Medea: A Modern Retelling

Christa Wolf

Medea: A Modern Retelling by Christa Wolf, translated from the German by John Cullen, is not the same Medea familiar to readers of Euripides’ play by that name. In her retelling, Wolf recasts Medea as a fiercely intelligent, compassionate human being, absolved of all wrongdoing, and scapegoated for the crimes of Corinth society.

The novel unfolds in a series of first-person voices. Included are the voices of Medea, Jason, Glauce, Creon’s advisors, and Medea’s former pupil who betrays her. Each one speaks in an authentic voice, providing multiple perspectives on the same narrative. The characters are complex and conflicted; their voices individualistic. Some recognize the tension gradually building as evidence is fabricated against Medea, but they feel powerless to stop it. Others add fuel to the fire.

In Wolf’s retelling, Medea is a healer who escapes Colchis with Jason because she abhors her father’s willing sacrifice of her brother to cement his position as king of Colchis. She assumes Corinth will be a safe haven for her, not expecting to encounter Corinth’s racism, xenophobia, and gender discrimination. A foreigner and woman of color, Medea refuses to conform to Corinth’s circumscribed roles for women, alienating the people of Corinth for her assertive and non-obsequious behavior. She defies all attempts to marginalize her. And when she discovers Corinth’s political class is corrupt and harbors a dark secret kept buried from the masses, she is perceived as a danger to the political status quo. Steps are undertaken to eliminate her.

Nefarious, false accusations are drummed up against Medea to rile up the masses. The accusations are fueled by some of her own people who lie to ingratiate themselves with authority figures. Rumors spread that she caused the earthquake and the ensuing plague. Targeted as a scapegoat for all the ills befalling on Corinth, labeled a monster, Medea is put on trial, ostensibly for murdering her own brother. Found guilty, she is banished from Corinth. The Colchian refugees are persecuted, and those who survive escape to the caves. When the king’s daughter commits suicide, the real cause of her death is covered up and blamed on Medea. And in a frenzy to retaliate for Medea’ ostensible crimes, the mob stones her two children to death.

Wolf retells the story of Medea as an allegory to explore the extent to which people will go to cling to power. They will manipulate and lie to the masses, prey on their fears, stir them up into a frenzy, and offer them convenient scapegoats on which to vent their fury. Those targeted and persecuted are innocent immigrants who have been othered, marginalized, and designated as “inferiors.” They are easy targets because they are so readily identifiable.

Wolf’s retelling of the Medea story is a political tour de force. In her hands, the ancient story of Medea becomes a vehicle to explore the political machinations of those in power to retain that power. They have no consideration for the truth or for the innocent victims trampled in their wake. If they succeed in holding on to power, they ensure their version of past events survives because they will be the ones who write the history books.

Highly recommended.

Stone Blind

Natalie Haynes

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes retells the story of Medusa and how the youngest of the Gorgon sisters became an ostensible monster.

Lovingly raised by her two sisters who find her on the shore outside their cave, Medusa is happy until she attracts the attention of Poseidon who assaults her in Athena’s temple. Athena vents her anger on the violation that occurred in the sanctity of her temple by transforming Medusa’s hair into writhing snakes and cursing her with the power to turn all living creatures into stone. Meanwhile, Perseus, the son of Zeus and Danaë, is on a quest to bring back the head of a Gorgon to save his mother from an unhappy marriage. With the help of Hermes and Athena, he succeeds in his quest. He cuts off Medusa’s head, carts it around with him in a bag, and brings it out when he wants to exploit her power by turning his perceived enemies into stone.

Haynes retells the myth with compassion for Medusa and contempt and derision for Perseus. But her primary focus is not on Medusa. Instead, it is on the Greek pantheon with their petty squabbles, their bickering, their jealousies, their petulance, and their prolific use of humans as pawns in their vengeful schemes. In fact, more time is spent on Athena than Medusa. Included is the birth of Athena and the war between the Titans and the Olympians. Medusa’s head, snakes, an olive grove in Athens, and a crow are given speaking parts in addition to nymphs, gods, goddesses, and mortals. The narrative is interrupted several times by Medusa’s head (“the Gorgoneion”) chatting directly with the reader and commenting on the characters and events.

The novel suffers from a lack of focus. The scope is too vast with so many characters and so much happening that Medusa is relegated to the status of a minor player, bereft of agency. The dialogue is dull, stilted, and vacuous; the characters one-dimensional and lack depth. Hanes’s attempts to inject humor fall flat.

All in all, a disappointing read from the author of A Thousand Ships, a better novel by far.

Lessons in Chemistry

Bonnie Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is the story of the intrepid Elizabeth Zott.

The novel opens in 1961 with Elizabeth as the star of Supper at Six, a television cooking show for housewives. A single mother in dire need of an income to support her little girl, Elizabeth reluctantly agrees to host the show but determines to make it in her own image—that of a die-hard scientist. So while she instructs her audience on how to bake this or bake that, she familiarizes them with the chemical compounds of her ingredients and explains how they interact. She treats her audience as adults, coaching them and coaxing them to transcend socially-constructed, gender-specific limitations. Her producer is initially horrified; her audience is thrilled. They are inspired by her words and take copious notes as if attending a lecture.

The novel flashes back to the 1950’s where we see Elizabeth fighting to claim her position as a bona fide scientist in a male-dominated profession. Women are threatened by her; men can’t see her as anything other than a sexual being. She is sexually assaulted, harassed, ridiculed, humiliated, maligned, and suffers the indignity of having her research appropriated by her male supervisor. Fired from her job at the research institute, and having lost the love of her life in an unfortunate accident, Elizabeth reluctantly agrees to become a cooking show host to make ends meet.

