The Plague

Albert Camus; trans. Stuart Gilbert

Published in 1947, The Plague by Albert Camus, translated by Stuart Gilbert, is a fictionalized account of a virulent epidemic of the bubonic plague consuming the port city of Oran in Algeria.

The narrator, Dr. Bernard Rieux, does not reveal his identity as narrator until the end of the novel. His experience as a physician brings him in close proximity with the living, the dying, and the dead in Oran. An acute observer of events, he charts the initial reluctance of town officials to acknowledge the plague’s presence. They reject his plea to take appropriate measures to mitigate its spread. It is only after deaths surge on a daily basis that the authorities can no longer afford to be in denial or to sugar-coat reality. They acknowledge the seriousness of the epidemic and issue a blockade on the town, implement sanitation procedures, and establish a mandatory curfew.

Camus charts the evolution of the population’s response to the plague—the isolation, the separation from loved ones, the restrictions on movement, and the increasing number of deaths. This is as much a novel about the deaths caused by pestilence as it is a novel about how people react in the face of a prolonged catastrophe with no seeming end in sight. The physical and mental toll is extensive. The drudgery of day-to-day living with little hope is captured. The plague’s invasion of the human body with its bursting buboes and fevers is described in graphic, grisly detail.

Women are given a tangential role in the events. Mothers and wives are briefly depicted mourning for the loss of loved ones. Dr. Rieux’s mother is present but she is always depicted indoors, does not witness the events first-hand, and is there to support her son. Camus focuses exclusively on the plague’s impact on men—government officials, physicians, and Dr. Rieux’s friends and acquaintances.

Amid the exhaustion, the ministering to alleviate suffering, the self-sacrifice of those willing to put their lives at risk to help others, the loss of dignity in death and in burial, and the absurdity of the situation, there emerges the human spirit’s desire to persevere, to show compassion and love, and to continue the struggle regardless of how remote the chance of success may be.

The novel lends itself to an allegorical reading. Dr. Rieux concludes the narrative with a cautionary note: although the plague seems to have abated for now, it can re-appear any time, any place. On the one hand, this is a physical plague that can devastate the human body. On the other, the plague can manifest in forms other than the physical. A plague epidemic can worm its way into our collective psyche, our economy, and our politics. Unlike town officials who are in denial until the plague cements its stranglehold on the community, Camus cautions us to be ever vigilant against its encroachment and to courageously bear witness to its presence. As one of his characters in the novel says, we must battle it even in the face of adversity, calamity, and powerlessness. We must do so because it is the only humanitarian option available to us.

A classic novel that speaks to all people at all times.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder

David Grann

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann is a riveting account of the 1740 British war ship, the Wager. The narrative includes background on prominent members of the crew, the Wager’s journey, the shipwreck, and its aftermath. To retell the story, David Grann combed through manuscripts, archival materials, logbooks, naval records, and journals. He even visited Wager Island to get a feel for the place where the crew was stranded.

The Wager was part of a fleet of British ships that set off for South America to plunder Spanish treasure galleons. Not long into their voyage, the ships encountered rough seas, tempests, raging storms, and giant waves. An outbreak of typhus followed by the scourge of scurvy caused so many deaths that funerals became perfunctory matters consisting of an unceremonious toss into the sea.

The Wager is separated from the rest of the fleet and shipwrecks on an island near the Patagonian coast. The island is inhospitable, offering very little in the way of food. With dwindling rations and emaciated bodies, the castaways become quarrelsome and desperate. Mayhem ensues. Grann charts the bickering that gradually deteriorates into more serious explosive arguments with the men splintering into different factions. Separate camps are set up; orders are disobeyed; there is evidence of cannibalism. Food is stolen, and when the culprits are discovered, they are flogged and abandoned on a separate island to fend for themselves.

Eventually, some of the crew mutiny. They build a makeshift sailing vessel and sail off the island, abandoning the captain and his handful of supporters. Later, the captain and the remaining survivors, including Lord Byron’s grandfather, build their own makeshift sailing vessel and head in the opposite direction. Eventually, first one group of survivors followed by the captain’s group make their way back to England.

With the arrival of the captain, accusations abound of mutiny and murder in conflicting versions of events. Looming over the survivors are threats of imprisonment, court martials, and the possibility of executions. In an attempt to sway public opinion, some of the survivors publish their version to justify their actions. The survival stories capture the imagination of the public, and soon hackers exploit public interest and flood the market with their own versions. Eventually, the survivors are summoned to a trial by court martial. The military opts to bury the events on Wager Island rather than risk exposure of the crew’s behavior as uncivilized, barbaric, and mutinous.

Grann’s skill lies in the graphic, relentless descriptions of the physical and psychological horrors the men experience on land and sea. In no uncertain terms, he depicts the horrendous impact of disease and food deprivation on the crew, and how, when stripped from the trappings of civil society, a people who view themselves as superior beings are transformed into raging barbarians. He argues Britain’s war with Spain had no ulterior motive other than pure greed and exploitation of the valuable resources of the New World and the enslavement of its indigenous population. And, finally, he reminds us the stories empires and nations choose to reveal about themselves may have little to do with truth and everything to do with shaping their activities in a favorable light to influence public opinion.

The Spectator Bird

Wallace Stegner

Winner of the 1977 National Book Award, The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner tells the story of seventy-year-old Joe Allston, a retired literary agent. Joe lives in California with Ruth, his wife of many years. This is a character-driven novel unfolding in two alternating time lines.

The narrative opens in the present with Joe and Ruth bickering back and forth. Their lives are jolted when they receive a post card from a friend, a Danish countess named Astrid whom they met twenty years ago when they stayed at her home in Denmark. The post card sends Joe retrieving a three-notebook journal he wrote while in Denmark. Ruth’s insistence that he reads her the journal opens the second time line.

