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Added Aug 30, 2022
Added Aug 30, 2022
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Added Feb 20, 2022
mayog's rating:
Added Feb 20, 2022
Comment:
I picked this book up for a Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. Basketball is not my "thing," but I did enjoy Yang's voice, and the way he put the story of the Dragons in both historical and societal context. It was a well written and enjoyable book suitable for any kid able to read graphic novelsI picked this book up for a Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. Basketball is not my "thing," but I did enjoy Yang's voice, and the way he put the story of the Dragons in both historical and societal context. It was a well written and enjoyable book…
Added Feb 20, 2022
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. FrankweilerFrom the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Book
by Konigsburg, E. L.Book - 1981Book, 1981
mayog's rating:
Added Feb 20, 2022
Comment:
An absolutely marvelous story about a search for an adventure, and finding one in unexpected places.
mayog's rating:
Added Jan 19, 2022
Comment:
An absolutely marvelous story of coming out and coming to terms with oneself, told in the voices of two octogenerians. The story focuses on relationship and the detente of a loveless marriage rather than on race-based trauma, which is a gift. Evaristo writes poetically, evocatively and with a wicked sense of humor, and she absolutely captures the life of Caribbean immigrants to England.An absolutely marvelous story of coming out and coming to terms with oneself, told in the voices of two octogenerians. The story focuses on relationship and the detente of a loveless marriage rather than on race-based trauma, which is a gift.…
The Good ImmigrantThe Good Immigrant, Book26 Writers Reflect on America
Book - 2019Book, 2019
mayog's rating:
Added Jan 09, 2022
Comment:
For anyone looking for first-person immigrant accounts of what it means to live and work in the US, this is an excellent collection with which to begin. The accounts vary by nation and by experience, but their humanity shines through both in pathos and in humor. The essays complicate issues such as race, gender, religious freedom and so on.
My one caveat: because the book was published immediately after the 2016 election, some of the essays can read as dated.For anyone looking for first-person immigrant accounts of what it means to live and work in the US, this is an excellent collection with which to begin. The accounts vary by nation and by experience, but their humanity shines through both in pathos…
Added Sep 17, 2019
mayog's rating:
Added Sep 07, 2019
Comment:
What an odd little book, a complete departure from some of the other books I’ve read. Narrated in by a seven-year old diplomat’s child, the book muses on childhood love and obsession, human love of war, and a girl named Elena, all in voice that is at times funny, weird, and far too observant.
The book is full of gross scenes, of bodily waste being used as weapons by children living an unsupervised existence which most 21st century children could not imagine. The narrator spends most of the novel pining for an unreachable, and ultimately narcissistic girl, but ends up celebrating the experience as “teaching her about love.”
As in the Dory Fantasmagory books, imagination and fiction often blur. For many pages we imagine the narrator on a horse only to find out that the horse exists only in her imagination. Still, in the midst of this marvelous little gem of a novel, Nothomb manages to weave thoughts about the world as it was in the 1970s in China, thoughts that contain observations that are still relevant to us today.What an odd little book, a complete departure from some of the other books I’ve read. Narrated in by a seven-year old diplomat’s child, the book muses on childhood love and obsession, human love of war, and a girl named Elena, all in voice that is…
Quotations
- The war began in 1972. That was the year I awoke to a profound truth: no one on this earth is indispensable, except the enemy. Without an enemy, human beings are poor things indeed. Their lives are ordeals, crushed between insignificance and boredom. The enemy is the Savior. His mere existence is enough to revitalize humanity. Thanks to the enemy, that unfortunate accident called life becomes epic.”The war began in 1972. That was the year I awoke to a profound truth: no one on this earth is indispensable, except the enemy. Without an enemy, human beings are poor things indeed. Their lives are ordeals, crushed between insignificance and…
- …this story happened in China to the extent that it was permitted to do so—which is to say very little. It is a ghetto story, a tale of double exile: exile from our native country (which for me was Japan, since I was convinced that I was Japanese), and exile from China which surrounded us but from which we were cut off, by virtue of our status as profoundly unwanted guests. Make no mistake, however, in the end, China has the same weight in these pages as the Black Death had in Bocaccio’s Decameron: though hardly mentioned, it RAGES throughout.…this story happened in China to the extent that it was permitted to do so—which is to say very little. It is a ghetto story, a tale of double exile: exile from our native country (which for me was Japan, since I was convinced that I was Japanese),…
- Humanity’s elite were little girls. Humanity existed so that they could exist. Women and buffoons were crippled. Their bodies contained errors of construction that could inspire no other reaction but laughter. Only little girls were perfect. Nothing stuck out from their bodies, no grotesque appendages, no idiotic protuberances. They were of marvelous design, streamlined to present no resistance to life. Of no material utility, they were the most necessary of all because they embodied humanity’s beauty – its real beauty, that which makes living a summer breeze, where nothing clashes and the body is pure celebration from head to foot. One has to have been a little girl to know how exquisite it is to have a body.Humanity’s elite were little girls. Humanity existed so that they could exist. Women and buffoons were crippled. Their bodies contained errors of construction that could inspire no other reaction but laughter. Only little girls were perfect.…
Suitability
Ages 16
Added Sep 07, 2019
Added Sep 07, 2019
Paradise of the Blind [a Novel]Paradise of the Blind [a Novel], Book
by Dương, Thu HươngBook - 2002Book, 2002
mayog's rating:
Added Sep 07, 2019
Comment:
Duong Thu Huong takes her reader through a harrowing story of the ways in which revolutionary totalitarianism and communism can tear families and even persons apart. She invites us into the story of Hang, a Vietnamese girl whose parents' marriage is ripped apart by the victory of the communist North Vietnamese. Hang finds herself torn between two competing loyalties: the loyalty of her mother to her brother as family, and the loyalty of her father's sister toward her as the last surviving member of the line.