The comedy stems from Elizabeth’s dogged refusal to be anything other than a scientist. She is fiercely determined to continue with her research at whatever the cost. She transforms her kitchen into a chemistry lab and is oblivious to the shocked expressions of visitors when they see it. She treats her little girl as a young adult, teaching her to read at a very early age and instilling in her a love for scientific inquiry, much to the chagrin of the girl’s kindergarten teacher. Convinced that her dog is capable of learning language, Elizabeth begins a systematic regimen of teaching him vocabulary words. In short, Elizabeth Zott is anything but conventional.

To enjoy the novel, one has to overlook the abundant cliches and lack of plausible situations. Elizabeth of the 1950s speaks as a feminist of the 21st century. She inspires her female audience to free themselves of restrictive, gender-based shackles. Apparently, that is all it takes for them to turn their lives around and share their success stories with her. So consumed by her work, she is completely unaware of how physically attractive she is. She takes up rowing and by figuring out the chemistry of rowing, she is able to excel in the sport in the space of a few days, out maneuvering hefty men who have been at it for years. She is out of touch with the world around her, is awkward with human interaction, and blithely marches on as if all life’s problems can be solved through chemistry. And she is an atheist because, apparently, faith in science is incompatible with faith in God.

Bonnie Garmus has written an entertaining, feel-good novel with a predictably happy ending. Its appeal lies in the deadpan humor; Elizabeth’s dogged determination to forge ahead; her laser-focus on science; the snappy dialogue; and the interiority of the characters; including, perhaps the most endearing character of all, a highly perceptive dog who has mastered several hundred words and whose running commentary on human behavior adds to the humor.

Assembly

Natasha Brown

Assembly by Natasha Brown is a one-hundred-page novel that packs a powerful punch. It unfolds in the first-person voice of an unnamed British narrator of Jamaican origin. The stream of consciousness technique allows the narrator to skip from one vignette to another, from one experience to another. Threaded throughout are illustrations of the insidious racism and sexism bombarding the narrator in every aspect of her life.

The narrator has a successful career at a London finance firm and has just received a big promotion. Even though she works diligently, tries to say the right things, tries to blend in and not call attention to herself, tolerates subtle and not so subtle innuendos and micro aggressions, she knows her male colleagues are convinced she only got the promotion because of her race and gender. She describes them in grotesque terms:

Dry, weathered faces; soft, flabby cheeks; grease-shined foreheads. Necks bursting from as-yet-unbuttoned collars. All shades of pink, beige, tan. Fingers stabbing at keyboards and meaty fists wrapped around phone receivers.

Those same colleagues never fail to remind her she received the promotion because of the firm’s eagerness to meet diversity quotas in its hiring procedures.

And then there is her white boyfriend from an affluent liberal British family. She is invited to join his parents’ celebration of their wedding anniversary at the family estate. She observes them as they make obvious and concerted efforts to demonstrate their liberal attitudes toward race.

And that’s not all. She has been diagnosed with cancer. It is spreading throughout her body and requires immediate treatment, which she has so far refused. Her doctor’s reminders to seek treatment periodically interrupt her flow of thoughts.

The novel captures the narrator’s sheer exhaustion at having to navigate and contend with racism and harassment in every aspect of her life. She is in a state of constant alertness. She analyzes how others perceive and react to her. She chooses her responses carefully. She never reveals what she really thinks, operating under a split consciousness. She feels herself to be on constant display, always projecting an image that others expect of her. Her heightened awareness that she is a black female surrounded by a white culture that benefited from slavery and that continues to benefit from systemic racism permeates all her thoughts. The cancer that is spreading throughout her body comes to symbolize the cancer of racism infecting all aspects of her life. The narrator seems to have given up the struggle on all fronts by apparently refusing to fight the cancer that is killing her.

The novel is brief but powerful. The stream of consciousness technique is highly effective in presenting fleeting vignettes of the narrator’s experiences, all of which combine to illuminate the debilitating racism that is slowly draining her life, leaving her in a state of apathy and numbness.

The House of Broken Angels

Louis Alberto Urrea

The House of Broken Angels by Louis Alberto Urrea is a portrait of the De La Cruzes family, an immigrant Mexican-American family living in San Diego. The seventy-year-old patriarch, Big Angel, is dying of cancer. The novel opens with Big Angel preparing to go to his mother’s funeral. He has scheduled his birthday celebration the same weekend of the funeral so the extended family can attend both functions in the same trip.

Urrea paints a vivid portrait of the members of this large, extended family. There are children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, spouses, ex-spouses, siblings, step-siblings—in short, a motely crew of people bursting in and out of the pages. The focus is primarily on Big Angel as he recalls bits and pieces of his life and tries to come to terms with his impending death. Urrea doesn’t stop there. He takes the reader inside the thoughts of some of the other characters as they remember the past, their lives in Mexico, their poverty, their struggles with assimilation in America, their lovers, their estrangements from family, and the deaths of loved ones. Every page is a flurry of activity, teeming with noise.

Because the sheer number of characters can get confusing, presenting a challenge in keeping track of who is related to whom and how, a family tree would have been helpful. But perhaps the confusion was intentional. With such a large extended family, even some of the characters were at a loss to figure out who was related and who was not.

What emerges from this frenzy is an authentic portrait of a complex family. The petty jealousies, grudges, and family dynamics are realistic and recognizable. There are moments of genuine tenderness between family members, especially between Big Angel and his half-brother, Little Angel; and between Big Angel and his wife, Perla. The love they have for each other is evident. What is also evident is Urrea’s contagious affection for his characters. The unbreakable bond between family members, their unwavering support for each other, and the love and esteem they hold for their dying patriarch spills out of every page.

