Culture Shock

Dare I say it? If there could possibly be anything good to come out of this war in Iraq, which seems to be lasting a life time, it might be the fervor with which readers have embraced the plethora of novels that have come out of the Middle East in the past, say, five years. Thoughtful people all around our country seem to truly desire an understanding or insight into the Islamic culture and religion. Programs here in our library system on this subject generally have standing room only. Did this all begin with The Kite Runner? I wonder how the negative publicity surrounding the making of the upcoming movie will affect this phenomenon?

I've been thinking about this because I've just finished two books, one of which is Hosseini's much anticipated follow-up to The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, which sits high upon the New York Times best seller list. This novel, dedicated to the women of Afghantistan, is a devastating indictment of a way of life that forces young girls into marriages that basically amount to slavery and virtual imprisonment. It is also a novel of war and is overwhelming in its relentless description of lives lived under the threat of daily bombings, starvation, death and destruction. I don't believe that any of us can conceive of such an existence. My complaint with Hosseini's work is that he portrays people and events as either good or evil, offering little of the nuance that informs a great book discussion.

On the other hand, Yasmina Khadra, an Algerian writer who gets much less publicity and respect, is a master at layered storytelling that forces readers to ruminate long after his books are finished. Last week twenty women attended my book discussion of Khadra's The Attack, second in a trilogy of life in the Middle East that began with The Swallows of Kabul. These novels, while as devastating as Hosseini's, delve much deeper into the effects of living in a suffocating atmosphere of turmoil and upheaval.
Khadra is a pseudonym (his wife's name actually) for Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former military officer now living in France. I have to wonder if he immersed himself in psychology during his military training as his ability to recreate the complexities of male/female relationships of long duration, and to speak from the woman's heart, is uncanny. There is a scene in Swallows...where a relatively liberated Muslim, aware of the injustice of Taliban rules toward women, happens upon a stoning of an adulteress as he walks home from work. He moves into the crowd, drawn by an ugly fascination, and inexplicably finds himself picking up a stone to throw at the already dead, cloaked stranger. Mired in guilt and disbelief at his own behavior, he confesses to his wife, expecting her usual succor and understanding. Khadra's description of the wife's response is a literary tour de force.

Once accused by an interviewer of always writing about terrorism, Khadra responded that his novels talk, not of terrorism, but of "human brittleness, anger, humiliation, the fears, sometimes the hopes; and of this burning and fatuous actuality which spoils our life." A few of the women in my book group also seemed to fixate on the terrorist aspects of The Attack, a novel in which the central act of a suicide bomber serves as the catalyst for a more profound tragedy. The real story is about a marriage. Is fifteen years long enough to truly know someone? Dr. Amin Jaafari and his wife Sihem live as good a life as one can in a world of such conflict. They are Muslims who have assimilated in an Israeli community in Tel Aviv. He is a surgeon, dedicated to saving lives. They are educated, well-traveled, well-connected, and yet........

Khadra writes in French and has been well-served by his translators. The language of the text is as fierce and emotional as the story it tells. It may be a few months before I'm psychologically prepared to tackle his third offering, The Sirens of Baghdad.

Listening in the sickbay

So there I was in the bowels of the ship, somewhere between Corsica and Gibraltar, IV drip hooked up to my left arm and a nebulizer strapped around my nose and mouth (very bad hair day) with visions of dollar signs dancing through my head. I needed a diversion and was so glad I had thought to bring my loaded mp3 player on vacation with me. I chose to begin Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein. Great choice! For some reason I was under the impression that this book involved a negative treatment of Hillary Clinton so I had steered away. In fact, it is a fascinating and, so far at least, objective look at a most fascinating woman.

Now let me say right up front that I am an Obama girl. He has been my choice ever since I read Dreams from My Father and then the wonderfully titled Audacity of Hope. For me, Barack Obama is everything we need in this country right now, a bright voice of calm and reason in a world gone mad, a thoughtful man of nuance in a country all too black and white. I don't trust my fellow Americans to see this my way though so I'm hedging my bets with Hillary. After reading Bernstein's account I'll be even more comfortable with her as my final candidate.

This is a woman who has had a passion for justice and public service since her most formative college years. Her growth and development from an 18 year old Goldwater Republican to a mature, moderate Democrat was the result of an incredible education, a drive to succeed, a penchant for involving herself with movers and shakers in the legal field and a talent at attracting strong mentors. In fact, the naysayers who think that Hillary only hitched herself to Bill's star don't know the half of it. Most of Hillary's friends, professors and supervisors from her law school days actually thought she was throwing herself away by choosing love, Bill and Arkansas rather than a political career of her own. To her credit, through hard work and extreme determination, she's managed to have it all.