In the midst of this, we catch a glimpse of the way the revolutionary ideals of the North Vietnamese became tyrannical and repressive, especially to those at the margins of society struggling to make a living: small farmers, street vendors, college students.
In the end, the only hope seems to be leaving behind Vietnam, allegorized as purple flowers growing over a morasse of decay, for other hopeful futures.
Sadly, Huong herself will likely never leave Vietnam, as she has been denied permission to travel despite her multiple awards. A difficult but worthy read.Duong Thu Huong takes her reader through a harrowing story of the ways in which revolutionary totalitarianism and communism can tear families and even persons apart. She invites us into the story of Hang, a Vietnamese girl whose parents' marriage is…
Quotations
- And I saw the roof of the shack in Hanoi where my mother lived. Sheet metal patched together with tar paper. On rainy days, the roof leaked. In the heat of summer, the acrid smell of tar was overpowering, nauseating. All around, the gutters, gurgling under slabs of cement, flowed from one house to the next. Children played in this filthy black water, sailing their little white paper boats. The few mangy patches of grass were at the foot of the wall where men drunk on too much beer came to relieve themselves. The place reeked of urine. This was my street. I had grown up here.And I saw the roof of the shack in Hanoi where my mother lived. Sheet metal patched together with tar paper. On rainy days, the roof leaked. In the heat of summer, the acrid smell of tar was overpowering, nauseating. All around, the gutters,…
- The air echoed with the sounds of fury: Drums beat, bugles sounded the charge, mobs shrieked, and guerrilla patroles crisscrossed the roads, bayonets glinting at the tips of their rifles. The guerrillas kept their weapons cocked, threatening, ready to do battle. Their bayonets reflected in the gleam of their eyes as they glared suspiciously at every passerby. NO LANDLORAD WILL SLIP THROUGH OUR NET. That was the new slogan, scrawed in lurid colors across the roads. Whomever they stopped shuddred under the violence of their gaze, this blind hatred that needed no basis, no justification.The air echoed with the sounds of fury: Drums beat, bugles sounded the charge, mobs shrieked, and guerrilla patroles crisscrossed the roads, bayonets glinting at the tips of their rifles. The guerrillas kept their weapons cocked, threatening, ready…
- Outside, on the other side of a black iron grill, was another crowd, just as anxious, just as sweaty and frightened. These were the parents and friends of those departing. They all waited for deliverance. When all the customs procedures had been completed, when the crowd of travelers had passed through the last security booths and were walking toward the tarmac, you could see, on the faces of those left behind, the relief, the joy, the pride of vicarious success. The vision of a happier future elsewhere, anywhere but here. Smiles of contentment, faces radiant with happiness. Nowhere else in the world does separation bear the hideous face of joy. This was a grotesque face, a deviation from all rules of human nature.Outside, on the other side of a black iron grill, was another crowd, just as anxious, just as sweaty and frightened. These were the parents and friends of those departing. They all waited for deliverance. When all the customs procedures had been…
Suitability
Ages 16
Contains Frightening or intense scenes
Touba and the Meaning of NightTouba and the Meaning of Night, Book
by Pārsīʹpūr, ShahrnūshBook - 2008Book, 2008
mayog's rating:
Added Jul 24, 2019
Comment:
Of the books that I've read for this self-imposed challenge this has, so far, been the most challenging because it is set in a mythological universe with which I am mostly unfamiliar. The story, at its face, involves the changes in Persia/Iran from the last days of the Qajar dynasty until just before the Revolution in 1979. It is told from the perspective of Touba, an Iranian woman twice-married who spends most of her life searching for God and meaning in the midst of living the very cloistered life of a traditional, middle-to-upper- class Iranian woman.
