Animal Dreams

Barbara Kingsolver

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver alternates between the first-person voice of Codi Noline and the third-person voice of her father, Doc Homer. Codi returns to her small home town in Arizona, ostensibly to take care of her father who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer. In reality, she has come home seeking to find herself. Hired to teach at a local high school, she prefers to live in the home of a close school friend rather than with her father. Meanwhile, her younger sister, Hallie, has gone to Nicaragua to work with farmers and their families. Hallie is determined to make a positive difference in their lives even at the cost of putting her own life at risk since Nicaragua is in the throes of violent civil unrest. We hear Hallie’s voice through Codi’s flashbacks and through the letters she sends to Codi.

Codi’s narrative describes her feelings of estrangement. Her mother died shortly after Hallie’s birth and she and her sister were raised by their father. Codi struggles to come to terms with her past. Her relationship with her father is strained; their conversations are at cross purposes. Codi revives a relationship she had with Loyd Peregrina, a high school boyfriend. Loyd shares stories about his culture, his people, and the history of the land. She is embraced by the women of the town when she joins forces with them to combat the devastating environmental pollution caused by a corporation stripping the land of its natural resources. Kingsolver successfully establishes a strong and palpable sense of community among the town’s inhabitants.

Initially, Codi comes across as a self-obsessed whiner with a tendency to interpret everything she sees and hears as reflecting on her or her childhood. Although in her early thirties, she frequently sounds like a teenager suffering from existential angst. She idolizes her sister who rejects any attempt to idolize her. She is directionless and is determined not to form permanent attachments to anyone, including her native American boyfriend. Eventually, however, she comes to recognize she is supported by a community and feels welcomed in its embrace.

The Arizona landscape, the ancestral Puebloan homes carved out of rocks, and the natural springs are vividly evoked. Dotted within the desert are bursts of color in the form of flowers, peacocks, and rocks. The detail is immersive; the changes in weather and its impact on the land is fully realized; the sheer beauty of the southwestern landscape is writ large.

Kingsolver ties the different threads to a satisfactory conclusion. The town compels the corporation to submit to its demands; Codi learns the family secrets her father had kept buried from her and her sister; and she starts a new life for herself in her home town with Loyd. The prose is clear and descriptive. The narrative is compelling. But the characters feel contrived—more character types than real. Codi is the lost soul who ran away from home only to find herself by going home; Loyd stereotypically imparts native wisdom about the land and his culture’s mythology; and Hallie is the idealist who runs off to save the peasants in a war-torn country.

Other than the quibble with characterization, this was an enjoyable and easy read.

The Fawn

Magda Szabo; translated by Kathleen Szasz

The Fawn by Magda Szabo, translated from the Hungarian by Kathleen Szasz, unfolds in the first-person voice of Eszter Encsy, an accomplished stage actress in Soviet-era Budapest. To describe Eszter’s narrative voice as unreliable, intense, blunt, spiteful, and vindictive is to apply a heavy coating of sugar on it. Her monologue consists of an angry and bitter tirade to an unnamed reader who is later revealed to be her lover.

The novel opens with Eszter describing her poverty-stricken childhood. She is an only child, always hungry, shoeless, and consumed with rage at the world. She is virtually ignored by her parents who have eyes only for each other. Her father is a lawyer who is more concerned with nurturing plants and insects than his daughter. Her mother gives piano lessons to help support the family. With hands apparently too delicate for cooking and cleaning, the mother delegates all household chores to her daughter. Eszter has to cook, clean, and shop for the family while attending school. Snubbed by their rich relations, Eszter takes on additional tasks to help make ends meet.

Eszter’s rage at the world coalesces, manifesting itself with a vengeance on the figure of her classmate, Angela. The daughter of a judge, Angela is a beautiful, kind, and gentle young girl from a wealthy family. She is compassionate, sensitive, generous, and eager to share her good fortune with her classmates, especially Eszter. She is everything Eszter is not; she has everything Eszter has been denied. Eszter’s interiority is full of venom and spite toward Angela while externally, she pretends to be her friend. She is consumed with an obsessive and palpable hatred toward her. As a young girl, Eszter steals Angela’s pet fawn and is ultimately responsible for the fawn’s death. As an adult and a successful actress, she projects a façade of being Angela’s friend while conducting an affair with Angela’s husband.

Eszter learns to cultivate an ability to conceal her opinions and emotions at a young age. She fakes an interest in others while her thoughts spew venom at them. She simultaneously avoids and seeks people who care for her. She is hell-bent on a path of self-destruction, suggesting she has internalized feelings of insignificance and thinks herself undeserving of love. Her abrupt shifts in time can be confusing, especially during the first few chapters. Eventually, the narrative begins to make sense. Her monologue takes on the form of an attempt to explain to her lover why she is the way she is by unfolding the story of her life. It constitutes an apology of sorts, but it comes too late.

This is a compelling tour de force by an extraordinarily talented author. In Eszter, Magda Szabo has created a psychologically complex character, tormented by her past, riddled with envy, consumed with rage and regret. Beneath it all, she is full of self-loathing. Through Eszter Encsy, Szabo shows how a traumatic past can haunt us and influence our life’s trajectory for good or, as in the case of Eszter, for ill.

Remembering Laughter

Wallace Stegner

Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner is a brief but powerful novella about the tragic consequences of marital infidelity.

Margaret Stuart and her husband, Alec, welcome Margaret’s sister, the exuberant Elspeth, who has come all the way from Scotland to live with them on their farm in Iowa. When Elspeth arrives at the train station, she is greeted warmly by her sister and brother-in-law. Their journey to the farm is filled with laughter as Alec feeds Elspeth one hilariously improbable animal story after another. All seems to be going well until Margaret decides to host a party to introduce Elspeth to some eligible males. But her plan backfires when Elspeth and Alec find themselves attracted to one another and start an affair only to be discovered later by Margaret. The situation is further exacerbated by Elspeth’s pregnancy.