Hillary Clinton has been labeled a "polarizing" candidate and it's thought that voters either love her or hate her. I truly hope that Bernstein's book will get into voters' hands in time for them to get to know and empathize with this deeply complex woman who overcame a background that was a far cry from the idyllic life she herself described in her autobiography. Hillary has worked against racial discrimination and injustice since her early days with Marian Wright Edelman and the Childrens' Defense Fund. She struggled for more than two years with her decision to marry Bill and went into that relationship with full knowledge of his weaknesses which she ascribed to his less than savory childhood. She saw a visionary; he saw a nuts and bolts, "just do it" kind of gal. Contrary to public opinion, he pursued her relentlessly. Between them they have worked non-stop to fulfill an idealistic dream for a better world.

I haven't gotten to the "bad" chapters yet and I know it will be painful to read about the Monica fiasco and the impeachment proceedings. Ironically, Hillary Clinton made a name for herself in legal circles working on the impeachment of Richard Nixon. But I'll keep reading for the insight and with a firm knowledge that, as bad as it was, it doesn't hold a candle to what's happening right now.

Barcelona - A City and a Book

Yes, I'm back from my extended, ambitious vacation which took Don and me to 4 countries and 9 cities in 14 days. Whew! Of course, I had big plans to blog my way around the Mediterranean but you know what they say about "the best laid plans of mice and men." A nasty respiratory infection and a terrible wireless Internet connection squashed my plans at travel writing.

Several people, including my sister and my library director, upon hearing that I was headed to Barcelona, had recommended The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I admit I had not heard of him before, yet now his name seems to come up in casual conversation every time I turn around. Isn't it odd how that happens? Between us I believe that Don and I carted about 10 books onto the cruise ship. This was the only one I finished! We even took a self-guided "shadow of the wind walking tour" through the Bari Gothic section of the city where much of the action in the book took place. Apparently this novel really put Barcelona on the map - a much deserving city in my opinion.

Every time I travel I'm reminded once again of how very important it is to get out of one's comfort zone and see the world as it really is and not how the news media would have us believe. I consider myself pretty well-traveled and open to new places and scenes but I still didn't expect Spain to be such a beautiful, modern country and a delightful blending of the ancient and the new. Barcelona reminded me a great deal of Paris with its lovely, wide, tree lined boulevards criss crossing the city. Separate, safe bike paths encourage folks to reduce emissions and stay healthy. You can pick up a bike at selected places in the city for a euro, unlock it, ride it all over the city and drop it off at any other designated spot. What a concept. I've heard that Paris has implemented this as well. There are special lanes just for buses and taxis and it goes without saying that public transportation is alive and well and efficient all through Europe. We used it everywhere when we weren't walking and managed to make ourselves understood in Spanish, French and Italian over the course of the two weeks. One doesn't need to be an expert to be appreciated for the effort and, damn, it feels good!

We had one rather ironic incident in a museum (Napoleon's birthplace and childhood home) in Corsica. After perusing three floors of information and reading the explanatory signs in our passable French, we came to a guest book. The person who signed before us had written a diatribe about the fact that "for heaven's sake, the signs should be in ENGLISH!" Hmmmm...We cracked up and proceeded to write a complimentary comment in our best high school French. I just knew in my heart that this anonymously indignant person was most likely from our cruise ship and would be the same person who would write to the News-Press complaining that Hispanics don't try hard enough to speak English. Nothing bi-lingual in America, please, just everywhere else!

Anyway, back to the Zafon book. It's difficult to describe this unusual novel. One word that comes to mind is atmosphere. It's one of those that I suspect people will either love or hate right out of the gate. Barcelona is definitely the main character; not the wide tree-lined streets described above, but the dark, seedy, mysterious labyrinth of alleyways that are home to the less fortunate denizens of the city, circa 1945. Nothing draws in a librarian like the promise of a story about a widowed antiquarian book dealer who initiates his lonely son into the world of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. When our young Daniel, allowed to choose one book for his own, picks a long lost novel by Julian Carax, an author around whom a shadowy legend has been born, the novel is off and running. Unrequited love, shifty politics, class wars and some very sly social commentary all combine to make this novel a great read.

Feasts of Love

I've been in a particularly sentimental mood lately. Perhaps I needed a break from all the political upheaval and anger that's always brewing inside me. For whatever reason, I was so ready for the movie last week, The Feast of Love. I remembered how much the book by Charles Baxter had delighted me but I couldn't have told you the plot if my life depended on it. Ah fickle memory. I only knew that I put it down with a feeling of deep satisfaction and that sense one gets now and then that all's right with the world.
I had the same sensation (and I believe that Andrea did too) when we sat at the end of the movie, credits rolling, unwilling to get up and plunge right back into the real world. Baxter's book, you see, is a celebration of love in all its manifestations. It doesn't make judgments, it acknowledges hurt, loss, the pain of a "wrong" decision, a misplacement of trust, but it also espouses a philosophy that has kept me on an even keel in the past, which is that all of our choices, at least when it comes to love, are better than not giving it at all. There's no room for bitterness in the human heart.