Politically, we follow the changes as Iran's elite hope against hope that first Kaiser Wilhelm and then Adolf Hitler will rid the land of the British and Russian. Culturally, we note the changes as Tehran's homes go from having water reservoirs to piped-in water; and the city's roads become paved. We also follow the discussion of whether or not to veil, from the very first pages when Touba wears both chador and face veil to the ending of the book when some women veil and some do not.
But the bulk of the story focuses on Touba herself and her search for wisdom and for God through figures of Iranian nationalism and Sufi mysticism. All the while, she is having to contend with the very real problems of being a woman in a deeply patriarchal society: shame and honor, unwanted pregnancy that leads to honor killing or self-performed abortion, husbands who do not honor her, and children whom she does not understand and cannot control. The characters follow several of the trajectories of Iranians in the 20th century. Some leave for Europe and never return. Some find themselves imprisoned for political dissidence. Some die of famine; or watch their family members die from poverty-related illnesses.'
All of this is relatively easy for a western reader to grasp. Where I find myself lost is in the figures of Gil, Layla and Touba as mythic creatures. This occurs throughout the book, but most prominently at the Parsipur's narration of Touba's death. While the translators chose not to include footnotes, here footnotes would have been supremely helpful.
Touba and the Meaning of Night is considered a classic of post-revolutionary and feminist Iranian literature, and is worth the read. But reading it takes commitment.Of the books that I've read for this self-imposed challenge this has, so far, been the most challenging because it is set in a mythological universe with which I am mostly unfamiliar. The story, at its face, involves the changes in Persia/Iran from…
Quotations
- Haji Adib pressed his lips together in anger. He decided, "Yes, the earth is round. Women think. And soon they shall have no shame." A small cloud covered the sun, a gust picked up some dust and twigs from the ground. "That's the way it is. As soon as they discover they are able to think, they shall raise dust.Haji Adib pressed his lips together in anger. He decided, "Yes, the earth is round. Women think. And soon they shall have no shame." A small cloud covered the sun, a gust picked up some dust and twigs from the ground. "That's the way it is. As soon…
- Touba wished to be alone. She did not actually know what that meant—perhaps it was that she wanted to feel free. She had always felt spiritually alone, but growing up communally and being constantly among others, she had not had the chance to experience true solitude.Touba wished to be alone. She did not actually know what that meant—perhaps it was that she wanted to feel free. She had always felt spiritually alone, but growing up communally and being constantly among others, she had not had the chance to…
- Her female fate was to bend, to become small, to fold; thus people would leave her alone and let her share herself in other ways. Love for her had to be of another kind. This love was a stranger to nighttime restlessness. It had no knowledge of trembling bodies and palpitating hearts. It was directed at reaching out rather than union. It worked according to a strategy that was opposite to that of the human male. Therefore, she could not laugh when she wished. She could not eat when she wished. She needed to draw a circle and put her genie—the evil and fire of her worldy desires—firmly under her control.Her female fate was to bend, to become small, to fold; thus people would leave her alone and let her share herself in other ways. Love for her had to be of another kind. This love was a stranger to nighttime restlessness. It had no knowledge of…
Suitability
Ages 16
Contains Violence, Sexual content
mayog's rating:
Added May 27, 2019
Comment:
You would think a novel set during a time of war and dictatorship would be full of torture and violence. This is not that novel. Instead, this novel, narrated by Eva Luna herself, weaves the tale of those who lived on the margins of that society, mostly out of sight of the very powerful and very rich.
The novel seems to be three separate stories for a long time: one about Eva Luna, one about Huberto Naranjo and one about Rolfe Carlé. Only as the novel reaches its end to these three, and the lives of all the other colorful characters come together in a wonderful way.
Of course, you're never sure, in the end, whether it happened just exactly that way or whether you have been listening, all the while, to one of Eva Luna's fantastic stories. It doesn't matter. Either way, Allende, and Luna herself, sucks you into a world where a transgender woman and a madam can be adopted aunties and a housekeeper an adopted abuela, where a Muslim man can be a savior, and father and even first lover, and where even the most high-placed general can succumb to the power of story. Culture, language, the history of the modern world, and story all combine in this addictive novel.You would think a novel set during a time of war and dictatorship would be full of torture and violence. This is not that novel. Instead, this novel, narrated by Eva Luna herself, weaves the tale of those who lived on the margins of that society,…
Suitability
Ages 14
Contains Violence, Sexual content, Frightening or intense scenes
mayog's rating:
Added May 18, 2019
Comment:
Through the voices of individual characters from a small North Dakota town called Argus, Erdrich weaves a story of a family mixed together between descendants of European settlers and of Native Americans. With two exceptions, the main narrators of this story are women, and indeed, this is a story about mothers and daughters, sisters and cousins and aunts, about generations of women making their way from the era of the Depression to the late 1970s.
