The Wild Fox of Yemen

Threa Almontaser

The Wild Fox of Yemen by the Yemeni American author, Threa Almontaser, thrusts the reader into a whirlwind. Almontaser’s diction is bold, exuberant, vibrant, and sizzles with electricity.

The poems address multiple topics: navigating a space between two cultures; interrogating what it means to be a Muslim black woman in America; immigrant assimilation; the yearning to belong; othering; Islamophobia in post 9/11 America; dreams and nightmares; body image; visits to Yemen; sexism; sexuality; politics; racism; and condemnation of the war in Yemen. Almontaser also includes translations of two poems by the Yemeni poet Abdullah Al-Baradouni.

Almontaser’s voice is unflinchingly honest and unapologetic. She peppers her poems with Arabic words, seamlessly moving from one language to another while crisscrossing cultural borders. Her images are vivid, startling, scattered, fragmentary, and burst energetically on the page. She uses strong, provocative language. Her voice is powerful; her roar, loud; her energy, untamed; her spirit, undaunted.

Winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, this breathtaking collection draws the reader into Almontaser’s world imbued with personal and political intensity. If you enjoy the poetry of Walt Whitman, you will love the way Almontaser sounds her “barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

Very highly recommended.

My Father's Notebook

Kader Abdolah; translated by Susan Massotty

Kader Abdolah, the pen name for an Iranian political exile currently living in the Netherlands, wrote My Father’s Notebook in Dutch. Translated by Susan Massotty, the novel is in three parts. Part 1, told by an omniscient narrator, is the story of Aga Akbar and his son, Ishmael. Part 2 is told by Ishmael in the first-person. And Part 3 returns to the omniscient narrator to conclude the story. This structure allows the narrator to provide the back story of Aga Akbar and Ishmael while later allowing direct access to Ishmael’s interiority.

Part 1 introduces us to Aga Akbar, an illiterate deaf-mute who mends carpets and lives in an Iranian village at the foot of Saffron Mountain. Aga Akbar communicates using a rudimentary form of sign language that few people can understand. He writes cuneiform characters in a notebook that no one can decipher. When Ishmael is old enough, he acts as his father’s interpreter, going everywhere with him and mediating his father’s conversations. The two form such an inseparable bond that one becomes almost an extension of the other.

Part 2 unfolds in the first-person point of view of Ishmael, now living in the Netherlands. While describing his daily activities as an exile, he pours over his father’s notebook, trying to decipher the cryptic characters. This triggers flashbacks to his life and family in Iran. As a former political activist and an engaged member of the communist party in Iran, his life was in constant danger for opposing the shah and the mullahs who succeeded him. Forced to escape Iran when his identity is discovered, he loses connection with his family.

Part 3 is picked up by the omniscient narrator and includes the fate of Ishmael’s family after his departure from Iran.

Kader Abdolah weaves Persian legends, songs, myths, poems, and verses from the Koran throughout the novel. And intricately threading the narrative is the history of 20th Century Iran beginning with Reza Shah and concluding with the Khomeini government. The history, plagued with torture, disappearances, and the violent crush of dissent, renders the suffering of the Iranian people in somber detail.

The novel forms a rich tapestry in which the personal lives of Aga Akbar and Ishmael play out against the larger political framework. Infused throughout its pages is the profound love father and son have for each other. The vocabulary is unadorned and concise. The characters are vividly portrayed. Ishmael emerges as a soul adrift in a foreign land, desperately trying to decipher his father’s notebook as if to mitigate the guilt he feels for abandoning him and fleeing his homeland. His struggle to understand his father’s notebook can be read as a metaphor to reconnect the severed lines of communication between the simple, trusting Aga Akbars of this world and their educated, politically savvy offspring cut off from their origins.

The character who garners the most sympathy is Aga Akbar. He painstakingly struggles to make sense of the world around him, communicates in a sign language few people can understand, and writes in a notebook that only he can decipher. He is out of step with the times. His unwavering love for his son remains constant. A kind, generous, compassionate man, his silence speaks volumes.

Highly recommended.

The Garden of Evening Mists

Tan Twan Eng

An ethereal, meditative tone permeates the atmosphere of The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. The narrative unfolds in the first person-point of view of the Supreme Court judge in Kuala Lumpur, Teoh Yun Ling. Her voice is dull, bland, as if to suggest she has had a lifetime of repressing her emotions. Diagnosed with aphasia, Yun Ling retires to the Cameron Highlands, the tropical rain forest where she grew up and where the former gardener of the Emperor of Japan, Nakamura Aritomo, resides.

The narrative unfolds very slowly. The details of Yun Ling’s past emerge in fragments scattered throughout the novel in the form of extended flashbacks. The daughter of a prominent Chinese Malaysian family, Yun Ling and her sister had been captured by the Japanese during their invasion of Malaysia and sent to a prisoner of war camp where her sister was brutally and repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers and where Yun Ling did what she had to do to survive.

The horrors of the prison camp are never far from Yun Ling’s memory, frequently impinging on her daily activities even decades later. Until her retirement, her professional life was dedicated to prosecuting Japanese war criminals and to locating the prison camp to retrieve her sister’s remains. With the onset of aphasia and the knowledge she is losing her memory and will soon lose her ability to understand language, she decides to honor a promise she made to her sister by hiring Aritomo to build a Japanese garden for her.