Joe’s back story reveals he harbors considerable guilt. His mother arrived from Denmark at the age of sixteen. She married his father and raised her son single-handedly after his father’s death. Joe recognizes he never fully appreciated her while she was alive or understood her sacrifice. He also harbors guilt for his inability to bond with his son who drowned in a surfing accident. Was it an accident or suicide? he wonders.

As Joe reads the journal, we learn he and Ruth had embarked on the trip to Denmark in an attempt to heal after their son’s death. Joe also wanted to return to his mother’s place of birth to learn something about her past. Their encounter with Astrid and her family triggers shocking revelations and threatens to disrupt their marriage.

The novel unfolds in Joe’s first-person narrative. His interior landscape as well as his conversations with Ruth reveal Joe to be intelligent, self-analytical, extremely well read, eloquent, self-deprecating, delightful, incorrigible, cynical, and utterly charming. As a man in his seventies who is painfully self-conscious of his declining physical abilities, he is a cantankerous, elderly curmudgeon, but he is no less charming.

Stegner’s characters are authentic. Two of the most engaging aspects of the novel are Joe’s realistic voice and his true-to-life relationship with Ruth. Their mutual love and reliance are revealed in their conversations, gentle barbs, and awareness of one other’s foibles. Their ability to communicate without speaking and to read one another’s expressions and moods is an ability shared by many couples who have lived together for decades.

Stegner skillfully captures the fabric of aging and the give and take in the lives of two people who have spent a life time together. Joe and Ruth have grieved together, have faced life’s challenges, are witnessing the illnesses and deaths of close friends, and are struggling daily to cope with the indignities of their aging bodies. They connect with love and companionship. And in Joe Allston, Stegner has created an unforgettable character who revisits his life and the choices he has made. It is only after reading his journal he realizes he has not been a totally passive spectator in his own life. He exercised choice when it mattered most even though his choice may be tinged with regret for the path not taken.

An eloquent, literary tour de force with themes that are as relevant today as they were when it was first published over forty years ago.

Kusamakura

Natsume Soseki; translated by Meredith McKinney

First published in 1906 when Japan was undergoing a major shift into the twentieth century, Kusamakura by Natsume Soseki, translated from the Japanese by Meredith McKinney, is a leisurely book replete with philosophical musings on art, literature, and life and that celebrates a pre-modern, idyllic time.

The unnamed narrator, who self-identifies as an artist, embarks on a walking trip across mountains to stay at a hot spring inn in the remote mountain village of Nakoi. His purpose is to observe and record what he sees and hears with the detached, “nonemotional,” stance adopted by former artists and poets. To achieve this, he tries to erase himself from the picture and be open to absorbing the beauty and rhythm of the natural environment in all its manifest glory. The uninvolved aesthetic response remains paramount in his mind, which, of necessity, requires an avoidance of personal immersion in experience. Accordingly, he shuns emotional involvement, eschewing entanglement with Nami, the beautiful and intriguing daughter of the inn keeper.

Our unnamed artist/poet meanders through the countryside, consciously absorbing its sights and sounds. He pauses to describe the color, appearance, and texture of flora and fauna in minute detail and then verbalizes the emotions they evoke. Images in nature inspire his meditations. Occasionally, he achieves moments of complete peace, which he describes as being “sated with tranquility.” He then ponders how to translate that feeling successfully on canvas so that it is transmitted to the viewer. He expresses himself through bursts of haiku. He is as sensitive to his surroundings as he is to recording the ideas they generate. When climbing up the steps to a Zen monastery, for example, he pauses at each step to register his thoughts and feelings.

In one sense, very little happens in this book. In another sense, it is an intensely moving book replete with meditations on art, poetry, the beauty to be found in nature, and the contrast between the simplicity and traditions of village life with the acquisitiveness and noise of the modern city. The writing is graceful; the language poetic. The translation captures both qualities which, presumably, are present in the original Japanese.

An elegant book to be read slowly and savored.

A Boy of Good Breeding

Miriam Toews

A Boy of Good Breeding by Miriam Toews is a delightfully quirky novel with a motley crew of delightfully quirky characters.

The setting is a small Canadian town. But this is not just any small town. With its fifteen hundred inhabitants, Algren has the notable distinction of being the smallest town in Canada. And Mayor Hosea Funk is anxious to keep it that way. Any less inhabitants would classify it as a village; any more and it would be considered a large town. The mayor has received a letter from Canada’s prime minister notifying him that his town is being considered for an official congratulatory visit from the prime minister on July 1 on condition, of course, that the number of inhabitants remains the same. Hosea Funk anxiously tabulates the births, deaths, and inhabitants leaving or entering town. He desperately wants to meet the prime minister because his mother, Euphemia Funk, announced on her death bed that the prime minister is his father.

The well-meaning, anxiety-ridden Hosea Funk is just one of the quirky characters in this charming little town. There is Knute, a twenty-four-year-old single mother who moves back to town to help take care of her aging father. She has in tow her three-year-old daughter, Summer Feelin’. Summer Feelin’ has the habit of furiously flapping her limbs like a bird when she is excited. Max, Knute’s estranged boyfriend, shows up, determined to make amends and to know his daughter. His mother, Combine Jo, is an alcoholic who drives her combine up and down Main Street, causing a ruckus. There are deaths and births, exits and entrances, all of which are interrupted by the appearance of Bill Quinn, a stray dog who straddles around town as if he owns the place.