The trauma begins early on when the mother of the three Adare children abandons them at a fair for orphans. Quickly separated by the narrator, each begins a trajectory of life colored by that abandonment, a trajectory that affects everyone around them.
Written in the 1980s, around the time that President Reagan has first spoken the word "AIDS" aloud, the novel includes a tragic gay romance. The women characters, for the most part, marry poorly or not at all. But they are drawn as plain, strong, capable women who can fend for themselves. Indeed, the central female character is a butcher for her entire adult life, taking over the business from her aunt and uncle. Another underlying character is the presence, and then the increasing absence, of the Roman Catholic church, a presence that nevertheless affects all three Adare children to a greater or lesser degree.
The ending of the book is a little neat, perhaps a little obvious. But that does not mean the book ends poorly. Indeed, it ends expectantly, with the word "waiting."
This is not poetic fiction, but it is descriptive of the changes of life in Minnesota and North Dakota in the middle to late 20th century, as the area goes from householding to monoculture. It is also descriptive of the kinds of women who do not "fit in," but who nevertheless survive, indeed who are built to survive.
My biggest critique of the book is that race is treated very gingerly, if at all, even though one of the main female characters and her family is Indian. I would have liked Erdrich to consider the implications of this a bit more, but perhaps the fact that she didn't is also a commentary on the upper west.Through the voices of individual characters from a small North Dakota town called Argus, Erdrich weaves a story of a family mixed together between descendants of European settlers and of Native Americans. With two exceptions, the main narrators of…
Suitability
Ages 14
Contains Coarse language, Violence, Sexual content, Frightening or intense scenes
mayog's rating:
Added May 12, 2019
Comment:
I really wanted to like this book. It is written by a woman from my father's island, set on that island at time in the not-very-distant past. Like other books of this era, the story is a coming-of-age story of a girl-turning-woman named Annie John.
Every chapter of the book feels like it could lead to something interesting, something that doesn't just all fade away in the end, but it feels like Kincaid changes her mind and abandons each train of thought just as it gathers up a head of steam.
There are hints throughout of same-sex attraction, on which Annie John never acts. There is the typical adolescent hostility to her mother that is never resolved, right to the end of the book. And in the midst of all of it, nothing of significance happens either to Annie John or to the characters around her. Indeed, if anything, the main character is narcissistic to a fault and none of that changes in the book's denouement, not even after an extended illness.
I found myself utterly underwhelmed by the book and its eponymous protagonist. Indeed, in the end, I wasn't sure what the point was of telling her story at all. Why her story of all of the Caribbean stories one could tell?
I've long heard of this book and was looking forward to reading it. I really wanted to like this book. Sadly, it left me cold.I really wanted to like this book. It is written by a woman from my father's island, set on that island at time in the not-very-distant past. Like other books of this era, the story is a coming-of-age story of a girl-turning-woman named Annie…
Quotations
- “She pinched hard, picking up pieces of my almost nonexistent flesh and twisting it around. At first, I vowed not to cry, but it went on for so long that tears I could not control streamed down my face. I cried so much that my chest began to heave, and then, as if my heaving chest caused her to have some pity on me, she stopped pinching and began to kiss me on the same spots where shortly before I had felt the pain of her pinch. Oh, the sensation was delicious--the combination of pinches and kisses. And so wonderful we found it that, almost every time we met, pinching by her, followed by tears from me, followed by kisses from her were the order of the day. I stopped wondering why all the girls whom I had mistreated and abandoned followed me around with looks of love and adoration on their faces.”“She pinched hard, picking up pieces of my almost nonexistent flesh and twisting it around. At first, I vowed not to cry, but it went on for so long that tears I could not control streamed down my face. I cried so much that my chest began to heave,…
- Out of the corner of one eye, I could see my mother. Out of the corner of the other eye, I could see her shadow on the wall, cast there by the lamplight. It was a big and solid shadow, and it looked so much like my mother that I became frightened. For I could not be sure whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world.”Out of the corner of one eye, I could see my mother. Out of the corner of the other eye, I could see her shadow on the wall, cast there by the lamplight. It was a big and solid shadow, and it looked so much like my mother that I became frightened.…
- “My unhappiness was something deep inside me, and when i closed my eyes i could even see it. it sat somehwere - maybe in my belly, maybe in my heart; i could not exactly tell - and it took the shape of a small black ball, all wrapped up in cobwebs. i would look at it and look at it until i had burned the cobwebs away, and then i would see that the ball was no bigger than a thimble, even though it weighed worlds. at that moment, just when i saw its size and felt its weight, i was beyond feeling sorry for myself, which is to say i was beyond tears. i could only just sit and look at myself, feeling like the oldest person who had ever lived and who had not learned a single thing.”“My unhappiness was something deep inside me, and when i closed my eyes i could even see it. it sat somehwere - maybe in my belly, maybe in my heart; i could not exactly tell - and it took the shape of a small black ball, all wrapped up in cobwebs.…
Suitability
Ages 14
Contains Coarse language, Sexual content
mayog's rating:
Added May 12, 2019
Comment:
I'm reviewing, here, just The Lover, not the entire book.