Aritomo declines to work for her, instead offering to take her on as his apprentice to teach her the skills in building a Japanese garden. Despite her hatred for Japanese, Yun Ling accepts. Against the violent backdrop of a Malaysia in turmoil after World War II, British occupation, and a communist insurgency, the Japanese garden forms a verdant oasis of peace and tranquility. As layer upon layer of the garden slowly takes shape, the connection between Aritomo and Yun Ling slowly deepens until they become lovers.

Tan Twan Eng weaves the concepts informing the ancient arts of Japanese gardening and tattooing with the brutality of war, the inhumane acts it generates, and the guilt associated with survival. In poetic language and immersive imagery, the novel explores the theme of remembering and forgetting—what we remember and what we try to forget. This is particularly poignant since Yun Ling suffers from aphasia and will soon forget the memories that haunt her.

Just as the Japanese garden is a deceptively simple construction, none of the characters are what they superficially appear to be. Their external veneers gradually strip away to reveal complex, conflicted personalities haunted by their past actions. And just as a Japanese garden requires empty space to fulfill its promise, the novel ends with empty space in the form of inconclusive answers to open-ended questions.

A finely crafted, mesmerizing novel, rich with ambiguity and suggestion.

Nightbitch

Rachel Yoder

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper meets Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis in Rachel Yoder’s riveting tale, Nightbitch.

The story is of a nameless middle-class woman, known as ‘the mother,’ married to a nameless engineer, known as ‘the husband,’ and their two-year-old toddler, known as ‘the boy.’ The three characters remain nameless throughout the novel to reinforce their anonymity and perhaps to suggest some of their generic qualities. The novel opens with the mother as a stay-at-home mom. After juggling work with breast pumps, a day care where the staff neglected her baby, exhaustion, guilt, guilt, and more guilt, she abandons her career to take care of her child. Her struggle begins. The husband, traveling during the week for his job, is blissfully clueless of his wife’s struggles and condition.

The mother spends all her weekdays with the boy who consumes every second of her every day and most of her nights with his persistent demands. She is lonely, desperate, resentful, exhausted, self-deprecating, and suffering from sleep-deprivation. The drudgery and monotony of catering to the needs of a demanding toddler eat away at her. She questions herself, questions her choices, questions her identity, and questions her future. She tries to bury her anger and resentment only to have it surface in an extraordinary way. She turns feral, experiencing a gradual transformation into a dog, complete with canines, fur, claws, a tail, and an insatiable appetite for raw meat. Her transformation takes place at night. She becomes the Nightbitch, prowling around at night on the hunt for little, furry creatures to clamp between her teeth.

The mother loves her son and is fiercely protective of him. But his all-consuming demands on her time and energy exhaust her. She has no time for herself. And on those rare occasions when she snatches a few minutes of quiet, she either sits in a semi-catatonic state or she cries. The only time she feels fully alive, fully herself, is in her doggy manifestation. Whether she actually metamorphoses into a dog or just imagines herself as one is never made clear. But what is clear is that her ostensible transformation into a wild beast enables her to release the frustration, loneliness, tedium, resentment, and suppressed anger she feels as a stay-at-home mother of a demanding toddler.

The novel is not for everyone because of the graphic descriptions, replete with blood and gore, of violence toward little, furry creatures. But the mother’s interiority is fascinating and will no doubt resonate with many stay-at-home mothers. The prose draws the reader in as we watch the mother question her sanity, struggle with her mothering role, embrace her canine persona, and follow her as she stalks the parks and streets at night.

A highly original, and, at times, hilarious story that articulates the feral side of motherhood. It will resonate with modern stay-at-home mothers who experience de-selfing, internal conflicts, guilt, isolation, a stifling of their creativity, and society’s erroneous assumptions about their lives. It does all this with penetrating insight and honesty.

Very highly recommended.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart is as powerful today as it was when first published in 1958. It tells the story of Okonkwo, a strong and well-respected leader in Umuofia, a fictitious Igbo village in Nigeria.

Okonkwo is a tough warrior. He is aggressive, violent, prone to fits of uncontrollable rage, and abusive toward his wives and children. He is a product of a culture in which masculinity is defined as projecting power and control over women, children, and the men who show signs of weakness. Okonkwo goes to extremes to avoid earning the pejorative label of “woman” by eschewing even the slightest hint of weakness.

Life in Umuofia is far from idyllic. The culture is harsh, unforgiving, and based on gender stratification and a rigid hierarchy. Superstitions abound. A life is taken for a life. Twins are perceived as possessed by evil spirits and routinely abandoned in the forest to die. Domestic violence is pervasive. But it is also a culture rich in tradition and rituals which bind the community together into a cohesive unit. People know their places and the roles they are expected to perform based on their age, gender, and position in the social hierarchy. Formal protocols are adhered to in meetings, whether it is village elders gathered to render judgments on disputes or negotiations for bride dowries. Pleasantries must be exchanged before the serious business can begin. It is a culture strictly governed by ritual, tradition, superstition, protocol, and tribal laws. But all that changes with the arrival of white colonialists and missionaries. The influx of Christian missionaries and colonial governing structures cause the fragmentation of tribal bonds which rupture the community.

Despite some abhorrent practices and beliefs, life in Umuofia before the influx of foreign missionaries is vibrant, cohesive, and communal. Villagers’ lives are regulated by the natural cycles of planting, harvesting, the rainy season, and drought. Their language is rich with natural imagery and metaphors; their myths and folktales serve as exemplars. While some in the community abandon their traditional beliefs and embrace the new religion, others, like Okonkwo, cannot reconcile themselves to changes that have fragmented the community. His violent temper leads to tragic consequences.

Traditional ways of life fall apart when confronted with a colonial power armed with the Bible in one hand and superior weapons and technology in the other. The final paragraphs are a scathing indictment of the callous indifference shown by colonialists at the tragic cost in human suffering of the indigenous population when it collides with colonialism.

Even decades after its first publication, Achebe’s masterpiece is as prescient and powerful today as it was when first published.

Highly recommended.

The Mountains Sing

Nguyen Phan Que Mai

Basing the novel on some of her family stories as well as by interviewing people who experienced the Viet Nam war and its aftermath, Nguyen Phan Que Mai composed The Mountains Sing as a multigenerational tale of the Tran family. The novel unfolds from the alternating perspectives of the young Huong (also known as Guava) and her grandmother, Tran Dieu Lan. It shifts back and forth in time as it alternates perspectives.

The novel opens with Guava as a little girl sheltering with her grandmother from the onslaught of bombs during the 1970s. She narrates her experience growing up: escaping with her grandmother; reuniting with her mother, aunts, and uncles; and concluding with her marriage. Tran Dieu Lan’s sections take the form of recollections and stories she shares with her granddaughter. She begins with her childhood in the 1930s; includes the Great Hunger of the 1940s; her marriage; the birth of her children; the brutal murder of brother; her desperate escape from her home during the Land Reform of the 1950s; her harrowing journey to Ha Noi with her young children; her struggle to survive; and her success in gathering most of her now adult children around her, again.

Spanning decades, this sweeping saga describes a family’s struggle to survive during times of war, famine, dislocation, and mayhem. Tran Dieu Lan emerges as the central character. She is resilient, pragmatic, enterprising, and fiercely determined to do whatever it takes to ensure her family’s survival. Despite witnessing horrors and carnage, she manages to sustain her compassion and sensitivity toward others, including those who treat her with cruelty. She never fails to appreciate the kindness shown toward her and her children even from complete strangers. And she instills in her granddaughter pride in her heritage and the belief we all share a common humanity, even those who are our so-called enemies.

 The novel is told in simple, straightforward language that does not shy away from graphic descriptions of brutality, torture, and executions. As in all conflicts, the real victims are the civilians who are caught in the crossfire, whose lives have been disrupted, who have lost their homes and livelihoods, who are forced to flee from the carnage, and who have been traumatized by the experience. At times the language is sentimental and contrived as if aiming to manipulate the reader to feel a certain way. But the novel’s content is gripping and sheds light on the tragic history of the Vietnamese people who suffered from colonial powers, foreign domination, brutality from all sides, and a seemingly endless barrage of heavy bombings that shattered their cities and countryside while killing countless numbers of people.

Hot Milk

Deborah Levy

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy unfolds in the first-person voice of Sofia Papastergiadis, a twenty-five-year-old with an English mother and a Greek father who abandoned them when she was a teenager. The novel opens with Sofia and her mother, Rose. They’re in Spain to attend a health clinic where they hope the consultant, Dr. Gomez, will address Rose’s multiple ailments, including her intermittent inability to walk.

Sofia is listless, insecure, confused, adrift, and totally consumed with taking care of her mother’s needs. She even abandoned her Ph.D. to care for her mother. Her identity seems to be fused with her mother to the degree that she will occasionally adopt her mother’s limp while walking. “My legs are her legs,” is her constant refrain. For her part, Rose is cantankerous, endlessly demanding, never satisfied, abusive, and claims to be in constant pain. There is a suggestion that some of her ailments may be psychosomatic.

Very little happens in the novel. Sofia and Rose visit Dr. Gomez’s clinic, where he proceeds to put Rose through a series of tests to diagnose her problem and determine treatment. His unconventional approach includes taking her out to lunch and taking her off all her medications. Meanwhile, Sofia has sexual relationships with a German girl and a young Spaniard who works on the beach applying ointment on jellyfish stings.  

As the novel progresses, Sofia gradually gathers strength, begins to take risks, and becomes more assertive. She visits her estranged father with his young wife and baby daughter in Greece, in the hope of reconnecting with him. But he is too wrapped up in himself and his new family. When she returns to Spain, she takes out her anger and frustration at her mother in a surprising way.

Sofia’s relationship with her mother is fraught with tension, a simmering aggression, guilt, and resentment. It borders on being parasitic although one is never quite sure who is the parasite and who is the host in this fractured relationship. The boundary between her identity and her mother’s identity is fluid and constantly shifting. She grapples with unearthing an identity for herself that is separate from her mother.

The novel is dense, the prose lucid, the technique stream of consciousness. Sofia shares her unfiltered, sporadic thoughts as they come to her. The problem is Sofia is not very interesting and what happens to her is even less interesting. Her interiority, with its perpetual navel-gazing and fractured self-image, becomes tedious and repetitive.

I really enjoyed Levy’s Swimming Home. This one, not so much. Perhaps it just wasn’t for me.

Three Apples Fell From the Sky

Narine Abgaryan; translated by Lisa C. Hayden

Three Apples Fell From the Sky by Narine Abgaryan, translated from the Russian by Lisa C. Hayden, echoes an old Armenian saying. An omniscient narrator tells the story of a group of aging villagers in the isolated, fictitious village of Maran, located in the Armenian mountains. The story unfolds in three parts: For the One Who Saw, For the One who Told the Story, and For the One who Listened. It concludes with a short epilogue.

The narrative opens with the gentle, fifty-eight-year-old Anatolia Sevoyants, the youngest resident of Maran. Experiencing heavy vaginal bleeding for several days, Anatolia is convinced she has only a few days to live. She approaches her impending death with equanimity, feeding her chickens, laying out her burial clothes, leaving money aside for her funeral, and opening the window so her soul can escape. As she lies in bed waiting patiently for the grim reaper to come knocking, she recalls her childhood and unhappy first marriage to an abusive spouse. When the grim reaper doesn’t come calling, Anatolia calmly gets out of bed to perform her chores.