This is a novel in which very little happens. What makes the narrative so engaging is Miriam Toews’ ability to take a novel about nothing and turn it into something charming. Her characters are quirky, authentic, and delightful. Somehow, she has us worrying with Hosea about the entrance and exit of each inhabitant. We feel for Knute and Max and want them to get back together to make a family. We sympathize with Gord when his wife, Veronica, takes her newly born triplets and leaves him. And we sympathize with Veronica when she walks out on her husband for giving her little support in raising their existing brood of children. These are believable people, struggling to deal with relationships and struggling to belong.

Miriam Toews paints her characters with all their foibles and idiosyncrasies in gentle, compassionate brush strokes and laugh out loud humor. This is a beautifully written novel with the tender heart that has become the hallmark of Miriam Toews’ books.

Sacred Nature: Restoring our Ancient Bond with the Natural World

Karen Armstrong

In Sacred Nature: Restoring our Ancient Bond with the Natural World, Karen Armstrong aims to rekindle the spiritual connection with nature experienced by our ancient ancestors. In eleven short chapters, she explores the ideas and practices of religious and philosophical texts as guides to facilitate a renewal of our relationship with nature and reverse the damage we have done to our planet.

Armstrong locates our severed relationship with and destructive attitude toward nature to modern European Christianity. She cites European philosophers whose words stripped nature of her sacred, numinous qualities, reducing it a mechanical apparatus that can be dissected, analyzed, and controlled. She argues if we want to save our planet, we need to recapture our original connection with nature and recognize it as an equal and essential partner imbued with spirituality and mystery.

Through copious citations from various religious and philosophical traditions, and with a heavy reliance on Eastern texts, Armstrong harvests concepts that can be applied to our daily lives. Among these are the Golden Rule, cultivating stillness in the presence of nature, Kenosis (an emptying of the self/abandonment of ego), Ahimsa (harmlessness/avoiding injury to all sentient beings), and Gratitude (appreciating/nurturing the beauty, diversity, and balance in nature). Examples taken from the poetry of the British Romantics illustrate the profound impact receptivity to nature can have on our psyche. Each of her chapters concludes with “A Way Forward” to suggest application of these principles in our lives. Notes and an extensive bibliography for further reading are included.

Armstrong is arguing for a complete revisioning of our relationship with one another and with our natural environment. She urges us to embrace spiritual truths that transcend the limits of rationality. She has distilled some perennial insights from major religious and spiritual traditions to make an urgent plea for us to do more to save ourselves and our fragile planet by actively cultivating receptivity to the sacred thread that permeates and connects all forms of life.

Although some may dismiss Armstrong’s interpretations of various religious traditions as skewed and selective, her urgent plea for greater spiritual and personal connection with the natural world should not go unheeded.

The Nightingale

Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah opens in 1995 in Oregon when an elderly woman receives an invitation to attend a celebration in France honoring those who were instrumental in helping others escape from France during the German occupation in WWII. Her connection with the French resistance is suggested but never fully revealed until the end of the novel.

The narrative then shifts to France from the years 1939 to 1945. Two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle, are caught up in the tragedy of war. Vianne’s peaceful existence in her small farm in the Loire Valley is interrupted when her husband is called up to fight the advancing German army. She struggles to survive with her young child, Sophie. Isabelle, an eighteen-year-old firebrand who has been expelled from various finishing schools, joins the French resistance to German occupation. Both girls are estranged from their father.

The threads alternate between Vianne and her experience with the German occupation of her village and Isabelle’s resistance activities. Vianne witnesses the Nazis tightening their stranglehold on the village. She witnesses public executions and deportation of Jews. She sees mothers separated from their children. She experiences harsh winters in threadbare clothes and waits in long queues to obtain what little food there is. Survival is a daily challenge. To make matters worse, she is required to take first one German officer and then a SS officer to billet in her home.

Meanwhile, Isabelle has become increasingly active in the French resistance. Realizing she is putting her sister and niece in grave danger because of her political activities, she moves back to Paris, assumes the code name, ‘Nightingale’, and embarks on the dangerous role of escorting downed allied pilots across the Pyrenees to Spain. Her success attracts the attention of the Nazis who are willing to go to extreme measures to capture the Nightingale.

Throw into the mix various love interests. Vianne loves her husband but then finds herself seriously attracted to Herr Captain Beck, the Wehrmacht officer billeted in her home. And Isabelle, not surprisingly, falls in love with a French revolutionary.

Although the story line is engaging, the novel is more closely affiliated to fantasy than to serious historical fiction. The scenes of sexual tension between men and women are stretched to generate dramatic effect. Cliches abound. The narrative is littered with unrealistic dialogue; one-dimensional, stereotypical characters; exaggerations; gushing sentimentality; improbable coincidences; and highly unlikely chance encounters. At one point, Isabelle encounters a downed RAF pilot in full uniform hiding in a street in Paris. Somehow, he has managed to evade capture in a city that is swarming with Nazis and the SS and, yet, he doesn’t have the wherewithal to hide from a young woman. And when Vianne’s daughter is seriously ill and there’s no medicine to be had anywhere, the Wehrmacht officer billeting in her home hands her some antibiotics which he has, somehow, managed to locate and have in his pocket. And on it goes.

The story line may be engaging, but realistic historical fiction it is not.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Hiro Arikawa; trans. by Philip Gabriel

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, is the story of the enduring friendship between Saturo and his cat, Nano. Nano begins life as a stray cat, but when he is hit by a car, Saturo rescues him, cares for him, and adopts him.

The narrative alternates between third-person point of view, which reveals Saturo’s background and friendships; and first-person point of view, which is in Nano’s voice. Nano reveals himself to be sardonic, opinionated, proud, observant, sarcastic, manipulative, loving, and fiercely loyal. Just as Saturo adopts Nano and is protective over him, Nano reciprocates by being protective and loyal toward Saturo. They communicate with each other and understand one another. But Nano has the advantage of being able to communicate with other animals.

