Iris, a successful Chicago writer, feels abandoned by the father who was absent for much of her childhood. When he dies, her decision to go find out wIris, a successful Chicago writer, feels abandoned by the father who was absent for much of her childhood. When he dies, her decision to go find out what he found so compelling about a project in Vietnam changes not only her life, but the lives of many others. She's accompanied by Noah, a veteran whose body and soul were terribly injured in Iraq and who sees no way out of his pain. In Vietnam, we discover street children Mai and Minh, abused by their opium-addicted "protector"; gentle Qui and her granddaughter Tam, whose lives of quiet sorrow are further shadowed by Tam's untreatable leukemia; Sahn, the police officer who once fought against Americans and remains suspicious of their presence in his country; and Thien, a cheerful, hardworking woman who misses her family but finds joy in singing and acknowledging her blessings. As they come together to overcome the obstacles of violence, poverty, and exploitation, a synchronicity of spirit emerges that can heal not only them, but perhaps all of Vietnam's new generation--and perhaps even reach around the world to heal many more.
I hope this beautiful, poignant story of redemption is widely read. Its vivid characters almost all grow during the course of the narrative, illustrating the power of love and service to remake the world's ugliness into something new. Every once in a while, the work turns just a little preachy as the dialogue makes explicit the themes that should instead simply emerge from the story--but that's about the only criticism I can imagine of Shors' writing. I'm enriched by the time spent imagining the world he brings to life, and encourage others to pick it up as well ... if only to be reminded that love and altruism can drive away even the world's ugliest shadows....more
My eye landed on a big fat hardback beckoning from my library's display shelf for new fiction, and I'm glad it did.
In the Courts of the Sun turned ouMy eye landed on a big fat hardback beckoning from my library's display shelf for new fiction, and I'm glad it did.
In the Courts of the Sun turned out to be a pretty good story set both in late 2012 and ancient Mesoamerica. The basic plot sounds convoluted, and it is: a Mayan divination game he learned as a child turns out to be linked to computer predictions of catastrophe on December 21, 2012, and after a confirming disaster at Disney World, scientists manage to send an image of the protagonist's mind into the ancient past to find out enough to keep the world from ending. He goes back, only partly takes over the persona of a guy who wasn't part of the original plan, and after a long series of adventures, makes his way to Teotihuacan to try to complete his mission. (Yeah, I know, not highbrow fare--but it's summertime! :) )
I won't post spoilers here, but the book was painstakingly well-researched, offering more detail about life in the time of the Mayan heyday than can be found in most history books, and with a rollin' good tale of high adventure to set the pace. Of course, my status as a comfortable, contemporary North American peace activist biases me, and at times (OK, a lot of the time) I found the ancient culture described to be brutish, gruesome, and repressive ... but it's a summer read, and I'm under no obligation to overcome my bias if I don't feel like it. I'll also freely admit that this bias, this prejudice of mine, is probably the only thing keeping me from giving Brian D'Amato that fifth star, even though he probably earned it from any objective perspective. The writing was great, the history accurate, the characters interesting and well-developed ... I just didn't like a lot of them very much.
To Brian's credit, though, he did write the ending just exactly right, saying neither too much nor too little, and I thought that bit was perfect....more
Aziz Arkoun ... illegal immigrant, former Algierian terrorist, coffee entrepreneur, friend, brother, and son ... Harbor offers rich, complex characterAziz Arkoun ... illegal immigrant, former Algierian terrorist, coffee entrepreneur, friend, brother, and son ... Harbor offers rich, complex characters in its protagonist and his companions.
As the editorial cover blurb and other reviewers have mentioned, the primary question Adams raises is, "Who is a terrorist?" Is Aziz a terrorist because he killed in order to survive when he lived in Algieria, one of the most politically unstable places on Earth? After all, given opportunity, he might have grown old taking leadership of his father's hotel, smiling happily to tourists who come to him to enjoy nothing more than a good meal and a sunny beach. He might have married the woman he wanted to love, and raised contented children with her, if he hadn't seen her killed first. Even in America, what does it mean when a group of Muslim men draw circles on a subway map? Are they plotting an attack, or seeking coffee-sale locations protected from Boston's winter weather?
And, what about Aziz's companions, particularly those featured in the story's current Boston setting? Stowaways who swim ashore in Boston's frigid harbor may escape the mayhem of Algeria and similar places, but they won't be allowed to earn legal incomes in the US without documentation. So how do we judge them if they sell a few plastic Batman action figures or Versace suits, origin unknown?