The seed of marital infidelity poisons the relationship between the sisters and between husband and wife. Margaret and Elspeth become solemn and estranged from one another. They raise Elspeth’s son in an atmosphere devoid of joy and laughter. This continues for 18 years with neither sister willing to forgive or forget. Elspeth is plagued with guilt and cannot forgive herself; Margaret, consumed by jealousy, cannot let go of the pain of betrayal. Their unwillingness to let go of the past sucks the joy and spirit out of their lives. They are broken and their rigid, stone-faced appearance reflects just how broken they are.

Although this is Stegner’s first published novel, signs of his greatness as an author are already evident. He has an uncanny ability to convey volumes through his attention to detail. The characters are drawn with sensitivity and tenderness. This is a quiet, beautifully written novel about how foolish lapses in judgment can haunt us for the rest of our lives. It is sad. It is tragic. And as with Stegner’s subsequent novels, it is oh, so very human.

Euphoria

Lily King

Euphoria by Lily King is a fictionalized account inspired by the field work performed in New Guinea by the anthropologist Margaret Mead, her second husband, and the man who was to become her third husband.

The novel opens when Nell Stone (Margaret Mead) and her husband, Fen, have returned from disappointing field work in New Guinea and are about to set sail for Australia. They meet up with an English anthropologist, Andrew Bankson, who has been working in the same general vicinity as they have. Desperately lonely, Bankson convinces the couple to go back to New Guinea with a promise to introduce them to the Tam, a peaceful tribe that has yet to be studied. Their agreement to study the Tam sets into motion a complex relationship between the three anthropologists, one that is fraught with intellectual competitiveness, petty jealousies, sexual rivalries, as well as some measure of academic cooperation and inspiration.

Abusive, selfish, and secretive, Fen is envious of and resentful of his wife’s academic success. He diminishes her proclivity for extensive record-keeping, preferring to immerse himself in the culture as a lived experience. Bankson is more in tune with Nell’s work habits and is inspired by her. He falls in love with her and she with him. Meanwhile, Fen sets off without warning to abscond with a sacred object from a neighboring tribe—one that he thinks will shower him with riches and establish him as a renowned anthropologist. His quest leads to disastrous consequences. Deviating from Margaret Mead’s actual life, King concludes the love triangle tragically.

King portrays the three anthropologists as distinct characters with different approaches to field work. She interrogates the issue of how much of what an anthropologist observes is an accurate description of the life of a tribe; how much is influenced by the eye of the observer; how much of what the tribe shares is authentic; and how much is intended to dupe the observer. She captures the euphoric feeling that characterizes a breakthrough in understanding in a powerful, exhilarating scene in which the three anthropologists cooperate to design a grid that combines the disparate pieces of knowledge they have garnered about the different tribes into a cohesive, comprehensive whole.

Although the tribes and villages are fictional, Lily King’s extensive research on the work of Margaret Mead and other anthropologists enables her to depict village life and tribal activities authentically. Just as Nell Stone familiarizes herself with and befriends the village women and children, King immerses the reader in village life and the methodology anthropologists use to tease valuable information about the culture. The novel moves at a brisk pace, is well-written, and compelling.

Enter Ghost

Isabella Hammad

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad unfolds in the first-person voice of Sonia Nasir, a thirty-eight-year-old daughter of a Palestinian father and a Dutch mother. Sonia is an actress living in London. After the breakdown of a disastrous love affair with a married man, Sonia decides to visit her older sister, Haneen, living in Haifa. Haneen is a professor at a Tel Aviv university. Years have elapsed since Sonia’s last visit to her ancestral homeland. In the interim, she has married, divorced, and remains focused on her acting career. Sonia is not very likeable as a character. She is conceited, self-absorbed, and with an interiority that is prolonged and tedious.

A return to her family’s Palestinian homeland conjures mixed emotions in Sonia and revives snatches of long since buried memories. Her relationship with her sister is strained. Their communication falters, stutters, and stumbles, with neither one initially willing to open up. Enter Haneen’s friend, Miriam. Miriam is a charismatic theatre director currently in the throes of putting together an Arabic production of Hamlet in the West Bank. She is in need of someone to play the roles of Gertrude and Ophelia and turns to Sonia for help. Reluctantly, Sonia agrees to read for the two parts until Miriam is able to find a permanent replacement. Sonia meets the rest of the cast and finds herself increasingly drawn into the production until she finally agrees to play the roles of Gertrude and Ophelia.

The narrative alternates between the rehearsals and interactions of the actors; their competing egos and shifting allegiances; probes into the craft of acting; Sonia’s interiority as she begins the slow process of understanding the challenges of living in occupied land; her interrogation of her family’s role in the Palestinian resistance; and her increasing emotional and intellectual investment in the play’s success. Against this backdrop, Hamad shows how even something as simple as travel is fraught with tension because of Israeli military check-points, interrogations, and the fear of and humiliations inflicted by Israel soldiers. Add to that the challenges of producing a play while navigating the political landscape, juggling funding issues, dealing with infiltrators who spy on those involved in the production, intermittent road closures, and theatre closures. These occur against a back drop of demonstrations, tear gas, and civilian killings. In spite of a haunting fear the Israeli authorities can close down the production at a whim, the players show a fierce determination to persevere.

The selection of Hamlet is perceptive. The ghost haunting Hamlet becomes a metaphor for the ghosts haunting Sonia’s past. Just as Hamlet puts on a play to force Claudius to confront his guilt, the actors stage their production of Hamlet to similarly confront their oppressors. Hamlet’s description of Denmark as a prison resonates with its Palestinian audience, especially when Israeli soldiers menacingly approach the stage in full view of audience and actors. The play represents art as resistance. It assumes the role of a powerful tool courageously entering the political arena to resist oppression.

The novel’s strength lies in its ability to illustrate the fear and exhausting struggles of Palestinians living under occupation. Their determination to keep their cultural activities alive in spite of the numerous obstacles they face is highly commendable. Isabella Hammad’s ability to capture their struggle with skill and objectivity is worthy of praise.

Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss

Margaret Renkl

Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss by Margaret Renkl is a series of autobiographical vignettes about growing up in Alabama with three generations of her family. She couples these essays with her detailed observations of nature. The essays, varying in length between a few lines to a few pages, are poignant and heartfelt.

Renkl has been a keen observer of nature from childhood. Her insights into birds, animals, and insects bleed into her understanding of the interconnectedness of all life. She describes in detail the shapes, sizes, colors, migratory patterns, and parenting habits of different birds—details that can only come from years of astute observation. She provides new born creatures with shelter and camouflage from predators. And although she recognizes nature can be red in tooth and claw, she also sees the beauty and wonder in what many of us will gloss over as the most mundane sights in nature. The lens with which she views the natural world shines with compassion and tenderness.

Juxtaposed throughout her observations of nature are anecdotes about and conversations with her family. Renkl grew up in a cushion of love and comfort showered on her by her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. Secure in her place in the world, she infuses her words with the unconditional love and gratitude she feels for her family as a child and for her husband and children as an adult.

The different threads intertwine, bounce off, and enhance one another. Running throughout is a circular concept of time, of beginnings that lead to endings that lead to new beginnings; of births, deaths, and new births; of the cycle of life brought about by time and seasonal changes. Renkl also acknowledges the resilience of nature. Birds and butterflies that disappear one year may appear unexpectedly the following year. The most one can do is make the necessary preparations to nurture their re-appearance and sit back patiently and wait. If you’re lucky, they will circle back.

The essays are poignant, heartfelt, warm, tender, and inspiring. The writing is magical, the tone, intimate. The illustrations by Billy Renkl, the author’s brother, are beautiful in their simplicity and elegance. A book to be read slowly and savored.

Martyr!

Kaveh Akbar

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar chronicles the internal struggles of Cyrus Shams, a young man born in Iran who was brought to America by his father while an infant. His mother was on a commercial airliner to Dubai to visit her brother when her plane was accidentally shot down by an American missile. No one survived. Shortly after her death, Cyrus’ father, Ali, relocates to America with his infant son. Ali works in a chicken factory, doing everything he can to support his son. The two have only each other and get into a routine in their daily lives. Ali dies when Cyrus enters university. Cyrus is convinced his father had stayed alive just long enough to see him into adulthood.

Cyrus is an aspiring poet who struggles with depression, insomnia, and addiction. He has had to contend with racism and feelings of alienation all his life. He attends AA meetings and is able to remain drug-free and alcohol-free, but his demons continue to haunt. His constant thoughts of death lead him to interrogate the issue of what gives life purpose and death a meaning. He decides to compile a book about martyrs—people whose deaths made a meaningful statement. When his friend suggests he visit an artist dying of cancer who is spending her last days in a Brooklyn Museum talking to visitors, Cyrus decides she may provide some insights for his book. He visits her, and the two develop a rapport.

The novel unfolds with chapters moving back and forth in time and place. Inserted into the narrative are intermittent passages ostensibly taken from Cyrus’ Book of Martyrs. These include make believe conversations between various characters, for example, Lisa Simpson with Cyrus’ mother; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Beethoven Shams; Ali Shams and Rumi. There is also poetry in the voices of the deceased; first-person narratives of Cyrus’ parents, an uncle who suffers from PTSD, a boyfriend, and Orkideh. Haunting dream sequences are thrown in for good measure.

What seems like a hodge podge of unrelated threads and a mixture of voices is somehow woven into a cohesive, comprehensive novel in the talented hands of Kaveh Akbar. The threads are entertaining as stand-alones but they also function to enrich the novel. The writing is witty, philosophical, profound, moving, introspective, and always compelling. Even though we are provided with only brief glimpses of some of the characters, they are depicted as three-dimensional, complex individuals. Cyrus emerges as a multifaceted, haunted, bisexual male, occupying the liminal space between two cultures, struggling to find a purpose in life and a meaning in death.

A compelling, engaging, and thoroughly original debut novel from a gifted poet and author.

Cinderella Liberator

Rebecca Solnit

Cinderella Liberator by Rebecca Solnit is a delightful retelling of the Cinderella story that empowers Cinderella and gives her agency.

Cahokia Jazz

Francis Spufford

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford offers an alternative history of Cahokia as a city in the U.S. but separate from it. In Spufford’s narrative, Cahokia is owned and run by Native Americans who have their own language, their own mythology and rituals, and their own “royal” family.

Set in the 1920s, the story opens with the discovery of a gruesome murder in which the corpse has been disemboweled in some sort of ritualistic sacrifice. Detectives Drummond and Barrow are assigned the task of solving the crime. Drummond is white; Barrow is a native American with a talent for playing the piano. Initial inquiries lead the detectives to pursue it as a racially motivated crime perpetrated by the indigenous community against the white victim. But Barrow soon realizes the situation is far more complicated than he had previously thought. There is nothing simple in this racially divided city with its smoke screens and shifting allegiances. Barrow follows the labyrinthian trail that leads him to interact with Cahokia’s royalty, finds himself embroiled in political conspiracies, battles it out with the Klan, thwarts two assassination attempts, solves the murder, and discovers the extent of his partner’s corruption. In all of this mayhem, he has the time and wherewithal to pursue a love interest.

Spufford’s world building is intricate, detailed, gritty, and atmospheric. Barrow takes us on a tour of the city through its winding roads, different racial and ethnic neighborhoods, train station, smoke-infested police precinct, wide open plaza, dark alleys, and university. He dashes about from one urban jungle location to the next in a frenzy of activity. The description is immersive—perhaps too much so. The excessive detail of the city’s topography weighs down the narrative. To add to an already complicated setting, Spufford refers to the different groups by their assigned labels: Takouma – Native American; Taklousa – African ancestry; Takata – European ancestry. It is so confusing to keep track of who is what that it becomes necessary to refer to the front of the book several times to see which label has been assigned to which group to ascertain a specific character’s race and ethnicity.

The plot is dense with an excess of expository writing. The main character, Barrow is interesting as a detective noir archetype. He is an orphaned Takouma but a newcomer to Cahokia. He doesn’t speak the language and is conflicted about his allegiance to his former partner, to the police department, and to his mixed heritage identity. He finds himself increasingly drawn to Cahokia’s leading family as they wrestle for survival in a hothouse of racial and cultural tensions.

Francis Spufford is to be commended for writing an ambitious novel of a rich and complex world. But it maybe a little too ambitious with too many intricate details and pursuing too many directions to make it a compelling and comprehensive read.

Every Rising Sun

Jamila Ahmed

Every Rising Sun by Jamila Ahmed is a retelling of The Arabian Nights in the first-person voice of Shaherazade. Jamila Ahmed weaves the story-telling of Shaherazade within the historical context of twelfth-century Persia , a time when the Seljuk dynasty of Kirman is under constant attack from the Oghuz Turks.

The novel opens with Shahryar’s marriage to Fataneh. Shaherazade stumbles upon Fataneh in the embrace of her lover. She sends an anonymous note to Malik Shahryar warning him of his wife’s infidelity. Caught in the act, Fataneh is executed. But her death does not satisfy the Malik who proceeds to marry a different bride each night and then behead her. Into this madness steps Shaherazade, the vizier’s eldest daughter. She volunteers to marry Shahryar in the hope of putting an end to his madness. After the consummation of her marriage on the wedding night, Shaherazade asks permission to call for her sister, Dunya, who then asks Shaherazade to entertain them with a story. And so it begins.

Just as in the original story, Shaherazade stops each time at a critical point in her tale to leave Shahryar wanting to hear more. But unlike in the original story, Ahmed expands Shaherazade’s voice, agency, and role by giving her center stage in the political turmoil. The focus is on Shaherazade’s interiority and activities rather than on her stories. Ahmed’s Shaherazade travels with her husband when he fights alongside Saladin in the Crusades. She is given access to traditional all-male territory strategy sessions and is able to influence political decisions. She negotiates deals and truces. She falls in love with one of Shahryar’s associates and is tempted to commit adultery. And just as in the original story, she reforms Shahryar who now recognizes his egregious offense of beheading his three innocent brides. But Ahmed’s version deviates from the original in that it doesn’t include “a happily ever after” ending. Shaherazade and Shahryar divorce and she goes into exile.

The political intrigues in the court of Shahryar and the battles to regain territory from the western crusaders are interrupted by Shaherazade’s tales. The stories she weaves have strong female heroines, fearlessly eager to embrace adventure and overcome obstacles. The stories are replete with magical happenings, jinns, a talking parrot, transformations, and other-worldly habitats. Shaherazade recognizes the transformative power of her stories and spins them to effect change and influence action.

Shaherazade’s sister, Dunya, is also given greater prominence. Her role expands from that of a mere prompt for Shaherazade’s tales to that of an instrument to reconcile warring factions. And for her part, Shaherazade experiences change. She probes the morality of her decisions, develops greater sympathy and compassion for human weakness, and recognizes the choice between right and wrong is not as clearly defined as she had once thought it to be.

The setting is detailed and immersive. Ahmed transports the reader to the colorful sights, sounds, and smells of life in the courts, in the desert, and on the battle front. Her writing is fast-paced as she weaves Shaherazade’s tales seamlessly into the historical framework.

An engaging and imaginative take on a well-loved, traditional story.

The Good Wife of Bath

Karen Brooks

The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks is a retelling of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Karen Brooks re-tells it in the first-person voice of Eleanor/Alyson, the wife of Bath, giving her the opportunity to speak in her own voice and present her version of the story.

The narrative opens in 1364 when a twelve-year-old Eleanor is forcibly married to a Fulk Bigod, a man old enough to be her grandfather. Much to her surprise, Bigod turns out to be a kind, considerate husband. Their marriage ends with Fulk’s death in 1369. Enter husband #2, Turbet Gerrish. Theirs is an economic alliance. After his death, his children inherit the properties, and Eleanor is left with nothing. Enter husband #3, Mervyn Slynge, many years her senior. He respects Eleanor’s business acumen in managing a sheep farm and overseeing a spinning and weaving industry. This is a marriage of convenience to camouflage the fact Slynge is gay. The two share a mutually respectful relationship. After his death, Eleanor marries Simon de la Pole who is unfaithful and extravagant with her money. He meets a violent end to his life, after which Eleanor marries husband # 5, Jankin Binder. All too soon, Eleanor discovers Jankin is violent, abusive, and a murderer. The novel ends in the year 1401 with Eleanor/Alyson as the proprietress of a brothel.

Weaving in and out of her life, her many marriages, and her lovers is Geoffrey Chaucer. He makes his first appearance as the poet partially responsible for her marriage to Fulk Bigod. Eleanor and Chaucer form a life-long friendship that transcends all other relationships and lasts until his death. As her friend and confidante, Chaucer assists Eleanor through her many trials and tribulations. She is credited with encouraging him to write about the lives of ordinary people, which, in turn, leads to his composition of The Canterbury Tales using Eleanor as his model for the Wife of Bath.

Karen Brooks gives Eleanor/Alyson the voice of a lusty, medieval feminist. Eleanor/Alyson rails against the abysmal position of women in the Middle Ages. Viewed as property, women were used, abused, marginalized, discarded, and held responsible for male violations against their bodies. Eleanor repeatedly voices her anger at the injustice of male privilege, claiming women want control of their own lives and their own decisions. She is not averse to using her feminine wiles, including her “queynte,” to get her way with men.

The narrative moves at a rollicking pace as Eleanor bounces from one marriage to another. Her many pilgrimages in England, Italy, and Jerusalem are described in vivid detail, as is the devastation caused by the plague. The extensive historical research that went into the novel is apparent. Eleanor/Alyson’s desire to embrace and support women is commendable. But her constant refrain against patriarchal injustices and rampant misogyny becomes tedious, repetitive, and stretches plausibility. Can an illiterate 14th Century woman, steeped in the culture and socialization of her time, be that strident in her demands for gender equality?

Although the occasional lapse into modern idioms and perspectives detracted from its authenticity, and although some of the narrative threads, including the miraculous survival of Jankin Binder, seem highly improbable, on the whole, this is an engaging and entertaining read.

The Last Pomegranate Tree

Bachtyar Ali; trans. Kareem Abdulrahman

The Last Pomegranate Tree by Bachtyar Ali, translated from the Kurdish by Kareem Abdulrahman, blends magical realism, myth, fables, and narrative threads that record the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish people in northern Iraq. The narrative unfolds as an extended flashback in the first-person voice of Muzafar-i-Subhdam, a former peshmerga who fought Saddam’s oppression. He is on a ferry boat with other refugees trying to reach Europe. His narrative is peppered with the occasional direct address to his audience/the reader.

Muzafar had been imprisoned for twenty-one years in a remote facility in the middle of the desert, isolated and out of touch with the rest of the world. His one thought was of finding his son, Saryas-i-Subhdam, who was just a few days old when Muzafar was incarcerated. When Muzafar is set free, he is taken to the home of a fellow Kurdish soldier, Yaqub-i-Snawbar. Yaqub insists on keeping him captive for his own protection. But with the help of Ikram-i-Kew, Muzafar manages to escape and begin the search for his son.

Muzafar’s search follows a meandering path in which he learns there are three Saryas-i-Subhdam, one of whom may or may not be his son. He recounts the story of Muhammad the Glass-Hearted who died of love; makes the acquaintance of two sisters who vow never to marry and always wear white; learns of the death of one Saryas-i-Subhdam, the incarceration of another, and the severe burns of a third. He narrates how two of the Saryas-i-Subhdams and Muhammad the Glass-Hearted met, each of whom has a glass pomegranate in his possession that binds them together. The friends travel to a mysterious place where a magical pomegranate tree with life-changing properties flourishes. The tree straddles the two realms of dreams and reality.

Muzafar unravels one lead which leads him to another which leads him to another in a mosaic of interconnected stories. In the process, he encounters those who have suffered in the hands of Saddam and his security agents. One of the most gruesome scenes is toward the end of the novel where Muzafar goes to a children’s hospital to locate a Saryas-i-Subhdam. He encounters victims of Saddam’s atrocities—young boys with missing appendages; horribly disfigured, burned faces; and misshapen bodies that seem to have been cobbled together with various body parts.

This haunting narrative is, at times, difficult to follow because of its fragmentary nature and digressions; because it weaves in and out of different threads, scrambling chronology; and because of its unflinching honesty in depicting the horrors of war. Its disjointed structure echoes the way in which war ruptures lives and disrupts reality. The narrative is peppered with philosophical musings about the meaning of life, illustrations of man’s inhumanity to man, and the traumatic impact of war on the collective psyche. 

A challenging but worthwhile read.

My Work

Olga Ravn; translated from the Danish by Sophi Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell

My Work by Olga Ravn, translated from the Danish by Sophi Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, moves haphazardly between prose, poetry, diary entries, letters, information pamphlets, short biographies of mothers who were authors, and literary references, all of which express the complexities of motherhood.

The novel rotates between two protagonists who are aspects of the same individual: Anna, the ostensible author of the journals of her pregnancy, birth, and her son’s toddler years; and the unnamed narrator who combs through these journals and tries to organize and make sense of them. Both narrators are writers. The scattered, hodge-podge, and fragmentary nature of the narrative is accentuated by the non-linear timeline which includes different beginnings and endings. The novel moves back and forth between the two narrators as they converse and question one another. Their relationship is fraught with tension. At one point, Anna gets so frustrated, she stabs the narrator to death, waits for her to revive, and stabs her, again.

Anna describes her anxiety and depression after becoming a mother. She is haunted by feelings of inadequacy for the task of parenting. Plagued with suicidal thoughts, she undergoes therapy, which helps to stabilize her. She feels alienated from her own body during pregnancy and experiences ambivalence toward the infant for erasing her identity. She charts how the pregnancy and birth have transformed her relationship with her husband.

The strength of the novel lies in its unflinching interrogation of the drudgery, tedium, exhaustion, and isolation many women experience upon becoming mothers. The daily and seemingly endless grind of feedings, diaper changes, sleepless nights, and screaming babies is described in graphic detail as a mother’s work with the home as her work place. Anna experiences contradictory impulses of wanting to abandon the baby and never wanting to put him down. Since motherhood is a job that intrudes on women’s lives, their bodies, their creativity, and their very sense of self, Anna wonders why we bother to have children, at all. She questions the value and purpose of motherhood. She claims that because women are socialized to believe the experience of pregnancy, birthing, and child-rearing are painless and rewarding, they are ashamed to admit feeling otherwise.

In this stylistically unique novel, Olga Ravn powerfully evokes the disorientation, conflicting impulses, isolation, and loss of selfhood that women may experience in early motherhood. Her experimental narrative dares to voice what some women feel as they struggle to soothe a screaming baby during the long hours of yet another sleepless night.

The Diaries of Jane Somers

Doris Lessing

The Diary of a Good Neighbor is one of two novels published in The Diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing. The novel is a meditation on aging and on the treatment of the elderly. It unfolds in the first-person point of view of Jane (Jannna) Somers and is written in a diary format.

Janna is a successful, self-assured, impeccably-dressed, and stylish middle aged assistant editor of a fashionable woman’s magazine. Her entire focus is on her work and on maintaining her polished appearance. Her self-absorption interferes with her ability to maintain anything other than superficial relationships. After the death of her husband in what was presumably their happy marriage, Janna realizes she never really talked to him or got to know him. She had avoided ministering to his needs while he was dying. Similarly, when her grandmother and mother were dying, Janna’s sister took care of them because Janna couldn’t.

One night, Janna has a chance encounter with 90-year-old Maudie Fowler, a disgruntled, elderly curmudgeon. Spurred by feelings of guilt for neglecting her husband and mother during their illness, Janna befriends Maudie. She begins visiting Maudie in her basement flat. The place reeks of urine. The stench of a filthy kitchen and soiled, dirty clothes permeate the atmosphere. Janna rolls up her sleeves and begins cleaning for Maudie, buying her groceries and new underwear, and even bathing Maudie of the filth and excrement that has lodged itself on her body. The two become friends and enjoy lengthy conversations in which Maudie shares stories of her life.

Janna juggles the demands of her job with regular visits to Maudie. When Joyce, her co-worker and friend, leaves for America with her husband, Janna is devastated. She doesn’t understand why Joyce willingly abandons her work and her life in England to be with a man who repeatedly betrays her with his love affairs. Meanwhile, Janna has become emotionally attached to Maudie. Her empathy with Maudie extends to other elderly people she encounters. She sympathizes with their daily struggles to perform household chores, find food, and keep themselves clean, all the while staunchly insisting on their independence. Janna also becomes sensitized to the many efforts of others to shut away the elderly in homes where the rest of the population cannot see them.

Lessing writes in painstaking, clinical detail of the indignities of old age, of stunted mobility, of frailty, of the struggles to perform even the most basic activities, and of the feelings of shame associated with asking for help. Janna’s epiphany is gradual. She grows to admire Maudie and her fierce determination to maintain the self-respect and dignity to which she is entitled. Where once she had once dehumanized the elderly, rendered them invisible, considered them dirty and witch-like, and wanted them hidden away, Janna now seeks and enjoys their company. Recognizing them as resilient survivors, she appreciates the elderly as having once had rich, vibrant lives and loves with powerful stories to tell that can benefit us all.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Satoshi Yagisawa; trans. Eric Ozawa

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated from the Japanese by Eric Ozawa, is a light, heart-warming read about how literature can help one to find one’s voice.

The narrative unfolds in the voice of Takako, a 25-year-old female who thinks she is in love with an office mate. When this same office mate announces his marriage to a co-worker, Takako is broken-hearted. She quits her job, and, at the invitation of her Uncle Satoru, moves into the room above his Morisaki bookshop in Tokyo.

Initially, Takako is lethargic, depressed, and spends a lot of time sleeping. Eventually, however, she picks up a classic novel and starts reading. The more she immerses herself in books, the better she feels about herself and the more she appreciates her uncle’s kindness towards her. Her self-confidence increases; her perspective expands. When she feels strong enough, she moves out of the bookshop and finds her own place. She returns periodically to visit her uncle and to help him figure out why his wife who had unexpectedly abandoned him years before suddenly shows up. In the process of solving the mystery, Takaka befriends a fellow book-lover, a friendship that leads to a relationship.

Told in simple, unadorned language, Takako’s voice grows from that of a self-obsessed child to that of an assertive, self-assured young woman, capable of empathy, unafraid to confront her former boyfriend, and unafraid to take risks. She helps her uncle navigate his relationship with his wife and is instrumental in reuniting them. She attributes her transformation to the books she read at her uncle’s Morisaki Bookshop. As she phrases it, reading “opened up a door I had never known existed.”

Although lacking in depth and a little uneven, the novel is short, engaging, and a quick read. Its premise reinforces what all book lovers already know: reading has the power to transform lives.

Wandering Stars

Tommy Orange

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange is both a sequel and a prequel to Orange’s novel, There, There. It begins in the past by exploring the lineage of Orvil Red Feather, the high school student shot and badly wounded in the powwow that ends Orange’s first novel, There, There.

Wandering Stars opens with the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado where the army slaughtered and mutilated members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. Jude Star, a teenager, narrowly survives the massacre and is incarcerated in a prison castle in Florida where he feels the full effect of the policy of “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” His son, Charles, is sent to the abusive Carlisle boarding school. His way of coping with the experience is through drugs. His partner, Opal Viola Bear Shield, gives birth to their daughter, Victoria Bear Shield. Opal is the grandmother of the half -sisters, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and Jacqui Red Feather.

Opal and Jacqui raise Jacqui’s three grandsons, Loother, Orvil, and Lony Red Feather. This is the same Orvil who was hit by a stray bullet while dancing in the powwow. Opal assumes care-taking responsibilities for her sisters’ grandsons, providing them with a loving home to return to—something denied their ancestors. But the challenge in helping them survive and keeping them safe is daunting.

Spanning over 150 years, the novel alternates between first, second, and third person points of view to capture the different perspectives, different time frames, and different angles of the same experience. The characters struggle with identity, dislocation, poverty, and drug and alcohol addiction. This kaleidoscopic portrait illustrates that the effects of trauma, dispossession, and attempted erasure of a race are transmitted from one generation to the next. Trauma is generational. The root causes of drug and alcohol addiction are traced to the deep wounds that go back decades. Characters struggle to learn about their culture, their past, who they are, where they came from, and what happened to their ancestors. The novel also stresses the important role stories play in establishing identity and culture. It explores the issue of who has been denied voice in historical records and from whose perspective the history has been recorded.

Tommy Orange’s novel is a powerful and scathing indictment of the systemic genocide and colonization experienced by Native Americans whose ancestors were massacred and who experienced compulsory dislocation and forced assimilation. The effects of these brutal policies continue to haunt subsequent generations.

Irma Voth

Miriam Toews

Irma Voth by Miriam Toews unfolds in the first-person voice of Irma, a nineteen-year-old woman in a Mennonite community in the Chihuahuan desert in Mexico. Irma and her family relocated from Canada for a reason not revealed until the end of the novel.

Irma is ostracized by her intolerant, abusive father because she marries a Mexican. Her husband abandons her because she doesn’t know “how to be a good wife.” Irma has been sheltered all her life. She struggles to understand what to say and how to behave. When a film crew shows up to shoot a movie about the Mennonite community, Irma agrees to serve as the translator since she speaks English, Spanish, and the Plattdeutsch of the Mennonite community.

Irma has a dry sense of humor. She feeds the German female protagonist zany translations of the film director’s instructions. She observes the crew and is ever curious to learn about them and life outside her community. When Aggie, her thirteen-year-old sister, is beaten by their father for spending time with Irma and the film crew, Irma decides to run away with her sister. She agrees to her mother’s request to take their new-born baby sister along. The three girls travel to Mexico City where they are helped by random strangers and where Irma finds employment and a place to live. These many acts of kindness stretch plausibility. The girls never encounter harassment or danger even though they travel alone. Everyone they meet is kind and offers guidance and a helping hand, all of which is wonderful but may not be too realistic.

Irma’s vision expands gradually as she navigates life from the claustrophobic environment of her upbringing. From her child-like behavior with her former husband, she evolves into a mature woman, responsible for her younger sisters. The film crew propels her to adulthood, self-discovery, and freedom. She is intelligent, tough, brave, and resilient, qualities she doesn’t discover in herself until she escapes from her stifling environment. Her interiority and dialogue alternate between dry wit, sarcasm, panic, humor, a tortured sadness for harboring a family secret, and a heavy responsibility for her sisters.

The relationship between Irma and Aggie is one of the strengths of the novel and is depicted with authenticity. They argue and bicker like most siblings, with Aggie exploiting every opportunity to challenge her older sister’s authority. But their love for and bond with one another is unshakeable. Irma’s teetering, growing self-awareness is another strength. Her plunge to freedom opens up new horizons for herself and for her younger sisters. She finds her voice in a coming-of-age story that is both dark and uplifting and which, unfortunately, causes her to feel guilt for tragic events beyond her control.

Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction

Lynne Olson

Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist who saved Egypt’s Ancient Temples from Destruction by Lynne Olson is a fascinating biography of the intrepid Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt.

Born in 1913 in France, Christiane had the good fortune to have progressive parents who encouraged her to pursue her interests. She developed a passion early in life for Ancient Egypt. She studied Egyptology and went on to become a curator at the Louvre. At the time of the Nazi occupation of France, she assisted in transporting the Louvre’s greatest treasures to safe havens outside of Paris to protect France’s national treasures from being plundered by the Nazis. Active in the resistance against Nazi occupation, she survived interrogation by the Nazis.

Her spirit throughout her illustrious career was defiant and fearless. She put that spirit to use while working in many archaeological digs in Egypt, developing a name for herself as a leading Egyptologist. Her passion for Egypt’s ancient monuments, statues, and artefacts never wavered. She overcame what seemed to be insurmountable challenges in convincing countries to donate huge sums of money to rescue the Nubian temple of Abu Simbel from drowning. Had it not been for her persistence and dauntless attitude, Abu Simbel would have drowned upon the completion of the Aswan Dam. Among the many who played a key role in securing funding for the project was Jacqueline Kennedy.

Deroches was instrumental in bringing the treasures of Tutankhamun for tours in the west and for nurturing a fascination for Ancient Egypt among western audiences. Her passion for all things Ancient Egypt was infectious. She spoke of the pharaohs, their wives and children as if they were living entities, sparking enthusiasm in all who heard her. Undeterred by being a lone female in what was then a male-dominated field, Deroches forged ahead, chipping away at obstacles until she achieved her goal of rescuing Ancient Egyptian treasures. She cultivated constructive relations with museum heads and heads of governments. She developed a wonderful rapport with the Egyptian laborers who worked with her on the many archaeological digs, treating them with respect and courtesy, and earning their loyalty.

Olson incorporates a biography of Egypt in the early to mid-twentieth century—its role in WWII, changes in government, the rise of Gamal Abdul Nasser, Suez, and the Arab-Israeli war. She also includes the Louvre’s history and its emergence as a world-class museum. These serve as a backdrop to the narrative, highlighting the many global events against which Deroches had to navigate. Her style is fast-paced and engaging. Her account of transporting the giant monuments at Abu Simbel reads like a thriller, detailing the incredible feat of engineering, the minute calculations required, and the unprecedent level of international cooperation that went into their successful transport to higher ground. She includes some incredible photographs of the removal of the statues and colossi.

Through her extensive and well-documented research, Lynne Olson has brought to life a remarkable, strong-willed, and fascinating woman to whom the world owes a deep debt of gratitude for rescuing some of the world’s most outstanding ancient monuments.

Afterlives

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah, the 2021 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, explores the impact of colonialism on the identity of the colonized.

The novel is set in Tanzania during the colonial rule of Germany before the first World War and spans about 60 years. It follows the lives of four principal characters through separate threads which intersect and coalesce at the end of the novel. The characters are Khalifa, Ilyas, Afiya (Ilyas’ sister), and Hamza.

It opens with the story of Khalifa, the son of an African mother and Indian father. He begins work with Amur Biashara, a merchant, and later marries Biashara’s niece. His life intersects with an adult Ilyas, a German-speaking African who was sent to a German mission school as a child and worked on a German owned family farm. Ilyas brings his sister, Afiya, to live with him in Khalifa’s house when he learns of her existence. He later volunteers to fight alongside the Germans. He is not heard from, again.

The bulk of the narrative focuses on Hamza, an Askari volunteer who quickly regrets his decision to fight for the Germans. He becomes the personal servant to the Oberleutenant who teaches him German. He is taken to a mission to be treated for the serious injuries experienced in a violent beating. After recovering, he goes home to Zanzibar where he finds employment with Biashara’s son who now runs his father’s company. His co-worker is Khalifa, and the two become friends. He moves in with Khalifa and his wife, falls in love with and marries Afiya. The novel ends in 1963 when Ilyas, the son of Hamza and Afiya, goes to Germany and learns the fate of his uncle.

Woven throughout these threads are historical events—the various uprisings against colonial rule; the brutal reprisals to squash them; the graphic details of Hamza’s life with the German army; the role Christianity plays in advancing the colonial agenda; the events leading up to World War I and its aftermath; World War II; and British colonialism.

This wide scope of colonial history acts as a backdrop since Gurnah is more focused on the many ways in which colonialism impacts his characters. Some manage to carve an existence and livelihood for themselves; others develop a complex relationship with the oppressor, basking in even the slightest display of kindness; while others experience the brutality of colonialism first-hand. But most question their identity and sense of belonging. No one escapes unscathed.

In this sweeping, multigenerational sage, Gurnah is to be commended for exploring the devastating legacy of colonialism on the colonized. His style is straightforward and unemotional. But the abrupt shifts from one protagonist to another are disconcerting. There was too much exposition, too much telling, too much summary, and too little direct dialogue. This creates distance and gives the impression that one is reading a history book rather than a novel. The conclusion is abrupt and hurried, as if Gurnah was in a rush to tie up all the loose ends. In spite of these shortcomings, the novel is recommended because it gives voice to the marginalized and illustrates how the legacy of colonialism is experienced by those who lived through it and those who came after.

So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

Claire Keegan

So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men is a collection of three stories by Claire Keegan all of which illustrate manifestations and degrees of male misogynism.

The first story, “So Late in the Day,” recounts a day in the life of Cathal, a Dublin office worker. He is upset, distracted, uncomfortable around people, and avoids interaction. He returns to an empty home because his fiancé has moved out. He flashes back to past interactions with his girlfriend, including his awkward proposal of marriage. But it is not until he flashes even further back in time to an ugly incident at the breakfast table with his parents and sibling that we learn the full extent of his misogyny and, more importantly, where he learned it.

In “The Long and Painful Death” a female writer has been awarded a two-week residency in Henrich Böll’s house on Achill Island. She is looking forward to having uninterrupted time to write. But on her first day, she receives a phone call from a German professor of literature who happens to be standing outside the house. He asks to be allowed in to view the house. Reluctantly, she agrees to his request but asks him to come back in the evening. He arrives at the appointed time, shows little interest in seeing the house, enjoys the refreshments she has provided, and then proceeds to spew verbal venom at her. After he leaves, she turns the unpleasant incident into material for her story.

“Antarctica” is the final and most disturbing story. A married woman wants to experiment by sleeping with a man other than her husband. On a Christmas shopping excursion, she meets a man in a bar and spends the night with him. When she goes back to her hotel room the next morning to collect her bags and catch the train home, he shows up and convinces her to come back to his place with the promise to take her to the train station later. To the reader’s horror, she agrees.

Keegan peppers her stories with clues about her male characters’ misogyny even though the female characters initially excuse them. Cathal’s fiancé forgives his patronizing, demeaning attitude until she’s had enough of his nonsense. The female writer accommodates the male professor’s assumption that he can invade her time and space at his whim. She throws him out when his anger and resentment surface. The married woman, eager to experience an adventure, is completely oblivious to the dangerous situation she has got herself in until it is too late for her to do anything about it.

Keegan is proficient in writing prose that is subtle and spare. She builds up the tension almost imperceptibly. She manages to create an ominous undercurrent in her stories that the reader senses long before her female characters do. Her mastery use of detail serves to contrast women’s expectations of independence and equality with men’s patriarchal expectations of female subservience and compliance. There is a haunting quality about her writing that lingers long after her stories end.