Anatolia is just one of the delightfully quirky characters in this heart-warming tale. Among them are Yasaman and Ovanes, her kind neighbors; Vasily, the outwardly gruff but inwardly gentle village blacksmith who marries Anatolia late in life; Satenik, Vasily’s cousin who urges him to re-marry after the death of his first wife; Magtakhin, Vasily’s deceased first wife who acts as guardian angel to his infant daughter; and Valinka, who uses the coffin of a neighbor’s mother-in-law to transport a new pair of shoes for her deceased husband residing in the after-life. The back stories for each of the characters are woven throughout the narrative with the community emerging as the actual protagonist of the story. Women form the backbone of the community, holding it together with their culture, traditions, communication, work ethic, empathic care-giving, and use of natural methods of healing for common and not so common ailments.

The characters form a unique bond. They share in each other’s sorrows and celebrate each other’s joys. Together, they have braved earthquakes that swallowed up some of their neighbors and homes on the mountain side; devastating famines that reduced their population; wars that killed off many of their sons, brothers, and husbands; swarms of insects which devoured their crops; blizzards, snowstorms, and droughts that further isolated their village. Their aging and dwindling population takes whatever calamities life throws at them without lapsing into cynicism or despair. They make do, share resources, and function as an egalitarian community while performing their daily rituals of cooking, harvesting crops, taking care of animals, chopping wood, mending clothes, and looking out for each other. Buffered by their cultural traditions, superstitions, and folklore, they communicate with deceased loved ones who appear to them in dreams or as apparitions. But not even the occasional visit from a ghost phases them.

The story’s fable-like qualities gradually draw the reader in to the rhythm and pace and atmosphere of village life where a group of aging villagers with a strong sense of community nourish and sustain each other. The overriding atmosphere is one of peace and acceptance. The elements of magical realism, including visits from ghosts and a mysterious peacock, are handled unobtrusively as if they are part of the fabric of life.

This is a beautiful story, beautifully told, and beautifully translated with an abundance of effective visual and sensory imagery immersing the reader in the sights, sounds, and smells of village life. It is a story of resilience, friendship, compassion, and generosity of spirit that serves as a gentle reminder of the importance of community in nurturing and sustaining life.

A heartwarming story threaded with tender and loving humor. Highly recommended.

Samarkand

Amin Maalouf; trans. Russell Harris

Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, translated from the French by Russell Harris, is a historical fiction novel in two main parts. The first part opens with the narrator, Benjamin Omar Lesage, revealing the loss of the original Rubaiyat manuscript of Omar Khayyam when it sank with the Titanic in 1912. Lesage then takes us back to 11th century Persia where he recreates the life, love, poetry, and work in science, mathematics, and astronomy of Omar Khayyam. The second half of the novel skips to the early 20th century where the narrator reveals his determination to locate the original manuscript of the Rubaiyat. His quest takes him to Persia where he becomes embroiled in its fight for the establishment of democratic institutions and freedom from the yoke of foreign imperialism.

Maalouf skillfully blends historical fact with fiction. He populates his novel with historical characters and events. The first part of the novel is the more interesting of the two with its sultans; viziers; emperors; caliphs; the court at Samarkand; exotic locations; political intrigue; assassinations; Khayyam’s contributions to science and astronomy; his friendship with Hassan Sabbah, the founder of the Assassins; and his love affair with Jahan, the court poet.

The second part of the novel unfolds in the first-person point of view of Lesage. He reveals his growing obsession with the Rubaiyat and with locating the original manuscript. He develops a certain amount of notoriety on his return to America because of his knowledge of Persia, writing articles for local papers. This section is also replete with political intrigue and rivalry. But its primary focus is on the western powers jockeying for lucrative deals and political control in Persia.

The structure of the novel is interesting. Maalouf links both halves of the novel in several ways. Lesage’s love interest is a Persian princess. It echoes Khayyam’s love for a poet in the court at Samarkand. Both men must initially maintain their love in secret for fear of reprisals. Both men are wrongly accused of being accomplices in a murder and must flee for their lives. The conflict between traditionalists and modernists of Khayyam’s era is repeated in the early 20th century with a slightly different twist since western imperialism has been added to the mix. The tension is between religious fundamentalists with their literal interpretation and application of religious principles and those who wish to apply the principles of Islam in a manner more suited to the 20th century. And, of course, the overriding connection between the two halves is the Rubaiyat itself—the individual who composed it and the individual who is on a quest to locate the original manuscript.

Parts of the novel lapse into expository writing generating the feel of a history lecture. Maalouf goes to great pains to provide historical context, the extensive details of which may be unnecessary in a work of fiction. The characters are not well-developed, especially Lesage. His obsession with locating a lost manuscript is not fully convincing. He seems to be adrift—more acted upon than acting. With little volition, he becomes embroiled in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, wandering from one location to the next in between bouts of love-making with his Persian princess. But despite these shortcomings, the novel is entertaining, exciting, and educational, immersing the reader in the political upheavals of Persia during the last several centuries.

The Girl with the Louding Voice

Abi Daré

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré unfolds in the first-person point of view of Adunni, a precocious fourteen-year-old girl who grows up in a small Nigerian village.

The novel opens with Adunni assuming responsibility for the household chores after the death of her mother. She takes care of her father and two brothers. Faced with financial difficulties, her father took her out of school and then married her off to a local taxi driver in exchange for a substantial dowry. Adunni is his third wife and is expected to bear him sons. She befriends Khadija, the second wife, but when Khadija dies in childbirth, Adunni runs away to Lagos where she is sold in domestic service as a housekeeper for Big Madam. Adunni is exploited, abused, and beaten. With the help of Big Madam’s chef, with guidance from Big Madam’s driver, and with tutoring from a helpful neighbor, Adunni obtains a scholarship to complete her education and achieve her life-long dream of becoming a teacher.

The strength of this novel lies in Adunni’s voice. Her broken English, the unusual juxtaposition of her words, her diction, her mixed up sentence constructions, her vibrant sensory impressions, her prolific use of colorful imagery, and the sing-song rhythm of her language leap off with the page with exuberance and a fresh vitality.

Despite all the hardships she experiences in her young life, Adunni remains resilient and steadfast. Her spirit is indomitable, her fierce determination infectious, her louding voice delicious. She is fortunate to encounter individuals who recognize her potential and help her along the way. Their presence balances out those who oppress and victimize her. In the midst of her pain and suffering, her spirit is buoyed by those who offer friendship, solidarity, and support.

Adunni’s unique narrative voice adds authenticity to her story. The reader experiences the world through Adunni’s eyes and her very potent sense of smell. Her eye for detail and sensory impressions immerses the reader in the sights, sounds, smells, and texture of life in her village and, later, in Lagos. Her vivid portrayal of characters and candid observations about their appearance, mannerisms, and the pungent odors emanating from their bodies bring them to life. Her generosity of spirit and compassion for the suffering of others never falters.

The predictable outcome of the novel does little to detract from a compelling story told in the narrative voice of an unforgettably delightful and precocious young girl whose louding voice soars triumphantly.

The Captain's Daughter

Alexander Pushkin; translated by Natalie Duddington

The Captain’s Daughter by Alexander Pushkin, translated from the Russian by Natalie Duddington, is an engaging novella situated in eighteenth century Russia. The first-person narrator, Pyotr Andreyich Grinev finds himself embroiled in the historical rebellion of peasants and Cossacks against the government of Catherine II. The rebellion, led by Pugachov, was ultimately crushed, and Pugachov was executed.

The narrator begins his journey as a compassionate but naïve young man. As he sets off on his new career in the army, he has a chance encounter with a man freezing in a blizzard. He generously gives him a warm coat, an act that reaps benefits when he encounters the same man during the turmoil of the peasant’s rebellion and its ensuing bloodbath. Meanwhile, the narrator has fallen in love with the captain’s daughter and sets off on a hazardous mission to rescue her from the clutches of his rival. The novella has all the makings of a Sir Walter Scott historical romance but in a condensed and tighter structure.

One of the appeals of the novel lies in the relationship between the characters. Pugachov, the ostensible villain in the piece who leads the rebellion, is portrayed sympathetically despite his gruff mannerisms. He repays Pyotr Andreyich for his generosity by sparing his life and assisting him in rescuing his beloved. But the most delightful relationship is between the narrator and his servant, Savelyich. Their humorous bantering back and forth echoes the chatter of another famous duo, Don Quixote and his trusty servant, Sancho Panza. Savelyich is fiercely protective of his master, proffering practical advice and guidance. His down-to-earth wisdom serves Pyotr Andreyich well if he chooses to listen.

A romantic historical novella which includes the hero’s coming of age, blizzards, duels, a villain in military uniform, a sympathetic rebel leader, the heroic rescue of a damsel in distress, and an encounter with Catherine the Great set against the backdrop of a Russian rebellion. In the hands of Alexander Pushkin, the narrative exudes warmth and makes for a quick, delightful, and swashbuckling read.

Highly recommended, especially for those who enjoy Russian novels.

Somewhere Towards the End

Diana Athill

Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill is an elegant memoir by one of England’s most famous book editors. Athill was an editor for several decades at Andre Deutsch, Ltd, a London-based publishing company. She worked with famous authors and began writing her own work late in life. She was eighty-nine years old when she wrote this memoir. She died in 2019 at the age of 101.

Athill shares her thoughts about aging, death, and dying. She reflects on the changes in outlook, priorities, and opinions she experienced throughout the decades. She is intelligent, articulate, unflinchingly honest, charming, calm, and self-possessed. The force of her presence carries the memoir. No subject is off limits. She writes about her sex life, former lovers, preference for black males, atheism, gardening, reading, miscarriage, friendships, illness, and declining capacities. All are shared with the same degree of clarity and detachment. There is no hint of self-pity or emotional upheaval in her writing. Her sentences are elegantly phrased. She peppers her writing with the occasional lucid insight on aging and dying, nuggets of wisdom that whet the appetite for more of the same.

One of the pleasures she discovers about herself in her old age is the joy she finds in writing. She sees writing as a form of therapy, as a way of grappling with past hurts and failures. But she doesn’t wallow on feelings of guilt or shame, which she considers a waste of time. She embraces life as an adventure and perceives death as an event so ordinary that it is hardly worth making a fuss about. But her fearless attitude toward death does not extend to the process of dying. She expresses concern about burdening others with her incapacities after witnessing the care friends and family required during the final stages of their lives.

A book about aging by an octogenarian who is very conscious of time’s winged chariot drawing near may sound like fodder for depression. But Diana Athill is far from depressing. She embraces the good and the bad, the ups and the downs life has to offer with equanimity and good cheer.

The Aeneid

Virgil; translated by Shadi Bartsch

The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Shadi Bartsch, attempts to stay as close to the original as possible by adhering to a line-by-line correspondence, approximating Virgil’s meter, remaining within his six beats to a line, and maintaining his simplicity of language without losing his effects of alliteration and assonance. As Bartsch declares in her introduction, her goal was to make it accessible to the general public while simultaneously adhering faithfully to the original. She includes an Introduction which provides context for the poem, its reception, character analysis, and commentary. Also included is a Translator’s Note which explains the challenges and choices she made in translating, her Notes, a Bibliography, and a Glossary.

Bartsch’s translation is impressive, her scholarship extensive. She offers a different reading experience of the Aeneid that makes evident the ambiguity, nuances, and subtlety of language and characterizations. Her notes are helpful in highlighting the contradictions within the poem and in interrogating the character of Aeneas. She has performed an invaluable service to reading the classic by opening it up to new interpretations and meanings while remaining faithful to the original.

A Night in the Emperor's Garden

Qais Akbar Omar and Stephen Landrigan

A Night in the Emperor’s Garden by Qais Akbar Omar and Stephen Landrigan chronicles the true story of a production of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost in Afghanistan.

In 2005, with the Taliban temporarily weakened and a newly elected Afghan government in place, Afghanistan was experiencing a cultural renaissance. Corinne Jaber, a visiting actress from Paris, came up with a highly unusual proposition: to produce a Shakespeare play in Kabul with Afghan actors. With financial backing from the British Council, the Goethe Institute, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and various other entities, Corinne set about implementing her vision.

Shakespeare’s text was translated into the Dari language. With the help of an interpreter, Corinne conducted auditions and hired male and female actors to rehearse the parts. The challenges were enormous. Some of the actors had little to no experience with acting; most had no knowledge of theatre. There were language and cultural barriers to overcome. Several of the actors could not understand the lines they were reciting and were generally reluctant to interact with actors of the opposite sex. And then there was the actor who threw the occasional temper tantrum and marched off in a huff only to return later. Corinne persevered. Her interpreter was the cohesive force who undertook whatever task necessary to hold the troupe together. Eventually, the actors learned their lines, becoming increasingly comfortable with and adept at performance.

On opening night of August 31, 2005, the play was performed in front of an overflow crowd. It was a huge success. Several other performances followed in different cities in Afghanistan, including one in the emperor’s garden. The book concludes with a follow-up on the actors ten years after the final performance. By this time, the Taliban had begun to resurface. The actors suffered tragedy, threats, and accusations of immoral conduct. Some went into hiding and were forced to leave the country while others abandoned acting for fear of their lives.

The book chronicles the challenges of putting on a play with very limited resources in a country deprived of theatre for decades. It also provides a fascinating peak into the daily struggles of life in Afghanistan. The challenges were ubiquitous: navigating the streets, locating supplies, making sure the female actors were home before nightfall, contending with gossip, cultural objections to women on the stage, language and gender barriers, familial opposition, unreliable transportation, less than adequate accommodations, and the constant threat of violence. But this motely troupe of Afghan actors, with the help of an immortal playwright and a determined director, succeeded in temporarily shining a beacon of light and spreading joy in a country desperately in need of entertainment and laughter.

Recommended.

Ariadne

Jennifer Saint

Jennifer Saint’s debut novel, Ariadne, retells the story of Ariadne and her sister, Phaedra. Part I is devoted to the first-person point of view of Ariadne. Parts II and III alternate between Ariadne and Phaedra. Part IV focuses on Ariadne. The novel follows the basic outline of the myth, beginning with Ariadne’s childhood; the birth of her brother, the minotaur; her assistance to Theseus and subsequent abandonment by him on the island of Naxos; his marriage to her sister, Phaedra; Ariadne’s marriage to Dionysus; and Phaedra’s love for Hippolytus. It concludes with the tragic end of the two sisters.

Saint gives voice to women in Greek mythology whose voices have been silent. We see the devastating impact of patriarchy on the lives innocent girls and women. King Minos and Theseus are depicted as misogynistic, self-serving males who use women as pawns to further their agenda. The Greek gods fare no better. Even Dionysus, who initially appears as differing from his immortal counterparts, emerges as having the same streak of cruelty and power-hungry appetite.

Greek mythology invariably depicts women as victims of betrayal, violence, and jealousy. What is needed is a fresh approach to their stories, including the story of Ariadne and Phaedra. Unfortunately, the novel fails in this regard. Ariadne emerges as a passive character more acted upon than acting. The only time she shows agency is when she helps Theseus escape from the labyrinth. Even then, she is motivated by her love for Theseus. In other words, the male is the catalyst that spurs her to action. After her abandonment on Naxos, she is helpless until Dionysus rescues her. She marries him, gives birth to his sons, and turns a blind eye to his wonderings and drunken, bloodthirsty, orgiastic rituals until Phaedra accuses her of choosing to remain in blissful ignorance. Phaedra shows greater agency in that she tries to navigate a space for herself in governing Athens during Theseus’ many absences. But like Ariadne, she looks to a male for salvation, which leads to disaster.

Saint’s knowledge of Greek mythology is impressive as is her ability to weave multiple stories from myths into her narrative. But the prose is cumbersome and flowery. The middle section dragged and is especially heavy on telling rather than showing. The dialogue is stiff and unnatural. The characters are flat and not particularly interesting. And the relationship between the two sisters feels strained and artificial. Although Ariadne and Phaedra live in a heavily patriarchal world with little space to maneuver, more could have been done to develop their characters as active, vibrant agents with greater reliance on themselves and each other. Instead, they rely on males to navigate the situation for them. It is disappointing that a myth with the potential to portray assertive, empowered, self-reliant females with a strong sisterhood bond fails to capitalize on its potential.