This disturbing little story, a scant 80 pages, nevertheless won the Prix Goncourt and so I added it to my Fifty-two for Fifty-two list of stories.
The prose, even in translation, transports you, makes you want to stop, think, digest, reread. That, in itself is worth the four stars.
But the story itself describes all sorts of brutalities. In the foreground: the brutality of the affair between the fifteen and a half year old poor white French colonial girl and the twenty-five year old, or so, wealthy Chinese man who takes her as a lover. Or she takes him. That part is unclear. In terms of age, this is statutory rape, and he clearly fears this charge. In terms of society, it is also miscegenation, and he faces racism even from her poor, white French colonial family .
Money and the lack thereof also spins around this story. Is she prostituting herself for money? She cannot be too poor. They have a servant; she lives in a boarding school. But his money attracts her. And yet, at the outset, they cannot be together. Money and race separate them.
The narrator writes as though she has the power in all of this, as though this odd, sometimes quite brutal sexual union is the only place in her life in which she has any power at all. But she also writes of it from a considerable distance, looking back as one who has survived it all and who is coming to terms with the emotion she actually feels for this "lover."
The book is well-worth pondering, but it is not easy.I'm reviewing, here, just The Lover, not the entire book.
This disturbing little story, a scant 80 pages, nevertheless won the Prix Goncourt and so I added it to my Fifty-two for Fifty-two list of stories.
The prose, even in translation,…
Quotations
- “Suddenly, all at once, she knows, knows that he doesn't understand her, that he never will, that he lacks the power to understand such perverseness. And that he can never move fast enough to catch her.”
- Years after the war, after marriages, children, divorces, books, he came to Paris with his wife. He phoned her. It's me. She recognized him at once from the voice. He said, I just wanted to hear your voice. She said, it's me, hello. He was nervous, afraid, as before. His voice suddenly trembled. And with the trembling, suddenly, she heard again the voice of China. He knew she'd begun writing books, he'd heard about it through her mother whom he'd met again in Saigon. And about her younger brother, and he'd been grieved for her. Then he didn't know what to say. And then he told her. Told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he'd love her until death.”Years after the war, after marriages, children, divorces, books, he came to Paris with his wife. He phoned her. It's me. She recognized him at once from the voice. He said, I just wanted to hear your voice. She said, it's me, hello. He was nervous,…
- My brothers never will say a word to him, it's as if he were invisible to them, as if for them he weren't solid enough to be perceived, seen or heard. This is because he adores me, but it's taken for granted I don't love him, that I'm with him for the money, that I can't love him, it's impossible, that he could take any sort of treatment from me and still go on loving me. This is because he's a Chines, because he's not a white man.My brothers never will say a word to him, it's as if he were invisible to them, as if for them he weren't solid enough to be perceived, seen or heard. This is because he adores me, but it's taken for granted I don't love him, that I'm with him for…
Summary:
Poor white French colonial teenager becomes the lover to a rich Chinese man.
Suitability
Ages 17
Contains Violence, Sexual content, Frightening or intense scenes
mayog's rating:
Added Apr 24, 2019
Comment:
Science fiction is not my preferred genre, but as this was a Nebula winner, I gave it a try. The story was more straightforward than most of the books I've read. The characters are perhaps less well developed, and there is little flashback or play with time. This one can be read in one sitting.
At the same time, the second wave feminist influence is palpable. The main character is a strong (white) woman who heals by chemically modifying the venom of snakes. The story is a quest to recover a rare dreamsnake that is killed at the beginning of the novel. Over its course, the novel imagines a world in which sexual orientation is a fact of life, children are trained in how to experience sexual pleasure and not become pregnant when unwanted, and where women and men engage in all kinds of activity including science. There is a bit of a man riding in to the rescue at the end, but not before Snake, the protagonist, proves to be a more than adequate self-rescuing heroine.