That same theme is evident in all the writing of Robert Hellenga, another favorite of mine. I just burned through The Italian Lover in record time, at least for me. This book is a follow-up to Hellenga's The Sixteen Pleasures, the story of Margot Harrington, then an American college student, a "mud angel," who went to Florence to restore books after the terrible flooding of the Arno in the 1960's; a flood that decimated so many of the great works of art which had been displayed or housed in the churches and convents of this wonderful Renaissance city. Margot, Sandro, her much older Italian lover, and the city of Florence were equally compelling characters in the earlier book and Hellenga's cadre of fans were more than ready for "the rest of the story."

Margot, twenty-five years later, is a renowned book conservator whose life story is being made into a movie, The Italian Lover, by Esther Klein, a tough-talking, recently divorced producer. Esther is hell-bent on proving herself to the Hollywood power brokers who control the purse strings and to her ex-husband, the love of her life, who has left her for a twenty-something. She hires Miranda, a young insecure ingenue, to star alongside the much more sophisticated Italian actor Zanni, and brings in director Michael, who is quietly dying from prostate cancer. With him is his wife of many years, Beryl, an accomplished woman used to being able fix anything. As this menagerie decends upon Florence, filming in the convents, eating at the nearby restaurants and hiring local grips and cameramen, readers realize that Margot is the only one who doesn't understand that her dramatic screenplay is about to be turned into a romantic comedy.

There's no doubt that Hellenga is in love with Italy. He writes of each piazza and alleyway so that we can smell the garlic emmanating from the doorways. Even if you've never been there yourself, you can perfectly visualize the dogs romping outside Margot's apartment in the Piazza Santa Croce. But more than this, Hellenga loves his characters. Each quirky, self-absorbed, bright, caring person in Hellenga's books is someone you already know or truly want to know. They make decisions about their relationships that we may not understand but, as with Charles Baxter, there are no judgments put forth, no punishment for mistakes, just human beings trying to love one another as best they can. Finishing this book I felt the same deep satisfaction that I got from The Feast of Love. I sighed audibly.

Thoughts on a few books....

I just finished a deceptively simple little novel recommended by my former boss (that sounds weird, doesn't it? Boss seems to have such a negative connotation) Linda Holland. She thought it might make a good choice for our book discussion group and I suspect that, even though I can't really say that I liked the book, she's right and it would.

A Hatred for Tulips by noted newpaper correspondent Richard Lourie is one of those books that asks a morally ambiguous question that can't be answered in a right or wrong way. The story revolves around two brothers. Joop, the narrator, has grown up and lived in Amsterdam, harboring a guilty knowledge that has affected his every waking minute for the past sixty years. His younger brother Willem left Amsterdam with his mother after the devastation of World War II and has led a fairly privileged, very American life.

Reunited after all these years, Joop and Willem sit down over drinks and try to find any common ground between them, something that would indicate that they are even related. In the course of the afternoon's reminiscing, Joop reveals his secret for the first time. Readers may be disturbed, even horrified, by what Joop has done, but the questions arise: how far will a person go to feed his starving family, to gain love and acceptance from one person in a world gone mad with bombing raids and death camps? No, I didn't "like" this book but it will make for a great discussion!




I may have mentioned previously in this blog that some of my friends and I are playing around with an online book discussion group. We very virtuously agreed that we'd all wanted to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez at some point in our reading life. A couple of weeks ago, albeit after a couple of glasses of wine and a heavy dinner, I sat down expecting to fall in love with 100 Years of Solitude. Snore. How does one get to be 58 years old and still have guilt because a "good" book doesn't knock one's socks off? Could it be that recovering Catholic thing? I was soooo relieved when I read on our discussion blog that my very intellectual friend Laura had the same reaction. Whew! She commented that magical realism definitely isn't her thing and the irony is that, in the hands of Laure Esquivel or Isabel Allende, I've always enjoyed that unusual convention. But with Marquez, not so much.

On the upside, I'm about half way through a deeply felt book by another author, one I'd often heard about but never read. Andre Brink's Before I Forget is a literary, erotic paean to women. Chris Minaar, a lawyer, political activist and writer, now in his 70's, examines the meaning of his life through the curtain of memory. Disheartened by the state of the world, the war in Iraq being the centerpiece, and numb over the recent death of a lover, Brink, through Minaar, offers the reader a glimpse into the heart and soul of a thinking man and it is a wondrous sight. Oh, would that I could even remotely dredge up such facility with the English language! I'm not even sure that it can be learned.

I'd love to quote some lines from this book but I'm at home and Brink is on my desk at the library. I may slip it in sometime tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've got to head to Muvico to meet Andrea for The Feast of Love - one of my all time favorite books and one of the many that are being brought to the "big screen" this fall. Yes, yes, it only got 2 stars in the "No-News News-Press" but we are nothing if not optimistic!