Adams perhaps did a good job of showing how ordinary, or almost ordinary, people can find themselves engaged in immoral behavior. She made it possible to suspend judgment long enough to get to know her characters. However, I ultimately didn't sympathize with them as completely as I might have. This failure was perhaps pushed along by how very tired I got of reading one penis comment after another. Halfway through the book, I found myself flipping to the front cover to confirm the author has a female name, and wondering if it's a pseudonym or if a female author really felt the need to write such crude prose. Maybe such comments are an accurate description of the words and thoughts of some Algierian immigrants. If so, I might find sympathy for their plight from a distance, but no particular joy in their company. I plain got tired of all the penis comments!
So, three stars from me; I do like including Algierians in the current fashion of writing about Muslim people in the United States and elsewhere, as their culture's quite different from those of the Middle East and stretching into India. I do like exploring the ways in which we as a society decide whom to arrest on charges of terrorism, whom to fear, whom to welcome, whom to pity. Unfortunately, Adams' graphic unloving sex, far-too-graphic violence, and all those penis remarks actually got in the way of what could have been a very compelling story. ...more
Is it possible that this richly textured literary tour de force is the author's first novel?
George Mastras breathes life into his characters and settIs it possible that this richly textured literary tour de force is the author's first novel?
George Mastras breathes life into his characters and settings, creating a work of fiction that contains a considerable amount of truth. He spent several years traveling the Himalayas, Karakorams, and Hindu Kush, and brings a firsthand familiarity with the Pakistan/India borderlands in which he sets his novel. The complex characters are deeply human, with unique strengths and weaknesses, quirks and backgrounds, motivations and challenges.
Nick Sunder, the protagonist, is backpacking through Asia in an attempt to escape guilt related to his former American law practice. Drugs, cigarettes, and even pretty girls haven't succeeded in driving away his demons, however--and in fact, these lead to his topple into the abyss. Hauled into a Pakistani jail on suspicion of having murdered his female traveling companion, Nick loses his American passport to the Pakistani police. When he later flees during a temporary release, he loses his remaining money and identification, leaving him as completely destitute as any other refugee. When even this situation takes a turn for the worse, Nick has reason to fear that even an American embassy would return him to the Pakistani authorities rather than help him regain his freedom. Alone, with no supplies, he is ready to die in the harsh climate, when he is rescued by two simple Muslim men who become his close companions and mentors. Nick has confronted other human forces, struggled with the unforgiving nighttime cold and daytime blazing heat of the local desertlands, and now finds himself face-to-face with the worst demons of all: those within himself.
The rest of the story unfolds through the actions of all the major players in Kashmir's politics: the simple mountain families whose villages were long untouched by religious conflict, the children influenced by madrassa education, the mujahideen, the Indian soldiers, a Muslim woman who is a trained physician and treats men as well as women, a Hindu politician, and more. As the reader is drawn into the stories of these people and this land, it becomes clear that none of these people can be explained in a few simple words. From the "Moslem terrorist" who can't bring himself to harm civilians and is forced to choose between the woman he loves and the religion he practices, to the protagonist himself, motivations are complex and open to examination.
In a time when Americans are too ready to lump all Muslim people into one frightening mix, the distinctions of belief, internal disputes, and differences in religious practice Mastras reveals are particularly important. In this book, some Muslim people are filled with hate, convinced that utter cultural destruction is the only way to achieve "freedom" for their faith. Others live lives of love and generosity, helping even infidel strangers without reservation and at great personal risk. Still others participate in the fighting while longing for a different way to proceed, or continue farming while maintaining friendships with infidels, or live their faith in any of a hundred different ways. They are not painted with one religious brush, not all fanatics, not all even devout.
I'd be posting spoilers to explore one intriguing aspect of Fidali's Way, so won't do so in any detail here. But, I'm fascinated by Mastras' portrayal of one particular Muslim character as distinctly Christlike.
The simple message of love for one another can originate in a variety of places, and sometimes we have to confront the Abyss before we can find ourselves. Ghulam, Nick's primary mentor in the story, explains why he believes that Islam existed before Mohammed, why the "greater jihad" takes place within oneself, and why "There is no God but Allah" can be understood to embrace all paths of spiritual growth. This work examines the meaning of sacrifice and acquisition, the longing for freedom and the ways of seeking it that eliminate hope of its gain, what it means to love, and what it means to believe. And, somehow, Mastras accomplishes all of this without sacrificing an excellent surface story, with continuous action sufficient to hold the attention of its least introspective readers.