A good romp, and worth getting engrossed.Science fiction is not my preferred genre, but as this was a Nebula winner, I gave it a try. The story was more straightforward than most of the books I've read. The characters are perhaps less well developed, and there is little flashback or play…
Quotations
- And then Snake saw the craters, stretching away across the desert below her. The earth was covered with green circular basins. Some, lying in the path of the lava flow, had caught and broken its smooth frozen billows. Others were clearer, great holes gouged in the earth, still distinct after so many years of driving sands. The craters were so large, spread over such a distance, that they could only have one source. Nuclear explosions had blasted them. The war was long over, almost forgotten, for it had destroyed everyone who knew or cared about the reason it had happened.And then Snake saw the craters, stretching away across the desert below her. The earth was covered with green circular basins. Some, lying in the path of the lava flow, had caught and broken its smooth frozen billows. Others were clearer, great…
- ...if he lost consciousness still telling me to do nothing, I'd have to let him die. You say yourself he's rational. I have no right to go against his desires. No matter how stupid and wasteful they are
- Her people, like all the other people on earth, were too self-centered, too introspective. Perhaps that was inevitable, for their isolation was well enforced. But as a result the healers has been too shortsighted; by protecting the dreamsnakes, they had kept them from maturing.Her people, like all the other people on earth, were too self-centered, too introspective. Perhaps that was inevitable, for their isolation was well enforced. But as a result the healers has been too shortsighted; by protecting the dreamsnakes, they…
Suitability
Ages 12
Contains Violence, Sexual content, Frightening or intense scenes
mayog's rating:
Added Apr 24, 2019
Comment:
You would think a novel set around the conflict of '47 in India and Pakistan would be driven by plot and danger, violence and war. But this novel, set in Old Delhi, focuses instead on that which remains steady and the same. This story tells of family, of four siblings and the choices they made. It tells of autism and alcohol-related dementia, of diabetes and secrets, of the choice to marry or never to marry. It also tells of the decision to love, and even to follow, those society deems your enemy. But at the heart of the novel stand old hurts needing to be forgiven, to be brought out and considered in the Clear Light of Day.
Once I settled into Desai's descriptive prose, I found the novel engaging and worth the time. It was, after all, a Booker Prize finalist. If you like evocative, descriptive prose driven less by plot than by observation, this is a wonderful choice.You would think a novel set around the conflict of '47 in India and Pakistan would be driven by plot and danger, violence and war. But this novel, set in Old Delhi, focuses instead on that which remains steady and the same. This story tells of…
Quotations
- Old Delhi does not change. It only decays. My students tell me it is a great cemetery, every house a tomb. Nothing but sleeping graves. Now New Delhi, they say is different. That is where things happen. The way they describe it, it sounds like a nest of fleas. So much happens there, it must be a jumping place. I never go. Baba never goes. And here, here nothing happens at all.Old Delhi does not change. It only decays. My students tell me it is a great cemetery, every house a tomb. Nothing but sleeping graves. Now New Delhi, they say is different. That is where things happen. The way they describe it, it sounds like a…
- Although it was shadowy and dark, Bim could see as well as by the clear light of day that she felt only love and yearning for them all, and if there were hurts, these gashes and wounds in her side that bled, then it was only because her love was imperfect and did not encompass them thoroughly enough, and because it had flaws and inadequacies and did not extend to all equally. ... All these would have to be mended, these rents and tears, and she would have to mend and make her net whole so that it would suffice her in her passage through the ocean.Although it was shadowy and dark, Bim could see as well as by the clear light of day that she felt only love and yearning for them all, and if there were hurts, these gashes and wounds in her side that bled, then it was only because her love was…
- With her inner eye she saw how her own house and its particular history linked and contained her as well as her whole family with all their separate histories and experiences — not binding them within some dead and airless cell but giving them the soil in which to send down their roots, and food to make them grow and spread, reach out to new experiences and new lives, but always drawing from the same soil, the same secret darkness. That soil contained all time, past and future, in it. It was dark with time, rich with time. It was where her deepest self lived, and the deepest selves of her sister and brothers and all those who shared that time with her.With her inner eye she saw how her own house and its particular history linked and contained her as well as her whole family with all their separate histories and experiences — not binding them within some dead and airless cell but giving them the…
Summary:
A family from Old Delhi struggles to come to terms with their memories as they face their final years.
Suitability
Ages 16
Contains Frightening or intense scenes
mayog's rating:
Added Apr 24, 2019
Comment:
This is one of the best books I've ever read. I understand, now, why it is considered a classic of literature. As violent as it is, and it is as violent as was American chattel slavery and the human trafficking that supported it, it is also incredibly complex and at times deeply beautiful.
It raises the question that so many ask: who would you have been, had you lived during the time of slavery? For the African American female protagonist, Dana, and her white husband, Kevin, the question suddenly becomes practical, rather than theoretical, as each gets whisked away to the 19th century for months or, in one case, years at a time. Butler spares her reader none of the brutality of human enslavement: the whippings, the rape, the constant, daily fear of being sold as property.
But what makes this book so deeply perceptive is its meditation on the impact of the slave system on those within it: male and female (the book is decidedly heteronormative), black and white. No character is unsullied by the system. No character escapes being (de)formed by it. And at its core is the fundamental question: at what cost survival? How far is, finally, too far?