After living together happily for five years, Saturo announces they are going on a car trip across Japan to find a new home for Nano. Saturo had made arrangements with his childhood friends, school friends, and university friends, each of whom has agreed to care for Nano. But an obstacle presents itself with each visit to a friend. This convinces Saturo he cannot leave Nano behind. What he doesn’t know is that Nano has orchestrated the obstacles so he can remain with Saturo. Eventually, the two end up living with Saturo’s aunt who has promised to take care of them during Saturo’s medical treatment. Although hints are dropped throughout about Saturo’s illness, the nature of his illness or its gravity is not revealed until late. The novel’s trajectory and ending are highly predictable.

This is a story about compassion, loyalty, friendship, loss, and grief. It is about the role four-legged friends can play in assuaging loneliness. It is about reciprocity and companionship. It uses simplistic language, which may or may not be due to the translation, and it a quick and easy read. Although the novel has heart and may be a tear-jerker for some, others may feel it lacks substance and depth.

The Promise

Damon Galgut

Winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, The Promise by Damon Galgut is a family saga of the Afrikaner Swart family in South Africa. Beginning in 1986 and spanning four decades, it is set against the backdrop of a changing South Africa. The novel opens with the death of the matriarch, Rachel Swart. Rachel is survived by her husband, Manie, and their three children, Anton, Astrid, and Amor. Before her death, Rachel extracts a promise from Manie that he will bequeath a small homestead on their property to Salome, their black housekeeper. The promise is witnessed by Amor, a young child at the time.

Upon her mother’s death, Amor reminds her father of his promise. He denies making it. As the decades unfold, Amor is haunted by the unfulfilled promise. She reminds her siblings of the promise after their father’s death; she reminds Anton of the promise after Astrid’s death. Anton assures her he will honor the promise, but he never does. It is only after his death when Amor inherits the property is she able to honor her mother’s wishes and legally transfer the homestead to Salome. By this time, Salome is an elderly woman and the property is virtually worthless.

The novel is in four parts, beginning with the death of Rachel followed by the deaths of Manie, Astrid, and Anton in that order. Each of the four sections focuses on one family member, and each section includes a death and a funeral. The characters are skillfully portrayed, unveiling more of themselves as the years unwind. In voices that are unique and authentic, their interiority reveals them to be tortured, fractured souls.

From the outset, the Swarts are depicted as dysfunctional and non-communicative. They don’t know how to express or feel love for one another. Manie is alienated from his wife and children; Anton is a military deserter, a failed novelist, and an alcoholic; Astrid is a self-absorbed, status-conscious housewife; and Amor is the quiet, aloof, and unobtrusive loner. Their downward spiral and unravelling begin with Rachel’s death and the unfulfilled promise to Salome. As such, the family can be viewed as a microcosm of South African society with its fractured white minority subjugating and betraying a non-white majority with false hopes and broken promises.

The story is compelling, but the real strength of the novel lies in the agility of the narrative voice. The narrator shifts seamlessly, often in mid-sentence and mid-paragraph, between characters, points of view, dialogue, and interiority. Occasional direct addresses to the reader pepper the narrative with unflinching honesty and commentary. Their effect is to generate a feeling of immediacy—of actually being there and witnessing the events. These intrusions are sometimes dark; sometimes hilarious; sometimes sarcastic; sometimes irreverent; sometimes accusatory; sometimes ironic; sometimes playful; sometimes self-conscious; sometimes self-deprecating; but always, always engaging.

A cleverly-executed and compelling novel, well-deserving of its award.

Dandelion Wine

Ray Bradbury

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury opens with twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding eagerly embracing the first day of his summer holidays. It is the summer of 1928 in a small town in Illinois. Doug experiences the world around him with a newly-found understanding of the ephemeral nature of time and of his own mortality.

Soliciting the help of Tom, his younger brother, Doug aims to freeze time by recording every unusual occurrence in the town. These occurrences include purchasing a new pair of sneakers; rescuing a mannikin from destruction; listening to an elderly man as he brings history to life; accompanying a neighbor as she launches a takeover bid for the presidency of the Honeysuckle Ladies Lodge. The events run the gamut from the mundane to the profound, from the delightful to the frightening. At times, Douglas is a participant; at others, he is a passer-by, observing and recording. Through it all are the bottles of dandelion wine, processed daily during the warm summer days to be savored and enjoyed during the cold, winter months. Like Douglas’ written record of events, each bottle of dandelion wine conjures up a different memory of a significant event that occurred on a specific day in the summer.

The tone throughout is nostalgic. Bradbury captures a time and place when life seemed simpler; when neighbors helped each other out; when the traveling junkman saves a seriously ill child by encouraging him to breathe bottles of air captured in far-off places; when children are invited on the last trolley ride in town or to enjoy an unusual ice cream flavor at the local drugstore. The events are episodic in nature in a series of interconnected, poignant short vignettes, some of which don’t involve children, but all of which contribute to the fabric of life in a small town in the summer of 1928.

Bradbury captures the magic in the mundane. He describes the children’s flights of imagination in words of bubbly profusion. The unusual juxtaposition of descriptive language and the manner in which some words tumble after each other is very much reminiscent of the exuberant poetry of Dylan Thomas. The episodic quality brings to mind the fabric and texture of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone books.

There is an enduring quality about this novel that addresses a universal need to hark back to a time and place when life seemed simpler, when children were loved and protected, when they could thrive in nature and community, and when they could enjoy the freedom and exuberance of the carefree summer months.