It's easy to browse a nonfiction section @ the library's website, check the books here to see what I'd lLooks awesome ... but Luzerne doesn't have it.
It's easy to browse a nonfiction section @ the library's website, check the books here to see what I'd like, and have a list ready to go to the library. It's more frustrating to try to find fiction that way. I don't like browsing the shelves in person, because there aren't a few dozen reviews a click away from each title, and I often pull out things I think I'll like but then don't, or skip over titles I might actually really enjoy. So, I look for fiction I really want to read, then check to see if the library has it ... and nine times out of ten, they don't, because no local library is going to stock ever title available.
I try to avoid ILL when I can, because I don't like running up the library's tab unnecessarily. Surely there's a good bit of fiction on the shelves that would appeal to me, but how to find it?
Picked up at a yard sale when I was still a kid, this book is one of several that undoubtedly contributed to my interest in learning about life in othPicked up at a yard sale when I was still a kid, this book is one of several that undoubtedly contributed to my interest in learning about life in other cultures, about the incredible range of human experience. I still have it, and still remember it--which speaks well for it!
While the world described in these pages has now passed into history, it's worth reading both to understand the possibilities of a different cultural structure and to understand the lifestyle of a previous generation, now remembered wistfully by so many people in the modern Middle East. How can we hope to understand what the most frustrated of the people there want, if we don't understand the cultural memory of what they want to restore, or the foundations through which they were shaped?...more
A fabulous, informative book I read for a class in about 1997. So good I still remember much of it more than a decade later--which I can't say for eveA fabulous, informative book I read for a class in about 1997. So good I still remember much of it more than a decade later--which I can't say for everything I read in college! Ruth Benedict may have been the only person capable of both gaining and sharing a real, deep understanding of the Japanese national psyche during and after WWII; whether or not she was uniquely capable, though, she wrote an admirable and insightful book. Much of my understanding of how history played out in the "Pacific Theater" of this war and its aftermath comes from Benedict's insights.
This is definitely an important and well-written read....more
Very nice. I suspect the original may have been a bit better written than the English translation, but I still enjoyed this quite a bit. It was intereVery nice. I suspect the original may have been a bit better written than the English translation, but I still enjoyed this quite a bit. It was interesting to get an "on-the-ground" perspective of the ideological conflict between Gandhi and Babasaheb, too; like most Westerners, I'd heard a lot about the former and very little about the latter, and feel that this book filled some important gaps in my knowledge. The real-life characters were interesting, and their human dramas compelling, so this wasn't like reading a history text at all.
I'd especially recommend this to anyone who has already read The Toss of a Lemon, which tells the story of several generations of a Brahmin family living in an overlapping time period. The two together make for a better understanding of life in this time and place, and the comparison is intriguing....more
The fascinating topic and vivid, firsthand description more than make up for the author's somewhat undeveloped style. This was written in 1993, too ..The fascinating topic and vivid, firsthand description more than make up for the author's somewhat undeveloped style. This was written in 1993, too ... I'm curious to see what Jennifer Toth has done since, because her ethnographic instincts are pretty good for a journalist! ...more
So far, I like it more than I expected. Still, it's a quiet read, with the characters' lives slowly unfolding in the incredibly superficial world of 1So far, I like it more than I expected. Still, it's a quiet read, with the characters' lives slowly unfolding in the incredibly superficial world of 1870's Russia's uppermost classes. I plan to finish it soon, so it's not really "laid down," but apparently my quick update menu will only show six books at a time ... so I'll add this back when I finish those I just brought home from the library!...more
ILL only. Author: Tariq Ali Publisher: Verso, September 1993
I most enjoy novels from which I learn something, often simply what life is/was like in otheILL only. Author: Tariq Ali Publisher: Verso, September 1993
I most enjoy novels from which I learn something, often simply what life is/was like in other cultures or time periods. This one looks interesting--and if it's any good, there are three more to follow it. :)...more
A beautiful book! I absolutely loved this, and couldn't put it down. It's an easy, quick read, with lots of *great* description and a perspective thatA beautiful book! I absolutely loved this, and couldn't put it down. It's an easy, quick read, with lots of *great* description and a perspective that's mostly missing from this genre. The experiences and perceptions of a beautician are different from those of academics and journalists, and I absolutely loved exploring near-contemporary Kabul through Debbie's eyes and ears.
Melissa, I know this is on your to-read list (or at least it was a while back) ... you must check it out and read it. You'll love it!!
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