If you read no other book by Octavia Butler, read this one. It is not an easy read, but it is absolutely worth it.This is one of the best books I've ever read. I understand, now, why it is considered a classic of literature. As violent as it is, and it is as violent as was American chattel slavery and the human trafficking that supported it, it is also…
Quotations
- That educated didn’t mean smart. He had a point. Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future had helped me to escape. Yet in a few years an illiterate runaway named Harriet Tubman would make nineteen trips into this country and lead three hundred fugitives to freedom.That educated didn’t mean smart. He had a point. Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future had helped me to escape. Yet in a few years an illiterate runaway named Harriet Tubman would make nineteen trips into this country and lead three…
- Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time. This confused me because I felt just about the same mixture of emotions for him myself. I had thought my feelings were complicated because he and I had such a strange relationship. But then, slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships. Only the overseer drew simple, unconflicting emotions of hatred and fear when he appeared briefly. But then, it was part of the overseer’s job to be hated and feared while the master kept his hands clean.Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time. This confused me because I felt just about the same mixture of emotions for him myself. I had thought my feelings were complicated because he and I had such…
- I closed my eyes and saw the children playing their game again. “The ease seemed so frightening.” I said. “Now I see why.” “What?” “The ease. Us, the children ... I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.”
Summary:
A "modern" African American woman (late 20th century) is forcibly drawn back in time to save and protect her white, male progenitor, with traumatic physical and psychological consequences to her, her white husband, and all around her.
Suitability
Ages 14
Contains Violence, Coarse language, Sexual content, Frightening or intense scenes
mayog's rating:
Added Apr 24, 2019
Comment:
This book took me forever to get into, because it is not told in a linear fashion. It jumps back and forth between the childhood history of the main character, Tayo, his current reality, his experiences on the Bataang death march, and the stories of the Laguna Pueblo.
Underlying the novel is a decidedly postcolonial recontextualization of the European colonialization of the Americas as a result of witchery intended on destroying all of creation; and the need for ceremonies to make ourselves whole.
Tayo, a biracial Navajo-European man, suffers from PTSD. The entire novel is the ceremony that makes him, and his world, whole again, bringing back the rains from a period of drought.
I would have preferred more forward female characters that were not mythical (presumably). Still, the novel was worth the work.This book took me forever to get into, because it is not told in a linear fashion. It jumps back and forth between the childhood history of the main character, Tayo, his current reality, his experiences on the Bataang death march, and the stories of…
Quotations
- “I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.”
- They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or whites—most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing.” She laughed softly. “They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don’t have to think about what has happened inside themselves.They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or whites—most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin,…
- He cried the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern, the way all the stories fit together—the old stories, the war stories, their stories—to become the story that was still being told. He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time.He cried the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern, the way all the stories fit together—the old stories, the war stories, their stories—to become the story that was still being told. He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only…
Summary:
Tayo, a WWII veteran, struggles with PTSD and undergoes a Laguna Puebo ceremony to help right himself again.
Suitability
Ages 14
Contains Violence, Sexual content, Frightening or intense scenes
Added Feb 21, 2019
mayog's rating:
Added Feb 21, 2019
Comment:
Heat and Dust is about three female/feminine characters, none of whom do what is excepted of them by white (or Indian, male English society's standards. The first, unnamed in the book but given the moniker Anne in the movie version, is the granddaughter of an Englishman named Douglass who works in India. She returns to India to trace the path of her grandfather's first wife, a woman named Olivia, whom we learn in the very first sentence, "went away with the Nawab." The second of those women is Olivia. The third is India herself. Of the three, India is drawn with the strongest lines, even if those lines can now appear as caricature, forty-four years after the publication of this novel. Moreover, of the three, India is at once the most dangerous, the most patronized (in the negative sense of that word), and the most powerful, as she cannot be stopped, regardless of the defenses characters might put up.
I found myself not particularly drawn to either of the two principle English women in this novel. The connection between Olivia and the Nawab was no surprise; and its inevitability took much of the drama out of their meetings. The interactions between the narrators and the men around her, principally Chid and Inder Lal, both seemed a bit unbelievable and not in the least bit emotionally grounded. The rest of the English characters were drawn as typical colonialists (and Inder Lal as an Anglo Indian). The Indian characters who actually get a voice (most don't) know the game the colonialists are playing and play along. Perhaps the most interesting character is an Indian woman named Maji, but we don't get enough of her for my taste.