Recommended with reservations.

Light Perpetual

Francis Spufford

Francis Spufford’s Light Perpetual takes as its starting point an actual event when a bomb exploded at a Woolworth’s store on Bexford High Street in London in 1944, killing 168 people, 15 of whom were children.

The novel’s opening is astonishing. Spufford gives an intricately detailed, clinical description in slow motion of the bomb as it detonates and explodes. He suggests an alternative reality by inviting the reader to explore the lives of five children who died in the explosion. He gives them fictional names and offers an alternative trajectory of their lives, a what might have been had they lived. The five children are Jo and Val (sisters) Vern, Alec, and Ben. Spufford develops the narrative thread of each character’s progression in fifteen-year intervals. He begins with section t+5: 1949 and concludes their narratives with t+65: 2009 when they are in their 70s.

The structure is very original. Against the backdrop of the shifting cultural, economic, political, social, and physical changes in London, we witness the characters as they grow, make choices, and struggle with their inner and outer demons. They experience tragedy, setbacks, and triumphs. The characters are distinct, authentically drawn with rich and varied lives, their interior struggles skillfully depicted, their narrative threads compelling. The seeds of who they are as children forecast who they become as adults. We see them grow up, marry, become parents and grandparents, separate, divorce. We see them as bus conductors, musicians, teachers, con artists, union organizers at a newspaper, construction workers, mental health patients, and criminals.

The most outstanding quality of this book and what makes it such an incredibly powerful read is the luminous prose. It soars and lifts. Its intricate, tactile details create immediacy. Even the most mundane task, like washing dishes or working with a machine, are endowed with significance. Some of the descriptions are breathtakingly riveting. The pace varies, sometimes slowing down, other times speeding up. Spufford’s brushstrokes are masterful whether he describes Ben’s crippling anxiety or Val’s guilt, Jo’s synesthesia or Vern’s scheming. The interiority of the characters is handled with a delicate empathy. What emerges from this powerful story is the imagined lives of five children in all its thorny and poignant detail.

The writing is beautiful, perceptive, stunning, and threaded with compassion and tenderness for the lives cut short in 1944. The tone of melancholy throughout extends far beyond the knowledge that these children never lived long enough to experience a future. It extends to the complexity, fragility, finitude, and interconnectedness of all that pulsates with life.

Highly recommended.

The Spare Room

Helen Garner

Helen Garner’s The Spare Room, loosely based on the death of one of Garner’s friends, is an unflinchingly honest narrative about an extremely challenging situation. Helen and her close friend, Nicola, struggle to maintain a friendship while Nicola undergoes experimental therapy for terminal cancer.

The narrative unfolds from Helen’s perspective as she prepares her spare room to receive Nicola. She approaches the task of care-giving with sympathy and compassion. She bathes Nicola, feeds her, goes with her to the doctor, and changes her bed sheets 2-3 times a day as needed. All the while, she cringes at the alternative treatments that leave Nicola completely debilitated, weakened to the point she can barely move, unable to control her bodily functions, shivering profusely, and suffering from unrelenting pain. Nicola persists in continuing with the treatment. Her cheery and indomitable conviction that the treatment will cure her of cancer eventually leads to a thoroughly exhausted Helen angrily confronting her.

The novel explores some very difficult issues. How does one deal with a dying friend who refuses to accept the inevitable? Nicola is willing to endure all manner of painful alternative treatments, convinced she will be cured. She expects Helen to believe in these cures and to nurse her while undergoing the treatment. While she has a right to choose her path for treatment, she has no right to impose the harrowing consequences of her choice on friends or family who are not professional care-givers. Helen runs herself ragged taking care of Nicola, witnesses her struggle with outlandish treatments that cause her incredible pain, and tolerates her stubborn refusal to see qualified medical professionals. She struggles with feelings of rage, guilt, and tenderness, feelings which leave her mentally and physically drained. We witness her increasing frustration and sense of helplessness. On the one hand, she wants to support her friend; on the other, she wants to shake some sense into her.

The novel skillfully portrays the contrasting worlds of a frustrated, guilt-ridden Helen with the cheery, desperate, living-in-denial spirit of Nicola. The writing is sharp, clear, and effective. It is a quick read but not an easy one due to its realistic treatment of the challenges that go with witnessing and caring for a loved one suffering from a terminal illness.

Ten Minutes, Thirty-Eight Seconds in this Strange World

Elif Shafak

Ten Minutes, Thirty-Eight Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak opens with the death of Tequila Leila, a prostitute in Istanbul. She has been murdered and her body thrown into a dumpster. Exploring the notion that the human mind remains active for several minutes after physical death, Shafak takes us into the mind of Leila during the liminal phase between death but not quite death. She records the minutes and seconds from the time of Leila’s death until her brain finally shuts down. Leila’s story unfolds against the backdrop of a time of civil strife in Turkey with historical events incorporated into the storyline.

Part 1 consists of Leila’s recollections of pivotal moments in her life. Each flashback is triggered by smell and taste. She recalls her early childhood; her family; her experience with repeated sexual assaults, beginning when she was just a child; running away from home; her life in Istanbul; her time as a prostitute; her marriage; and her murder. Interspersed throughout her recollections are brief back stories of her five close friends, all of whom are misfits living on the fringes of society. Part 2 consists of Leila’s friends retrieving her body from the Cemetery of the Companionless to give her a proper burial. And Part 3, only several pages long, consists of Leila’s taste of freedom as her corpse is released into the sea.