A joy to read.

The Old Woman with the Knife

Gu Byeong-Mo; trans. Chi-Young Kim

The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-Mo, translated from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim, is an engaging crime fiction thriller with a twist. An international bestseller, the novel is a fast-paced page-turner.

The narrative opens with a middle-aged, non-descript woman who gets on a crowded Seoul subway train. She blends in with her surroundings and watches quietly when a belligerent male passenger berates a young pregnant woman for occupying a seat on the train while he remains standing. The middle-age woman follows him when he gets off the train and, without so much as batting an eyelid, she fatally stabs him with her knife before proceeding calmly to the restroom.

This is our introduction to a six-five-year-old woman, code-named Hornclaw. Hornclaw works for a company specializing in disease control. But this is no ordinary disease control. And Hornclaw is no ordinary employee. This company employs assassins who commit murder for paying clients. Hornclaw has been in the line of work of eliminating “vermin” for over forty years. She asks no questions and follows orders. She is a well-respected professional in her field and continues to work in spite of her declining physical abilities. For obvious reasons, she is a recluse, living alone with an aging rescue dog she named Deadweight as her only companion. Things are proceeding relatively well for her until she becomes a target. And that’s when the cat and mouse games begin leading to a bloody crescendo at the end of the novel. The final fight scene is bloody, violent, and visceral.

The narrative unfolds in unembellished, straight-forward diction. Hornclaw’s background and how she ended up in this line of work is revealed intermittently throughout the narrative. Her interiority is penetrating. Her comments on aging and the invisibility of the elderly in society—especially women—are incisive. She is empathic at times, ruthless at others. That Byeong-Mo generates sympathy for an aging, cold-blooded murderer is a testament to her skill as a writer and a credit to the translation of Chi-Young Kim.

The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and its People

Barry Kemp

The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and its People by Barry Kemp is a detailed and comprehensive account of Professor Kemp’s findings during the 35 years he spent excavating the ancient city of Akhetaten, known as Tell el-Amarna, in Egypt.

Professor Kemp explores every aspect of this ancient site. He begins with Akhenaten’s vision to establish a city in the middle of the desert dedicated to the worship of Aten, the sun-god. From there he goes on to explore the city’s available resources; its physical lay out; the pharaoh’s palaces/apartments; the city’s inhabitants, including their quality of life, clothing, food, and spiritual lives. He concludes with an overall view of the city’s very nature.

This is not a study of the lives Akhenaten and Nefertiti. It is very much an analysis of the site’s excavations and what they reveal about its structure, architecture, and inhabitants. Professor Kemp describes in painstaking detail the size of buildings and records the measurements of even the smallest objects. He analyzes each item and describes its composition and the location of its discovery. The extensive technical details can get overwhelming in their intricacy, but the work as a whole is fascinating. Although we are introduced to some prominent characters who lived and worked in Amarna, the focus is squarely on the archaeological findings. Included in this comprehensive study are drawings, extraordinarily beautiful color plates, and photographs of reconstructions and models of the city. There is also an extensive bibliography, notes, index, and list of illustrations.

In his analysis of the site’s excavations, Professor Kemp contests modern notions of cities, work places, homes, and living space. He provides an intense and penetrative view of the life at Amarna, a place he describes as an “urban village.” The study does not provide insight into the person of Akhenaten or the aftermath of his brief reign. But Professor Kemp does dispel some of the mythology surrounding Akhenaten, specifically that Akhenaten required strict and exclusive worship of Aten. Evidence has been unearthed that demonstrates former household gods were still worshipped in Amarna, suggesting there was more flexibility in spiritual leanings than had previously been assumed.

This definitive study of Amarna is highly recommended. It is an invaluable resource for information on a fascinating interlude in the civilization of ancient Egypt.

What You are Looking for is In the Library

Michiko Aoyama; trans. Alison Watts

What You Are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, translated from the Japanese by Alison Watts, is a feel-good story of five interlocking vignettes. Each vignette is in the first-person voice of a character facing a challenge in his/her life.

The novel opens with Tomoka, a twenty-one-year-old womenswear sales assistant who feels she has a dead-end life and a dead-end job. This is followed with the voice of Ryo, a thirty-five-year-old accounts manager who dreams of owning his own antique shop. Then there is Natsumi, a forty-year-old former magazine manager and mother of a toddler. Natsumi has ambitions of becoming a literary editor. Thirty-year-old Hiroya, currently unemployed and living with his mother, has a talent for drawing but has been unable to find fulfilling work in his field. Finally, there is Masao, a 65-year-old recently retired man who worked with the same company for forty-two years. Masao is at a loss with what to do with the rest of his life.

The common thread that ties the characters is their interaction with Sayuri Komachi, the reference librarian in the library at the Hatori Community House. Each character asks Ms. Komachi’s assistance in locating books specific to his/her needs. Ms. Komachi prints out a list of suitable books to address the requests. In addition, she includes a different book for each patron that seems totally unrelated to the specific topic. She also gives each patron a hand-made bonus gift. Although she is a woman of few words, what she says coupled with the reading materials she recommends triggers in each patron a path of self-discovery. The patrons read the books, contemplate her words, and consider the subtleties underlying the bonus gift. In the doing so, they tap into their inner strength and locate the means and energy to achieve what had so far remained dormant.

This international best seller is ultimately about the power of books to heal broken spirits. It also illustrates the pivotal role human connection plays in our need for self-actualization. Ms. Komachi’s ability to discern a person’s stated and unstated needs enables her to intuit which book will facilitate each unique journey of self-discovery.