I know the book won the Booker Prize, and Jhabvala writes evocatively, which is why she gets three stars, not two. However, I did not find myself drawn into this book and left wondering when the story would actually begin.Heat and Dust is about three female/feminine characters, none of whom do what is excepted of them by white (or Indian, male English society's standards. The first, unnamed in the book but given the moniker Anne in the movie version, is the…
Quotations
- The others, however, told their anecdotes with no moral comment whatsoever, even though they had to recount some hair-raising events. And not only did they keep completely cool, but they even had that little smile of tolerance, of affection, even enjoyment that Olivia was beginning to know well: like good parents, they all loved India whatever mischief she might be up to.”The others, however, told their anecdotes with no moral comment whatsoever, even though they had to recount some hair-raising events. And not only did they keep completely cool, but they even had that little smile of tolerance, of affection, even…
- When Indians sleep, they really do sleep. Neither adults nor children have a regular bed-time -- when they're tired they just drop, fully clothed, on to their beds, or the ground if they have no beds, and don't stir again until the next day begins. All one hears is occasionally someone crying out in their sleep, or a dog -- maybe a jackal -- baying at the moon. I lie awake for hours: with happiness, actually. I have never known such a sense of communion. Lying like this under the open sky there is a feeling of being immersed in space -- though not in empty space, for there are all these people sleeping all around me, the whole town and I am part of it. How different from my often very lonely room in London with only my walls to look at and my books to read.When Indians sleep, they really do sleep. Neither adults nor children have a regular bed-time -- when they're tired they just drop, fully clothed, on to their beds, or the ground if they have no beds, and don't stir again until the next day begins.…
- He who loved India so much, knew her so well, chose to spend the end of his days here! But she always remained for him an opponent, even sometimes an enemy, to be guarded and if necessary fought against from without and, especially, from within: from within one's own being.He who loved India so much, knew her so well, chose to spend the end of his days here! But she always remained for him an opponent, even sometimes an enemy, to be guarded and if necessary fought against from without and, especially, from within:…
- Shortly before the monsoon, the heat becomes very intense. It is said that the more intense it becomes the more abundantly it will draw down the rains, so one wants it to be as hot as can be. And by that time one has accepted it -- not got used to but accepted; and moreover, too worn-out to fight against it, one submits to it and enduresShortly before the monsoon, the heat becomes very intense. It is said that the more intense it becomes the more abundantly it will draw down the rains, so one wants it to be as hot as can be. And by that time one has accepted it -- not got used to…
Suitability
Ages 14
Contains Sexual content
mayog's rating:
Added Feb 21, 2019
Comment:
Phew. This was a tough read... painful and ultimately a bit depressing. The story of Consuela Ramos moves in turn between a utopian second- wave feminist future utopia and the hell of a mental asylum for the poor and indigent.
The utopian imagination was powerful. The problem of pronouns and gender identification was addressed as was parenting with every child having three co-mothers (coms), and a fluid, non-grasping vision of ownership which affected everything from luxury goods to human sexual coupling. Late 20th century society was drawn in stark relief to this.
It would be easy, reading the end of the novel, to despair. After all, the ending does not result in the emancipation of the protagonist. At the same time, the novel proposes that fighting matters, even if you seem to lose. It also raises ethical questions about violence and its appropriate use for self- defense. And, underlying the entire novel is the question: what truly is madness.Phew. This was a tough read... painful and ultimately a bit depressing. The story of Consuela Ramos moves in turn between a utopian second- wave feminist future utopia and the hell of a mental asylum for the poor and indigent.
The utopian…
Quotations
- Suddenly she thought that these men believed feeling itself a disease, something to be cut out like a rotten appendix. Cold, calculating, ambitious, believing themselves rational and superior, they chased the crouching female animal through the brain with a scalpel. From an early age she had been told that what she felt was unreal and didn’t matter. Now they were about to place in her something that would rule her feelings like a thermostatSuddenly she thought that these men believed feeling itself a disease, something to be cut out like a rotten appendix. Cold, calculating, ambitious, believing themselves rational and superior, they chased the crouching female animal through the…
- Whoever owned this place, these cities, whoever owned those glittering glassy office buildings in midtown filled with the purr of money turning over, those refineries over the river in Jersey with their flames licking the air, they gave nothing back. They took and took and left their garbage choking the air, the river, the sea itself. Choking her. A life of garbage. Human garbage. She had had too little of what her body needed and too little of what her soul could imagine. She had been able to do little in the years of her life, and that little had been ill paid or punished. The rest was garbage.Whoever owned this place, these cities, whoever owned those glittering glassy office buildings in midtown filled with the purr of money turning over, those refineries over the river in Jersey with their flames licking the air, they gave nothing…
- Only in us do the dead live. Water flows downhill through us. The sun cools in our bones. We are joined with all living in one singing web of energy. In us live the dead who made us. In us live the children unborn. Breathing each other’s air, drinking each other’s water, eating each other’s flesh, we grow like a tree from the earth.Only in us do the dead live. Water flows downhill through us. The sun cools in our bones. We are joined with all living in one singing web of energy. In us live the dead who made us. In us live the children unborn. Breathing each other’s air,…
Suitability
Ages 14
Contains Violence, Sexual content, Frightening or intense scenes
Comment: