admits their navigational tools remain a mystery.

Barrie describes in detail the research and various experiments designed to uncover the mystery of insect and bird navigation. He cites specific scientists and credits their work. He also shows how subsequent scientists stand on the shoulders of previous scientists, building on their research and passing the baton to their successors as in a relay race. What emerges are some intriguing insights on animal navigation.

Research demonstrates animals have a cornucopia of navigational tools at their disposal. These include navigation by the sun, moon, stars, and Milky Way; by sound, sight, smell; by the perception of polarized light; by memory; and by imprinting. Animals even have the ability to detect subtle variations on the intensity, inclination, and declination of the earth’s geomagnetic field through the presence of light-stimulated molecules that can detect their orientation in relation to earth’s magnetic field. Bumble bees communicate with each other through a wiggly dance that alerts other bees to the presence of food, its location, and its quality. Dung beetles navigate by storing an image of the positions of the sun, moon, stars, and Milky Way, and using the image as their guide. The salmon, turtle, and lobster are among the animals that use the earth’s magnetic field to perform complex feats of navigation. Birds fly thousands of miles over the ocean to find their way home. And ants have the apparent ability to find their way home by counting their own footsteps.

Berry provides copious examples of animal navigational skills and includes the occasional example of human navigational skills for good measure. He immerses himself in the topic, frequently joining scientist on research expeditions. His excitement at discovering nuances of animal behavior or at proving a hypothesis is contagious. Above all, he communicates his wonder at the ability of these super navigators to find their way.

Included are diagrams and sketches, an extensive bibliography, detailed notes for each chapter, and an index. Each chapter ends with a brief anecdote that tells of an animal’s amazing feat of navigation to find its way home. How the animal does it remains a mystery. As he succinctly phrases it, “More research is needed.” His final chapter laments the atrophy of humanity’s navigational skills due to our reliance on technology. And he concludes with words of caution about our anthropocentrism. He argues if we learn more about animals and how we are all interconnected, we will see the urgency of protecting the rich and varied life forms on our planet.

A very accessible and enlightening exploration of how bees, ants, beetles, butterflies, fish, birds, and humans navigate their way around the world.