This is a quick and easy read with characters who are relatable and sympathetic. Their first-person voices allow us access to their internal struggles and challenges. Each finds a path forward through human connection, friendship, community support, and through the all-important, transformative power of books. That the characters are at varying stages in their lives serves as a potent reminder that personal growth at every stage in life is possible if we remain open to opportunities and seize them when they make themselves available.

A charming little book that is light, untaxing, and easily digestible.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Lisa See

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See opens in 1988 with young Li-Yan from the Akha tribe of China’s Yunnan province. Her family are tea growers, and Li-Yan learns the trade from her parents. Steeped in the beliefs, superstitions, rituals, and taboos of her community, Li-Yan aspires to transcend her socially constructed gender restrictions. She receives an education and is set to take the exam to continue her education when she becomes pregnant. With the help of her mother, a respected midwife and healer in the community, she conceals her pregnancy. She gives birth to a baby girl and abandons her outside an adoption clinic. Regretting her decision, she spends the next two decades trying to locate her daughter. She later learns she has been adopted by an American couple and taken to America.

Li-Yan becomes a tea entrepreneur, successfully establishing a business selling tea grown in her community. She marries a prosperous business man, and they move to his home in California. Li-Yan travels to China during tea-harvesting season to oversee her business.

Appearing intermittently in Li-Yan’s narrative is the narrative of Haley, her daughter, growing up in California with her adoptive parents. As a Chinese American, Haley struggles with her identity. Samples of her letters and school assignments are included in her narrative. Haley graduates from high school, attends university, and drafts a research proposal on the impact of climate change on the medicinal attributes of tea. She goes to the region in China famous for its tea to conduct her research. This just happens to be the same region where her mother is from.

There is much to appreciate in the novel, especially its depiction of the strong mother/daughter bond. See skillfully immerses the reader in the culture and lives of the Akha people through her use of sensory detail. Her extensive research on Akha culture and on the growing, harvesting, and processing of tea and its different properties is evident. But sometimes the copious information about tea—its attributes, its varieties, its impact on the taste buds, its different methods of production, etc.—becomes overwhelming and weigh the narrative down. Li-Yan’s meteoric rise to wealth and success as a tea purveyor seems somewhat improbable as do the many coincidences. And to top it off, in spite of See’s efforts to generate suspense, the conclusion is highly predictable.

Prophet Song

Paul Lynch

The winner of the 2023 Booker Prize, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song makes for a harrowing reading experience. The events take place in Ireland, but the descent into madness it portrays reflects what is currently happening in some parts of the world.

The events unfold as the elected rightwing National Alliance Party of the Republic of Ireland creeps toward strangling its population. The repression goes unnoticed at first. But then trade union lobbyists disappear. Civil liberties erode. Freedom of movement, freedom of speech are severely restricted. Legal recourse for locating missing loved ones is non-existent. Dissenters are captured, tortured, and killed. Civil war breaks out with innocent people caught in the crossfire. Snipers take pot shots at civilians. Bombs drop on homes with sleeping residents. Road blocks litter the town. Food shortages, curfews, sporadic electrical power cuts, house searches, internet blackouts, and bureaucratic labyrinths become routine. The institutions of a civilized world collapse.

This nightmare scenario is experienced through the eyes of a young mother of four, Eilish Stack. Larry, her husband and trade union leader, is taken by the security forces and disappears. Eilish struggles to maintain some semblance of normalcy for her children and for her elderly father who has dementia. All the while, she keeps hoping Larry will walk through the door and life will get back to normal. He never does, and life only gets worse. Her eldest son joins the rebellion and disappears. Her younger son refuses to attend school. Her daughter withdraws into herself and is not eating. And her infant son demands to be fed and changed.

Eilish is resourceful, brave, and fiercely determined to protect her children, even dodging sniper bullets to visit her injured son in hospital. She clings desperately to hope. Because she cannot come to terms with abandoning her missing loved ones, she initially refuses to be smuggled out of the country. By the time she agrees to leave, she has lost half her family.

Through graphic content and style, Lynch immerses the reader in a world gone mad. His diction is lyrical and dark. The absence of paragraph breaks and lack of quotation marks to indicate direct speech capture Eilish’s lived experience. The rapid succession of events is reflected in rapidly moving sentences. Reality is blurred; dialogue is filtered; nothing seems real. The atmosphere is breathless, claustrophobic, and terrifying. Eilish has no breathing space, no time to get a solid footing, barely recoiling from one catastrophe before being thrust into another. She is powerless to arrest the daily shrinkage of her world. Her inability to get closure on the whereabouts of her loved ones realistically reflects the heart-wrenching reality of those who survive. She is at the mercy of others, especially when she tries to escape with her surviving children. Her journey, described in harrowing detail, echoes the journey thousands of refugees take to escape persecution from their totalitarian governments in their war-torn lands.

This is not an easy read. But it is an essential one. Paul Lynch brilliantly captures the lives of those experiencing the violence and terror of totalitarian regimes. His song of grief at human suffering is a forceful and eloquent plea for the empathy and compassion due to those currently living the nightmare and those trying to escape it.

Lady Tan's Circle of Women

Lisa See

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See vividly captures upper class life in 15th century imperial China. The novel is based on the life of a historical figure, Tan Yunxian, a female physician who lived during the Ming Dynasty and whose book on Chinese medicine has survived the centuries.

Born into an elite family in 1461, Tan Yunxian is raised by her grandparents after the death of her mother. Both grandparents are doctors. Since male doctors were forbidden to see, touch, or speak directly to female patients, the need for female physicians emerged. Tan’s grandmother specialized in treating women’s illnesses and teaches Tan the foundations of Chinese medicine. Tan continues to practice what she has been taught even after her marriage into a prosperous family. She records female ailments and treatments in a notebook, per her grandmother’s instructions. She publishes these in a book, which later forms the foundational text in the treatment of women’s ailments. She also learns about midwifery through her life-long friendship with Meiling, a young midwife. The novel charts Tan’s life through to her early fifties when she becomes the female head of her husband’s household, responsible for all aspects of managing the house and the people within it.

In the process of depicting the challenges, successes, and failures of Tan’s life, Lucy See immerses the reader in the life of the upper classes in 15thC China. Her extensive research of the period is apparent. She demonstrates how the hierarchical social structures and gendered attitudes codify behavior and dictate dress and mannerisms. The rigid codes of conduct and rituals imposed on upper class girls and women are described in vivid detail. Tan is required to greet her grandparents a certain way, serve tea to her mother-in-law every morning, and bow her head in obeisance whenever she is spoken to by her husband or by those above her in the social and familial hierarchy. Women, regardless of class, are treated as the property of men and are expected to be seen but not heard. Their sole function is to birth sons to continue the legacy of their husbands’ families.

Woven throughout the novel are formulas for traditional Chinese medicines as well as maxims about life. In intricate detail, See describes jeweled, textured, and decorative clothing; elaborate hairstyles and hair pins; precise application of makeup; and socially constructed mannerisms and norms for females. Her setting is authentic; her portrayal of social mores convincing. She also describes in graphic detail the very painful process of Chinese foot binding, the purpose of which is to restrict female mobility, differentiate upper class women and concubines from lower class women with “big feet,” and increase their sexual attractiveness to future husbands. In spite of all the rigid restrictions imposed on women, Tan Yunxian manages to create a safe, gendered space for herself and for other women.

In addition to depicting life in 15th century China, the novel conveys the important role a circle of women plays in the sharing of experiences, in validating women’s voices, and in supporting one another to address uniquely female challenges and ailments. This was true in Tan Yunxian’s 15th Century China. It is no less true today.  

An accomplished historical novel that illuminates a fascinating period in Chinese history.

Barbara Isn't Dying Yet

Alina Bronsky; trans. Tim Mohr

Barbara Isn’t Dying Yet by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr, charts the gradual awakening of Walter Schmidt, a curmudgeon grandfather and retiree in his seventies.

Walter wakes up one morning and is surprised that the familiar smell of coffee hasn’t wafted all the way up to his bedroom. The initial irritation that his wife Barbara is late in making his coffee becomes more pronounced when he finds her lying on the bathroom floor. He helps her get back into bed, fully anticipating she will be up and about in no time to make him his coffee. When Barbara is unable to get out of bed, Walter reluctantly embarks on a journey where he has to learn to fend for himself.

The opening chapters of the novel are funny. Walter struggles to navigate his way around what is very much Barbara’s kitchen. He searches cabinets for coffee, wrestles with the coffee machine, and then abandons the enterprise to purchase coffee and pastries from a local bakery. He convinces himself Barbara will be fine after she has had something to eat. But, alas, for poor Walter, Barbara’s condition deteriorates. When their son insists on taking her to the doctor and then to the hospital to run tests, Walter doesn’t want to know the diagnosis. Barbara’s refusal to go the hospital reinforces his conviction that she’s fine and simply needs nourishment.

Walter’s pride initially prevents him for listening to his children’s advice to hire a cleaning lady and cook. He assumes the unfamiliar role of caregiver and provider. He goes grocery shopping and becomes adept at cooking by watching a chef on the internet. He takes the dog for walks and is constantly bombarded by apparent strangers who ask him about Barbara’s health. He discovers Barbara has friends on the internet, is popular in the neighborhood, and does volunteer work at a local center.

It gradually dawns on poor Walter he has been so selfishly focused on himself during their 50 years of marriage that he was thoroughly oblivious to all aspects of Barbara’s life, including how she had organized everything—from her pristine kitchen to her daily routine—to cater to his every need. He takes faltering steps in recognizing his total dependence on her and on his selfishness and emotional distance from his wife and children. He appreciates all that Barbara has done for him and tries to demonstrate this appreciation by cooking elaborate meals for her. But Barbara has lost her appetite and won’t eat. When Barbara’s friends parade in the house to visit her with food and flowers, when their children break down in tears, when she weakens physically on a daily basis, it becomes apparent to all—all except Walter—that Barbara is dying.

In the skilled hands of Alina Bronsky, what begins as humorous, almost slapstick comedy morphs into a moving, bittersweet tale of an elderly man’s awakening. Kicking and screaming all the way, Walter transforms himself from a self-absorbed, rude, grumpy old man to a compassionate human being who finally appreciates his wife, who recognizes the importance of human connection, and who goes out of his way to help strangers. Using diction that draws you in, Bronsky succeeds in making us like and sympathize with this elderly curmudgeon. She concludes the novel with a poignant image that tugs at the heartstrings.

The Gardens of Consolation

Parisa Reza; trans. Adriana Hunter

The Gardens of Consolation by Parisa Reza, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter, opens in 1918 in Iran. The narrative is in five sections. The first two sections focus on Talla and Sardar, their marriage and their departure from their small Iranian village to a suburb of Tehran. The third section transitions from Talla and Sardar to their son, Bahram. And the final two sections focus almost exclusively on Bahram, his shenanigans with women and his political activities.

The novel is set against the background of internal political upheaval in Iran while world powers jockey for power and for control of Iran’s rich natural resources. The politics becomes increasingly prominent as the novel progresses until it virtually dominates the latter sections as Bahram becomes embroiled with the various political factions demanding reforms as well as the expulsion of colonial powers.

The Talla and Sardar sections of the novel are engaging. Young and illiterate, they enter into their marriage having a modicum of knowledge of one another. But they develop a tender love toward one another, are fiercely loyal and protective of one another, endure challenges, work hard, share a profound appreciation for the beauty in their natural surroundings, demonstrate an unconditional love toward their son, and embrace unwavering faith in God. The images in these sections, especially of the young married couple as they cross the desert to their new home, are powerful. Talla and Sardar are simple, modest, genuine, honest peasants who show little understanding for or concern with the political upheavals swirling around them. Their life together is described in simplistic, almost child-like diction.

The latter sections focus on Bahram, his schooling and his young adulthood. A gifted, talented student, Bahram develops a reputation as a lady’s man. He spends much of his time using his good looks and charm to ensnare young women, calculating moves and words with precision to bring about the desired outcome. He becomes politically active, debating the pros and cons of various political factions. These explorations read almost like a history lesson. They deliver a crash course in Iranian politics and the violent coups of the early twentieth-century and conclude with the CIA-orchestrated coup of 1953.

Reza’s narrative transitions from an exploration of a humble peasant family with its rituals, traditions, and beliefs to a society experiencing vast changes domestically and internationally. It is both a deeply personal and touching love story and a sweeping panorama of the complex socio-political and economic history of early to mid-twentieth-century Iran.  

The Royal Physician's Visit

Per Olov Enquist; trans. Tiina Nunnally

The Royal Physician’s Visit by Per Olov Enquist, translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally, is a compelling historical novel set in the royal court of Denmark beginning in the 1760s.

The drama begins when the inept and seemingly mad monarch King Christian VII is assigned Johann Friedrick Struensee as his personal physician. Struensee is an intellectual German doctor who has embraced Enlightenment idealism. The two form a bond with Christian becoming increasingly reliant on Struensee to direct him. Eventually, Christian makes Struensee the de facto ruler of Denmark, granting him the power to issue decrees and reform institutions based on the principles of Enlightenment. Struensee abolishes torture, frees the press, reduces the size of the army, and holds even the rich and powerful accountable under the new laws.

Not surprisingly, Struensee makes powerful enemies within the establishment, including the Dowager Queen and the Machiavellian religious zealot, Count Guldberg. It doesn’t help his position that he has an affair with Christian’s wife, Queen Caroline Mathilde, and fathers a child with her. The nature of his liberal reforms, the speed with which he implements them, and his love affair with Queen Caroline eventually give his enemies enough ammunition to have him executed. All his liberal reforms and efforts are reversed after his death.  

The novel is based on extensive historical research. Enquist cites letters and reports from various government officials, including foreign ministers and ambassadors to the Danish court. Christian is portrayed as an unruly sick child, prone to temper tantrums and incoherent ramblings. His childhood upbringing and education are designed to break his spirit and turn him into an obedient, obsequious puppet with the goal of creating a power vacuum to be filled by members of the court. He is subject to beatings, rote memorization of speeches, required to act a certain way, publicly humiliated, and beaten into submission. These pedagogical methods are successful in that Christian becomes pitiable, child-like, convinced he is acting in a play, and always in search of someone to direct him. What the court does not anticipate is the power vacuum so methodically created will be filled by Struensee.

The novel’s characters emerge as authentic, fully-developed, and unique individuals. They love and hate with a passion. They plot and scheme in a Danish court riddled with corruption and hypocrisy. They come alive. Christian is sympathetic, babbling, paranoid, weak, and delusional. The young Princess Catherine emerges as a strong, fearless queen. Struensee is an intellectual whose heart is in the right place but who moves too quickly to implement reforms. And Guldberg, who suffers from low self-image, justifies his cruelty by claiming he is saving Denmark from catastrophe. The novel concludes as it began with the British Ambassador to Copenhagen describing Christian’s obsequious behavior toward Guldberg while attending the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen in 1782, ten years after the execution of Struensee.  

A blend of historical events with plausible embellishments, coupled with an intriguing narrative voice that probes into motives and asks rhetorical questions to engage the reader. A successfully executed and compelling read.

Paradise

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Set just before the beginning of the first World War, Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah explores the life of Yusuf, a teenager sold as an indentured servant to pay off his father’s debt to Aziz, a rich and powerful Arab merchant.

Yusuf works in Aziz’s shop and then joins him as he treks Africa’s interior in a trade caravan. The journey exposes him to an Africa rife with tribal warfare, brutality, corruption, bribery, disease, superstition, and slavery. He encounters African Muslims, Arabs, Europeans, and Indians; tribes that are hostile and tribes that are welcoming; terrain that is taxing and terrain that is breathtakingly beautiful. After his return to his village, Yusuf encounters the German army as it forcibly assembles village males to serve as soldiers in preparation for the war. The novel concludes with Yusuf running towards the German army instead of running away from it.

This story of an African boy’s coming of age is set against the background of a pre-colonial, turbulent Africa. Snatched from his parents at a young age, Yusuf lacks a firm grounding. His exposure to the different ethnicities and systems of belief continue to baffle him and leave him without a firm foothold. His odyssey depicts him as a pawn in the hands of others. More acted upon than acting, he is tossed about from one location to the next, going where he is told to go and doing what he is told to do. He is stripped of all agency. His good looks garner unwelcome advances from both men and women, advances which he is constantly having to thwart. One such attempt at seduction is strikingly similar to Zulaikha’s attempt to seduce the prophet Yusuf in Surah 12 of the Qur’an. Tragically, because he has never been free, Yusuf opts to be included in the German army rather than experience the alternative—the terror of freedom.

A complex novel, episodic in nature, that is as much about the exploitation of a young boy as it is about the exploitation of a whole continent in the hands of its European colonizers.