Part 1, the longest and strongest part of the novel, immerses the reader in the sights, sounds, smells, and ambience of Istanbul. Bustling with life, inhabited by an ethnically and racially diverse population, Istanbul radiates energy. It is riddled with contradictions, celebrating difference on the one hand, demonizing it on the other. Leila’s narrative exposes the seamy side of Istanbul, an ominous place where danger can lurk behind every corner, especially for a woman. Leila’s five friends are introduced through short, hasty sketches of information. Unfortunately, these do not allow for character development, so the five never emerge as well-rounded, authentic characters. Instead, they are reduced to caricatures.

This failing becomes even more pronounced in Part 2 where Leila’s friends retrieve her body from the cemetery. The dialogue sounds stiff and unnatural. The language lapses into clichés; the action verges on slapstick. The flashbacks of their conversations or incidents with Leila give the appearance of afterthoughts, of being haphazardly inserted. And Part 3, in which Leila’s soul finds freedom in the sea, is maudlin.

A book with an interesting premise and strong start disappoints when it fizzles out into mawkish, melodramatic farce.

Mr. Loverman

Bernardine Evaristo

Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo introduces us to the delightful 74-year-old Barrington Jedidiah Walker (Barry), born in Antigua and transplanted to Hackney, London.

Barry is a dapper, flamboyant, Shakespeare-quoting successful businessman, husband to Carmel for fifty years, father to Donna and Maxine, and grandfather to the teenaged Daniel. Carmel is convinced Barry stays out late at night because he cheats on her with other women. She’s wrong—and right. Barry has never cheated on Carmel with another woman. And he never will. But that’s not to say he hasn’t cheated. Barry has a secret lover by the name of Morris. The two have been closeted lovers since their boyhood days in Antigua. Their ongoing love affair has lasted decades and continues into their adult life in London.

The novel unfolds primarily in the first-person voice of Barry. He is witty, sarcastic, intelligent, generous, full of vim and vigor, with an endearing and magnetic personality. He is also chauvinistic, homophobic, and unconscionably selfish for deceiving his wife for so many decades. Barry’s narrative is interrupted with Carmel’s first-person voice. Carmel’s monologues are sheer poetry. The unpunctuated, rhythmic lyricism of her language is breathtaking. Her cadence is captured so well that one can almost hear her speak. She talks to herself, chastises herself, recalls her past, her hopes and aspirations, and her disappointment in marriage and in the man she married.

The alternating narrators shift back and forth in time. Through their narratives we learn the back story of Barry and Carmel, their marriage, their relocation to England, the birth of their daughters, Carmel’s pursuit of a degree, her career, and Barry’s business success. Their lives are peppered with the presence of Carmel’s life-long, church-going friends who are never short of gossip or advice, but who are always there to support each other. And then, of course, there’s the kind, gentle, lovable Morris.

All the characters have distinct, unique voices. They are authentic, and so well drawn, they can step off the page. The novel moves at a brisk pace. The dialog sizzles. The bond between Barry and Morris is deep-seated and enduring. They know one another so well they can almost read each other’s thoughts, finish each other’s sentences. Their conversations are crisp and entertaining and choke full of humor.

The novel explores a multitude of themes: intergenerational conflicts; love in its various manifestations; homophobia; gender socialization and identity; misogyny; aging; race relations; and masculinity. The themes are intricately woven together, finding expression in a cast of delightful, unforgettable characters all of whom rotate, gravitate, oscillate toward the hilarious, exasperating, unforgettable, and totally charming Barry, their axis mundi.

Highly recommended for its humor and brilliant character portrayals.

The Patience Stone

Atiq Rahimi; trans. Polly McLean

The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi, translated from the French by Polly McLean, takes place in a single room in a city in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime. It is primarily in the form of a young wife’s monologue to her comatose husband. He has a bullet lodged in his neck and appears to be brain dead. The unnamed woman ministers to his wounds, puts drops in his eyes, bathes him regularly, feeds him through a feeding tube, and prays for him. All the while she talks to him and pleads with him to wake up.

The monologue is punctuated with the sound of explosions and gun shots. The woman enters and leaves the room in periodic intervals to take care of her two young daughters. After two Taliban fighters invade her home, she takes her daughters to her aunt for safe keeping. She leaves her husband in the room with the intention of never coming back. But she always comes back to minister to him.

With each of her returns she becomes increasingly more vocal about the injustices and abuse she experienced from him and from some members of his family. She confronts him with his inadequacies and impotence, revealing this is the first time in their decade-old marriage she has felt she could be totally honest with him. She punctures the inflated egos and hypocrisies of men, including her husband. Once the floodgates of silence are opened, her words gush out in a torrent. Her language is raw and brutally honest. This leads to a perverse intimacy in which she kisses him on the lips—something he had never allowed her to do. Eventually, she claims him as her Sang-e-Saboor, her patience stone to which she can unburden all her guilty secrets. And unburden them she does with shocking revelations about prostitution and sexual infidelity, all of which lead to the final explosive crescendo.

The novel unfolds in sparse, staccato language. The atmosphere is confined and claustrophobic. The fear is palpable. The noise of explosions and gunfire, the Taliban invasions of the space where a defenseless woman huddles in the corner reinforce the terror of the situation. The woman’s many entrances, exits, and movements read like virtual stage directions, giving the novel the feel of a play.

The winner of the 2008 Prix Goncourt, this novella is highly recommended for its compelling treatment of the injustices and grievances experienced by many women in Afghanistan and the desperate measures they take to survive.