A poignant, moving, and vibrant portrayal of a Mexican-American family, brimming with color, activity, noise, and the energy of life.

Animal Life

Audur Ava Olafsdóttir; trans. Brian FitzGibbon

Animal Life by Audur Ava Olafsdóttir, translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon, is a quiet, meditative novel with very little plot. It unfolds in the voice of Dýja Dómhildur, a midwife in Reykjavík. Dýja comes from a long line of midwives from her mother’s side and a long line of undertakers from her father’s side. She is well-acquainted with beginnings and endings.

The novel opens after the death of Dýja’s great aunt Fifa, a respected midwife known for her eccentricities. Dýja has inherited her home with all its cluttered, mismatched furnishings. Among her great aunt’s possessions, Dýja discovers her forty-year correspondence with an overseas pen pal, a woman who shares her interests. She also discovers boxes and boxes of her great aunt’s manuscripts and other writings. Dýja reads through the material, making slow progress as she tries to piece together its jigsaw quality. Her ruminations on her great aunt’s writings infiltrate her activities as she brings babies into the world; reassures new and expectant mothers; talks with her neighbors, co-workers, and sisters; and prepares for an impending severe storm. Little else happens in the novel.

The fragmentary nature of the writing reinforces the great aunt’s wholistic approach to life and her ability to observe connections in what is seemingly disconnected. She reflects on birth, life, and death; man’s place in the world; man’s nature; the fragility of life; the degradation of the natural environment; the importance of preserving plant and animal life; empty spaces; and the pivotal role coincidences play in our everyday lives. Since the writings cover several decades, the great aunt was well ahead of her time in her prescient awareness of global warming and its deleterious environmental impact.

The Icelandic term for midwife is ljósmódir, which means “mother of light.” By contrast, the novel takes place in Iceland’s season of darkness, just before Christmas, the darkest time of the year. The interplay of light and darkness resonate with the great aunt’s reflections on light and dark, both literal and metaphorical. To reinforce the theme, Dýja’s sister, a meteorologist, peppers her conversations with anxious reminders that a severe storm is heading in their direction, bringing with it heavy winds, disruption of services, and darkness.

Set against an immersive backdrop replete with vivid descriptions of Iceland’s weather, its stark and beautiful landscape, its star-filled night skies, and its shimmering sunrises, the novel’s fragmentary nature and wide-ranging topics stitch together to form an intricate tapestry that is, at once, thought-provoking, meditative, tranquil, subdued, and beautiful.

Very highly recommended.

Demon Copperhead

Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, inspired by Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, is set in Appalachia. The narrative unfolds in the voice of Demon, beginning with his birth to an impoverished, drug-addicted single teenager on the floor of her trailer. Known as Demon Copperhead because of his red hair, Demon charts his growth from a young boy to adulthood. His father died before he was born. Even as a young child, Demon faces hardship. He assumes the role of parenting his own mother, but with help and support from the neighboring Peggot family, his life chugs along fairly smoothly until his mother remarries. And that is when Demon catapults from one tragic situation to another in a series of events over which he has little to no control.

An abusive and violent step-father makes his life miserable. His situation deteriorates after his mother’s tragic death of a drug overdose. Now an orphan, he is shuffled from one foster home to another where he is abused and exploited. He runs away, is robbed of his meager savings, sleeps near dumpsters, and hitchhikes until he locates his grandmother and moves in with her. His situation improves dramatically when his grandmother arranges for him to stay at the home of his high school football coach so he can attend high school. Demon excels in football, becoming a local football hero until he injures his knee. He is prescribed a copious number of painkillers and predictably slides down the slippery path to increased addiction. His circle of friends are all drug-addicts who fuel one another’s addictions. He hits rock bottom when his girl-friend dies of an overdose and two other friends die in a drowning accident. It is only then that he decides to get help for his addiction.

In spite of experiencing a slew of bad luck and engaging in self-destructive behaviors, Demon is fortunate in that there are people who see the good in him and are willing to help him. These include his art teacher who recognizes his talent for drawing and encourages him to pursue it, the coach’s daughter who never gives up on him, and Mrs. Peggot who is always willing to provide him with a meal. His luck turns when a friend with whom he had previously shared a foster home encourages him to draw a comic strip for a local newspaper about an Appalachian super hero. The popularity of the comic strip leads to an opportunity to publish a graphic novel. No longer addicted to drugs, on the verge of a new romance, and a soon-to-be published author, Demon ends the novel on a hopeful note.

Kingsolver’s political agenda is clear throughout. The novel becomes her platform for exposing the many obstacles the Appalachian poor and opioid-addicted experience. She makes no attempt soften their desperate circumstances, the marginalization and bigotry they endure, their poverty, and the child-welfare agencies that fail them. She lays responsibility for the opioid epidemic squarely on the shoulders of the pharmaceutical company for aggressively targeting the poor and desperate. She thrusts Demon from one misfortune to another, all of which seems excessive at times and bordering on overkill. But what saves the novel is Demon’s voice. He is at once funny, desperate, cynical, precocious, engaging, delightful, devoted, and, above all, remarkably resilient.

The Marriage Portrait

Maggie O’Farrell

Inspired by Robert Browning’s poem, “My Last Duchess,” Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait takes what little is known about the historical Duchess of Ferrara, Lucrezia di Cosimi de’ Medici d’Este, and weaves an unforgettable tale of intrigue and murder in 16th century Italy.

The novel spans nearly two decades with the conception of Lucrezia in 1544 and concluding in 1561. Lucrezia is the third daughter of Cosimo I de’Medici, ruler of Florence. A willful, precocious child with a love for animals and a talent for painting, Lucrezia is forced to marry Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, when she is fifteen years old. She slowly realizes the duplicitous nature of her husband—loving and gentle on the one hand and mercilessly cruel on the other. Her only function is to provide him with an heir. When she fails to do that, she realizes her days are numbered.

Unfolding in the present tense, the novel opens in 1561 when Lucrezia, just one year into her marriage, barely survives being poisoned by her husband. Suspense is established from the outset and haunts the narrative as it threads its way back in time to Lucrezia’s childhood and early days of her marriage. The timelines alternate between Lucrezia’s past and the day in 1561 when she realizes her husband has poisoned her. That she is in danger of losing her life looms across the pages of the novel.

O’Farrell immerses the reader in the mind and experiences of Lucrezia. Her rich inner life, her painterly eye for detail, her intensity, and her humanity are skillfully captured. When Lucrezia learns that artists frequently conceal an original work by painting over it, she practices layering her own paintings. This layering plays an important role in the novel. The surface conceals what lies beneath. People are never what they appear to be on the surface. Alfonso conceals his cruelty under a veneer of tender love and concern for his wife. Lucrezia conceals her fury and fear under the veneer of agreeable acquiescence to Alfonso’s demands. The artist’s apprentices are not what they appear to be. And at the climax of the novel, even Emilia, Lucrezia’s maid, is not what she appears to be.

The very texture of 16th century court life is vividly captured. The courts and palazzos of Renaissance Italy with their heavy drapes and frescoes, ornate tapestries, billowing dresses, elaborate hair styles, intrigues, and political machinations spring to life. Descriptions are replete with lavish imagery. Some scenes are cinematic. Lucrezia’s encounter with the tiger is described in such visual, auditory, and tactile detail that it is as if one is by her side in the scene. There are times when O’Farrell belabors a point or injures her otherwise lucid and poetic prose with excessive detail. However, these lapses are few and far between and do not detract from a novel that breathes life into a historical figure whose pulsating energy is set against a background brimming with vitality, subterfuge, and suspense.  

Maggie O’Farrell has written another powerful page-turner in every sense of the word.

Hannah Coulter

Wendell Berry

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry is a meditation on aging. The story unfolds in the first-person voice of Hannah Coulter. Hannah, now in her late seventies, reflects on her life in a small farming community in Kentucky.

Growing up during the Great Depression, Hannah learns the survival skills of cooking, farming, and housekeeping from her grandmother. She marries her landlady’s nephew, Virgil, and is pregnant with their first child when he is called to serve overseas in World War II. Virgil is killed in the war and never sees his child. Hannah re-marries Nathan, a neighboring farmer. They have two sons and raise the three children in a healthy farming environment. Theirs is a happy marriage, spanning nearly five decades until Nathan’s death.

Now that her children have grown and gone their separate ways, Hannah evaluates her life. She paints an idyllic picture of farm life in the past, comparing it with the present. She sees the economic and social changes taking place all around her. She laments changes she sees in the natural environment and in the breakdown of community life in which farming families shared their joys and sorrows and were quick to help each other out in time of need. Most of the people she grew up with have died. The fabric of social life that sustained her and her neighbors has unravelled to make way for new, but not necessarily better, ways of living.

Hannah’s insights, as she looks back on her life, ring true for the most part. She tends to ramble, at times, and can come across as a bit preachy, which can add to the authenticity of her voice. The tone throughout is moving and pensive. The novel is a meditation on aging and an elegy on a way of life and the values it embodies that are slowly but surely fading into the distance.

The Map of Love

Ahdaf Soueif

A finalist for the Booker Prize in 1999, The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif unfolds in two different timelines and through a variety of different formats.

The novel opens in 1997 with Amal, an Egyptian-American living in Cairo. She is contacted by Isabel, a young American journalist, with a request to translate Arabic papers and journals she found in her mother’s old trunk. Amal agrees to the task and so Isabel turns up in Cairo and the two begin going through the papers. They soon discover they are distant cousins. The papers belong to Anna Winterbourne, an English woman and Isabel’s great grandmother. Anna’s second marriage was to an Egyptian who happened to be Amal’s great uncle.

The second timeline, beginning in 1899 and running through to 1913, consists primarily of Anna’s journal entries and letters. After the death of her first husband, Anna decides to travel to Egypt. She revels in the sights, sounds, and smells of Egypt, but expresses frustration at her less than authentic experiences since she is primarily confined to a British circle of friends. Determined to remedy the situation, she disguises herself as a young man and sets off to find adventure in the desert. She gets more than she bargained for when she is kidnapped and taken to the home of Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Predictably, the two fall passionately in love and marry.

Anna adopts Egyptian ways and customs and begins learning Arabic. She is embraced by her husband’s family and friends, but is shunned by many of her former British colleagues. Happy in her marriage and very much in love, Anna soon finds herself embroiled in the political upheavals of an Egypt trying to break free from British and Ottoman control and a Palestine increasingly occupied by European Zionists.

The novel transitions from Anna’s timeline and that of Amal and Isabel unravelling the documents in 1997. The plot is further complicated when Isabel confides she has fallen in love with an Egyptian—Omar, a famous symphony conductor and Amal’s brother. The timelines intersect and parallel each other. Just as Anna contends with the political turmoil of the early twentieth-century, Amal has to navigate the political turmoil of Egypt at the end of the century. Sometimes the shifts are abrupt, and sometimes the political wranglings go on longer than necessary as if the speakers are mouthpieces presenting different points of view. There are a number of coincidences and twists which stretch credibility.

Ahdaf Soueif’s treatment of language is interesting. Anna doesn’t speak Arabic and Sharif Pasha doesn’t speak English, so they speak to each other in French—a language that is not native to either one, forcing them to pay close attention to what each is saying. Amal occasionally tutors Isabel on the roots and outgrowths of certain Arabic words. And the novel is peppered with transliterated Arabic words and idioms, all of which are explained in the glossary and which provide readers with a taste of Arab culture.

An intricately woven and engaging love story that connects the past with the present while showing how the seeds of the current political turmoil in the Middle East are rooted in decisions made in the past.

Woman of Light

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the story of a multi-generational Chicano family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The setting is the Lost Territory and Denver, Colorado. The narrative unfolds in separate threads with alternating settings and time periods. It focuses on Luz Lopez, “Little Light,” a tea leaf reader and laundress as she struggles with her aunt and brother to eke a living in a Denver teeming with racial discrimination, oppression, and harassment.

The narrative opens with the unceremonious abandonment of Luz’s grandfather, Pidre. Abandoned as a baby in 1868 in the Lost Territory, he is found and raised by an elderly woman, known as Sleepy Prophet. Pidre lives with her until he is old enough to make his own way in the world. The narrative switches to Luz Lopez in Denver, 1933. From then on, the narrative alternates between Pidre and Luz in the form of flashbacks and flash forwards, revealing the background of each character and developing each thread separately. The threads coalesce at the end of the novel when Luz decides to share her dreams of a sleepy prophet with her young niece.

Fajardo-Anstine immerses the reader in early 20th Century Denver with its racist history, its Ku Klux Klan rallies, and its rampant police brutality and violence against the indigenous population. Luz navigates her life through this turmoil. She experiences visions and prescient dreams, which she struggles to decipher. And she develops a reputation as a gifted reader of tea leaves. When her brother is run out of town, she takes a job as the assistant of a local attorney who advocates for the rights of the indigenous population. She gets embroiled in a love triangle between her boss and a local musician.

The chapters recounting Luz’s story are not told chronologically. And since her chapters also alternate between chapters recounting the story of her grandparents, the narrative feels like it is constantly interrupted. Following the different threads and time lines poses a challenge intensified by the absence of a connection between the disparate threads until late in the novel.  

Fajardo-Anstine’s prose can be quite breathtaking at times. Her use of metaphors can be highly effective in creating the setting and in capturing the suffocating atmosphere experienced by her characters. Her characters are compelling, especially Luz as she struggles to find her place in the world. The plot has potential, but Fajardo-Anstine’s treatment with its alternating threads is jarring. Switching from one narrative thread to another and from one timeline to another confuse and detract from what would otherwise have been a much stronger novel.

Stealing From the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe

Diana Darke

In Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe, Diana Darke maintains that the structural elements and style of many European gothic buildings borrowed heavily from the Arab world, especially from Islamic architecture.

Darke learned Arabic, immersed herself in the literature and culture of the Arab world, traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and Turkey, and spent several years in pre-civil war Damascus. She visited many of the archaeological ruins and religious sites she describes in her book. She makes a compelling case that structural elements and construction techniques in architecture, including pointed arches, ribbed vaulting, cross vaults, spires, stained glass, rose windows, domes, horseshoe arches, spires, window grilles, etc. had their roots in the Arab and Islamic world.

Through meticulous research, Darke demonstrates that from the early Middle Ages, various travelers to the Middle East and Spain studied Islamic buildings and mosques, taking extensive drawings and notes on the structures. From the crusaders and pilgrims visiting Jerusalem; the thriving trade routes, especially between Venice and Arab countries; military conflicts; and visitors to Muslim-ruled Spain, the opportunities for interaction and influence were many. The methods, computations for construction, styles, and techniques of Arab and Islamic architecture were transmitted to Europe where the structures were imitated. Europeans also studied the translated writings of Arab scholars in science and geometry to learn their techniques. These borrowings appear in prominent European buildings, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Venice’s St. Mark’s, and Notre Dame.

That Europe gained considerable knowledge of medicine, philosophy, science, mathematics, astronomy, including the words Algebra (from the Arabic word al-jabr, meaning to connect; to bring back together) and Algorithm (from Al-Khwarizmi, the scholar working in Baghdad during the late 8th century CE) is well-documented. It should come as no surprise that Europe also borrowed heavily from Islamic architecture. But as Darke argues in her conclusion, the point is not to claim the superiority of Arab architecture over its European counterpart. It is simply to acknowledge the heavy influence the Arabs and Islam have had on the architecture of Europe.

Darke’s research is extensive. The language describing the intricate parts of a building and the details of its construction may be too technical for those not well-versed in architecture. Fortunately, Darke provides an invaluable chapter at the end of her book in which she itemizes the first appearance of a key architectural feature of Arab/Islamic origin and highlights its appearance in European buildings. She also includes a glossary, index, and some breathtaking illustrations of ancient sites, mosques, cathedrals, and other prominent structures in the Middle East, Turkey, and Europe.

Lucy By the Sea

Elizabeth Strout

Lucy By the Sea by Elizabeth Strout is another novel in Strout’s “Lucy Barton” series. In this novel, Lucy Barton contends with the Covid pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. The novel unfolds in Lucy’s first-person voice as she struggles to make sense of events. It gradually dawns on her that life will never be quite the same, again.

When Covid hits, Lucy’s former husband, William, whisks her out of New York to a small town in Maine. His goal, as he reveals to Lucy, is to save her life. The two live in virtual isolation, with the occasional visit from William’s friend and neighbor.

Lucy’s voice is authentic and intimate; her tone, conversational. She peppers her interiority by occasionally addressing the reader directly with “you”—as if chatting with us over a cup of tea. She shares flashbacks of her poverty-stricken childhood, her relationship with her mother and siblings, her marriage to William and his infidelities, her second marriage to her now-deceased husband, and her daughters’ struggles in their marriages. Weaving in and out of her personal details are the political upheavals of the period—the death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, the general election, and the events of January 6.

Very little happens in the novel. The language is sparse, direct, and unadorned. The focus is on Lucy’s interiority—her thoughts, self-doubts, observations, conversations with friends and family, the people she meets, concern for her daughters, and her writing. She is non-confrontational, somewhat flakey, but likeable. The strength of the novel lies in her intimate tone and authenticity as she struggles to find a foothold in unfamiliar surroundings in unfamiliar times.

A quick and easy read but with minimal substance or depth. The novel will appeal to readers who enjoy following Lucy’s meanderings as she contemplates the past, present, and future.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague

Geraldine Brooks

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks is set in a village in seventeenth-century England. The story unfolds in the first-person voice of Anna Frith, a young married woman and mother of two children. Anna works as a maid in the village manor and at the local vicarage. She loses her husband in a mining accident, and when the village is infested with the bubonic plague, she loses her two young children.

The plague ignites like wild fire in the village, taking an increasing number of villagers in its wake. Under the advice of the rector, Michael Mompellion, the village self-quarantines to avoid spreading the plague to neighboring areas. Anna and Elinor, the rector’s wife, then begin to educate themselves on natural medicinal herbs and traditional cures to minister to the sick and ease the pain of those in the throes of death.

The physical, emotional, and psychological impact of the plague is described in immersive detail. Some of the villagers become increasingly superstitious, resorting to talismans, self-flagellation, mob violence, and accusations of witchcraft in an eagerness to assign blame. Brooks contrasts those behaviors with the selfless acts of Anna and the Mompelllions. Through all her hardships, Anna perseveres. She grows in confidence as the novel progresses, becoming adept as a midwife and at identifying which herbs and plants remedy specific ailments.

Geraldine Brooks skillfully immerses the reader in detailed descriptions of the landscape, village customs, and the plague’s impact as villagers struggle to cope with an infestation they can neither understand nor obliterate. They look to their rector for guidance. Mompellion serves as the moral beacon for the community. His sermons are spoken with eloquence and passion. He eschews concern for his personal safety by rushing to the bedside of those dying from the plague to provide them with spiritual comfort. Anna sees him as an ideal, selfless individual whose concern is to provide spiritual edification and ensure the well-being of his parishioners. She admires both him and his wife, at times experiencing pangs of jealousy for the love and tenderness they express toward one another. And therein lies one of the major problems with the novel’s ending.

Brooks powerfully evokes a village in the grips of a fatal disease. With a rigorous eye for historic detail and in elegant prose, she depicts the deterioration of a community in despair. The novel works well until its unfortunate ending when it stretches plausibility beyond limits. We are surprised to learn that far from being the unselfish, compassionate human being portrayed throughout, Michael Mompellion reveals himself to be selfish, unforgiving, and cruel in his treatment of his wife. For her part, Anna escapes from the village to end up in—of all places—a harem where she learns Arabic and develops her skills as a healer.

This highly improbable ending with the vicar’s out-of-character revelation in the closing pages of the novel, an ill-conceived romance, a breath-taking escape, and Anna’s final destination all detract from what would otherwise have been a good historical novel.  

I am, I am, I am: Seventeen Brushes with Death

Maggie O’Farrell

In I am, I am, I am: Seventeen Brushes with Death, Maggie O’Farrell chronicles seventeen, self-contained episodes in which she comes close to death. Each chapter heading specifies the body part that was in the most danger. Although not chronologically sequenced, the chapters span O’Farrell’s life as a child, a teenager, an adult, a wife, and a mother.

O’Farrell’s brushes with death vary in intensity. Some are more harrowing than others. These include childhood encephalitis and its lingering effects, near fatal bouts with amoebic dysentery, an almost fatal hemorrhage during childbirth, as a passenger on an airplane that temporarily plummets out of control, a narrow escape from a rapist/murderer, a potential drowning, and a mugging by a machete-wielding thief. The final chapter describes her constant vigilance and the treatment required to keep alive her daughter who suffers from life-threateningly severe immunological and dermatological disorders.  

In spite of her multiple brushes with death, O’Farrell does not wallow in self-pity. But the experiences impact her by altering her perceptions permanently. She concedes that near death experiences make one wiser and sadder and more fully cognizant of the thin membrane that separates life from death.

O’Farrell communicates the intensity and fear of each experience in detailed, evocative diction. Her fear and anxiety are palpable. This is particularly evident in the final chapter in which she describes her daughter’s condition in detail and the many precautions she undertakes as a mother to preserve her daughter’s life. In minute detail, she lists the otherwise mundane things that can trigger a potentially life-threatening attack. She conveys the tension simmering underneath as she smiles at her daughter’s care-givers and explains her condition. She expresses her gratitude to friends and family who include her daughter in their invitations and sweep clean their homes of anything that might trigger an attack. She hides her frustration and anger at the insensitivity of others.

What emerges from this unconventional memoir is Maggie O’Farrell’s resilience and ability to pick herself up and forge ahead. Her diction is compelling and visceral. The physical and mental impact of what might have happened is given equal weight as to what actually does happen. She articulates the impact of these brushes with death with eloquence, clarity, and dignity. Although her experiences are unique, O’Farrell’s gripping vignettes remind us that life-threatening incidents—some of which may be self-induced while others are a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—can materialize in a split second and alter the trajectory of lives forever.

A compelling and thoughtful memoir. Highly recommended.

Winter in Sokcho

Elisa Shua Dusapin; trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins

Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, unfolds in the first-person voice of a nameless twenty-four-year-old woman who works at a run-down sea-side resort close to the demilitarized zone between north and south Korea. The narrator is of mixed race with a French father who disappeared before she was born and a Korean mother.

The narrator goes through the motions of cleaning guest rooms, cooking, and checking guests in and out. She has a boyfriend although she shows little interest in him. She has a binge and purge eating disorder which kicks in every time she has a meal with her mother. She resists her mother’s pressures to eat, to marry, and to consider cosmetic surgery, not necessarily in that order. Although she had an opportunity to continue her education after obtaining her degree from Seoul University, she opted to return to Sokcho. She leads a routine, humdrum existence and shows no ambition to move forward in her life. She is a loner and feels isolated. And then Kerrand, a French graphic artist, checks into the hotel and asks her to show him around the area.

Very little happens in the novel since most of the action occurs beneath the surface. Immersive descriptions of Sokcho, the surrounding area, and the bitterly cold temperatures serve as the backdrop. Descriptions of the chopping and gutting of fish, as well as elaborate preparations and consumption of meals pepper the narrative. Most of the novel consists of the narrator’s conversations and interactions with Kerrand. At times their conversations are comfortable; at other times, they are fraught with tension. Her interiority reflects the complexity of her emotions. She rummages through his belongings when cleaning his room to satisfy her curiosity about him and his art. She alternates between wanting to be with him and pushing him away. She weighs her words when speaking to him, but leaves a lot unsaid. The relationship doesn’t develop, and, eventually, Kerrand announces his departure.

The novel captures the young woman’s internal life as she explores her mixed heritage, resists her mother’s ongoing demands, bundles up to keep warm in freezing temperatures, observes a female hotel guest who has had cosmetic surgery, disengages from her boyfriend, and obsesses about Kerrand. The diction is economic and spare but packs an emotional punch. At one point, the narrator describes Koreans as living in limbo since the potential for war is omnipresent. The description is applicable to the narrator. She seems to be on the edge of a precipice, living in limbo, waiting, biding her time until something happens. Her voice, laced with melancholy and resignation, gives the novel its strength.

George Orwell: A Collection of Essays

George Orwell

George Orwell’s A Collection of Essays continues to inspire. Included in this collection is “Such, Such Were the Joys,” describing Orwell’s traumatic early school years in an English boarding school; “Shooting an Elephant,” narrating an experience he had in Burma which shed light on the nature of colonialism; “Marrakech,” illustrating colonialism’s marginalization of people of color; “Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War,” summarizing Orwell’s view on the war; “Politics and the English Language,” decrying slovenly, abstract language, and showing its relationship with slovenly thinking; and “Why I Write,” articulating Orwell’s motivation for writing. Many of his essays continue to resonate.

Orwell’s prose is clear, precise, and to the point. He refrains from using pretentious jargon, doesn’t dance around with his words, or camouflage his meaning. He relishes in the details of daily life and displays an uncanny ability to locate significance in an otherwise trivial event. His themes are political with a focus on systemic, institutionalized oppression and racism. Orwell’s discussion of how language can be used as a tool to foster totalitarianism through its distortion of reality, intentional obfuscation of meaning, and proliferation of lies acts as a cautionary warning. His words are particularly relevant today as we struggle with fake news and incendiary language.

Orwell was well ahead of his time in his thinking and in warning of the dangers of sloppy language and sloppy thinking; the deleterious impact of institutionalized racism; and the need for a prose that is succinct, specific, and conveys meaning. He argues we are bombarded with messages in our everyday lives seeping into our minds and influencing our thinking. His essays are prescient; his prose intimate, honest, and lucid. His ideas, thoughts, and style are as relevant today as they were when they first appeared decades ago.

Orwell was a man on a mission to raise awareness of the injustices he encountered. His advocacy for a truly democratic and socially equitable society speaks to us across the decades.

Highly recommended.

Walking on the Ceiling

Aysegul Savas

Walking on the Ceiling by Aysegul Savas unfolds in the first-person point of view of Nunu. The narrative consists of two, intertwining threads. In the first thread, Nunu recalls her past: growing up in Istanbul, living in London with her then boyfriend, and her complex relationship with her mother. The second thread consists of Nunu as a student in Paris and her attachment to the author M. She describes their long walks together through the streets of Paris, their conversations, and the stories they share. The novel takes the form of flashbacks and short vignettes. It has little to no plot.

Nunu’s interior is rich, complex, and mesmerizing. Her voice is intimate, allowing brief glimpses of her troubled childhood, the mind-games she plays with her mother, and their failed attempts at connection. She is intentionally evasive about her past, dropping hints here and there but never elaborating. Her critical observations and analyses are reserved for those around her and for the city streets she frequents in the alternating cities. The short, non-linear chapters, sometimes no longer than one or two lines, replicate the snippets of memory she conjures.

By her own admission, Nunu lies. She creates fictionalized versions of herself to enchant the people around her. She fabricates a version of her home life to her boyfriend in England, a different version to her university roommate, and yet another version to M. She lies to her mother and aunts about her life in Paris. She appropriates and embellishes her mother’s stories, claiming them as her own. She lies to M by claiming to write a novel about her mother’s former neighbor. Her identity is fluid. She determines what her audience needs to see in her, and she obliges by projecting the required persona. As a result, she remains an enigma both to her audience and to her readers.

The writing is elegant and spare; the tone is intimate, muted, and permeated with a profound sense of loneliness. Nunu is never boring. We watch as she gets close to an individual and then retreats if she feels she is revealing too much of herself or her life. Her vivid imagination enables her to describe scenes and characters with the eyes of a poet. Her uncanny ability to focus on seemingly inconsequential details enables her to speak volumes about a character by, for example, simply focusing on his hand gestures. Her voice is hypnotic.

This is a stunning novel in which the action—if it can even be called action—consists of a fascinating exploration of a character’s interiority and the role memory and story-telling play in creating fictionalized versions of herself.

Highly recommended.

The Gift of Rain

Tan Twan Eng

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng is set in the Malayan Island of Penang. It unfolds in the first-person voice of Philip Hutton, a man in his seventies and of mixed heritage. Michiko, an aging Japanese woman, visits him to learn about his past friendship with Hayato Endo-san, the Japanese Aikido master. At first, Philip is reluctant to dredge up painful memories of the past, but Michiko encourages and coaxes him.

The narrative then takes the form of an extended flashback, beginning in the late 1930s, with Philip recalling how, at sixteen-years-old, he became Endo-san’s student. His enduring bond with his Japanese sensei lasted through the Japanese occupation of Malay until Endo-san’s death with Japan’s defeat in World War II. Peppered throughout the extended flashback are Philip’s and Michiko’s comments on the unfolding narrative with Michiko coaxing Philip to reveal more of his story.

Philip, the son of a highly prominent English business man and a Chinese mother who died when he was young, struggles with his identity. He meets Endo-san who offers to teach him Aikido. As Endo-san’s student, Philip gains confidence in himself, learns self-discipline, and becomes increasingly adept at Aikido. He hero-worships Endo-san and clings to him as he would to a life-saving device.

Philip complies with Endo-san’s request to show him around the island and provide him with maps, all the while suppressing his suspicions of Endo-san’s motives. He remains loyal to his sensei even when he discovers Endo-san has been spying for the Japanese and has used him to provide information for its invasion of Malay. After Japan’s invasion of the island, Philip agrees to work for the Japanese occupiers in exchange for commitments to protect his family. The increasing brutality of the Japanese spurs him to take on the dual role of collaborator and freedom-fighter. On the one hand, he works as a translator and liaison for the Japanese, witnessing torture, atrocities, and executions; on the other hand, he saves lives by warning resistance fighters of impending Japanese raids. He is viewed by one side as a traitor and is ostracized by his family for working with the Japanese. He is viewed with suspicion by the other side, his Japanese overlords.

Philip is an unreliable and naïve narrator who sees only what he wants to see and rejects warnings about Endo-san’s motives. His allegiance to Endo-san and his alliance with the Japanese infuriates his family, but he persists. Tan Twan Eng captures the complexity of Philip’s divided loyalties as he waffles between loyalty to his sensei, horror at Japanese actions, and a desire to protect his family.

The novel is epic in scope and immersive in nature. Using lyrical diction, Tan Twan Eng immerses the reader in the lush and verdant island of Malay with its colorful architecture, multi-ethnic foods, multi-cultural traditions, and diverse population. The atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese are described in graphic detail. And in spite of some unnecessarily detailed description of martial arts and an irritating, waffling narrator with a penchant for childish introspection, the novel accomplishes a great deal in its depiction of divided loyalties, familial love, friendship, betrayal, and the desperate acts of survival of a population under occupation.

Augustus

John Williams

John Williams did it, again. His last novel, Augustus, is another brilliant novel that attests to his remarkable, wide-ranging talent as an author. The novel earned him the 1973 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

The novel is a compelling re-telling of the life of Octavius Caesar Augustus, Rome’s first emperor. When his uncle, Julius Caesar, is murdered, eighteen-year-old Octavius finds himself the ruler of the Roman Republic. The next sixty years of his life consists of consolidating his rule, fighting enemies, establishing and stabilizing the Roman empire.

The novel unfolds through a series of letters, journal entries, excerpts from memoirs, dispatches, and senate dictates. These are presented in non-chronological order and delivered in the first-person voices of a multitude of historical and fictional figures vividly brought to life through their own words. They provide nuanced perspectives on the same event by describing it through different sets of lenses. Included in the voices are Caesar’s loyal friends, those who betrayed him, his enemies, his wives, his daughter, his nephews, his nieces, his step-children, his military leaders, and the prominent poets and philosophers of his court.

Woven throughout are stories of betrayal, lust, greed, intrigue, murder, suicide, and political jockeying for power. The Octavius Caesar who emerges through the voices of others is a complex individual. On the one hand, he is a gentle loving father who values the loyalty and friendship of others. On the other hand, he is a ruthless politician desperately trying to hold the empire together at whatever cost while fighting civil wars and fending off political challenges.

It is not until the final section of the book, with Octavius Caesar Augustus now in his seventies and close to death, that we hear his voice for the first time. In a poignant letter to his old friend Nicolaus, Caesar recalls his life, assesses his successes and failures, remembers his friends and enemies, evaluates his legacy, and muses on the qualities that give life meaning. In this, the most compelling section of the book, an aging Octavius Caesar speaks with wisdom, insight, and pathos. The man, addressed as a god during his lifetime, emerges as a conflicted, flawed, ambitious, disciplined, and devastating real human being. In his last days, he confronts himself. He lists his accomplishments and acknowledges their temporary nature. The only force that can endure the onslaught of time, he argues, is love. And his love for his daughter and his love for Rome was never in short supply. It guided his every move.

Although he conducted extensive research on his subject, John Williams acknowledges this is primarily a work of fiction with invented characters and invented records. But the historical inaccuracies don’t matter. What does matter is Williams has given us a work of historical fiction, epic in scope, with a nuanced, humanized, and compelling portrait of the first Roman emperor. And he has done it in a prose style recognizably his—subtle, understated, unsentimental, attentive to detail, quiet, effortless, immersive. And magical.

Very highly recommended.