The Black Sheep Dances

2011 Nat'l Book Critics Circle nominees

2012-01-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

From the LA Times Jacket Copy blog at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/01/national-book-critics-circle-announce-awards-finalists.html

"The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its 2011 book awards at a public ceremony on Saturday in New York City. Two Southern California writers are among those up for the awards, which will be presented on March 8 in Manhattan.

"It Calls You Back," an intergenerational tale of life in and out of Los Angeles gangs by Luis Rodriguez, a follow-up to his classic memoir "Always Running," is among the finalists for autobiography. Jonathan Lethem, who holds the Roy E. Disney Chair in Creative Writing at Pomona College, is a finalist for his collection of critical essays, "The Ecstasy of Influence." Another finalist, the novel "Stone Arabia" by Dana Spiotta, is set in the San Fernando Valley.

Awards will be made in six categories: fiction, nonfiction, biography, autobiography, poetry and criticism. For 37 years, the National Book Critics Circle has annually presented awards to books of excellence. Previous winners include Cormac McCarthy, John Updike, John Ashberry, Jennifer Egan, Alex Ross, Roberto Bolano, Susan Sontag, Martin Amis and Junot Diaz.

The 30 2011 NBCC finalists include many who have been previously recognized for their work: two Pulitzer Prize winners, one winner of the Booker Prize, two previously NBCC award winners, and one author who has received the National Humanities Medal. Yet the NBCC board also recognized two debuts: Teju Cole's novel, "Open City," and "Pulphead," a collection of essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan.

L.A. Times book critic David L. Ulin and staff writer Carolyn Kellogg sit on the 24-member board of the National Book Critics Circle.

Fiction

Teju Cole, "Open City"

Jeffrey Eugenides, "The Marriage Plot"

Alan Hollinghurst, "Stranger's Child"

Edith Pearlmam, "Binocular Vision"

Dana Spiotta, "Stone Arabia"

Nonfiction

Amanda Foreman, "A World On Fire"

James Gleick, "The Information"

Adam Hochschild, "To End All Wars"

Maya Jasanoff, "Liberty's Exiles"

John Jeremiah Sullivan, "Pulphead"

Autobio

Diana Ackerman, "One Hundred Names for Love"

Mira Bartok, "Memory Palace"

Luis Rodriguez, "It Calls You Back"

Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, "Harlem is Nowhere"

Deb Olin Unferth, "Revolution"

Biography

Mary Gabriel, "Love and Capital"

John Lewis Gaddis, "George F. Kennan"

Paul Hendrickson, "Hemingway's Boat"

Manning Marable, "Malcolm X"

Ezra Vogel, "Deng Xiaoping"

Criticism

David Bellos, "Is That A Fish In Your Ear"

Geoff Dyer, "Otherwise Known As the Human Condition"

Jonathan Lethem, "The Ecstasy of Influence"

Dubravka Ugresic, "Karaoke Culture"

Ellen Willis, "Out of the Vinyl Deeps"

Poetry

Forrest Gander, " Core Samples..."

Aracelis Girmay, "Kingdom Animalia"

Laura Kasischke, "Space, In Chains"

Yusef Komunyakaa, "The Chameleon Couch"

Bruce Smith, "Devotions"

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo (Norwegian crime)

2012-01-20T00:05:00.000-08:00

Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

I've heard his name over and over, but this was the first Nesbo title I've read. Part of the draw was that it seems like everyone who reads his books raves about the detective Harry Hole, who features in several of the books. I like characters who show up in series. Arkady Renko, Kurt Wallander, Kinsey Milhone, Harry Bosch...all of these become so familar in series form that you can almost know how they think. (I dropped the Javier Falcon series after awhile...just too gory, too ick!)

So, I wasn't disappointed with The Redbreast, if anything, I was a bit surprised at just how complicated the storyline was. Nesbo mixes present day Norway with WWII fighting by Norwegian soldiers, and strings a thread from the fighting to a present day assassination attempt. Stolen identities, a manipulative Secretary of Foreign Affairs, a group of skinhead Neo-Nazis, a rare rifle from South Africa, and departmental battles keep the narrative moving all over the place. There is never a point when the reader can claim "I figured it out!" Okay, maybe Bernadette could, but other than that...no way.

I'm not going to go into a formal review....I picked this up as part of my goof-off time reading and enjoyed it. It's won of ton of awards, and for once I'd think someone could make a movie of this rather than the inevitable Larsson books. Great mystery, great series, good stuff!

Purchased at the Book Exchange in Los Osos, California.

Grip, A Memoir of Fierce Attractions by Nina Hamberg

2012-01-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

"I had to search for my voice. It was hiding."

Yes, memoir. It's important to note that because reading this feels much like a novel. I was turning pages quickly, anxious to see what happened next. Being that it is nonfiction, however, makes it that much more frightening.

While the book is focused on violence committed against one woman, specifically, it raises questions about women and violence in general, especially in regard to victimization. What makes someone a victim? And does that label mark someone forever?

In the book, Hamberg recounts a childhood that isn't all bad. Her parents don't get along, but she seems to have the necessities of life. As she gets older, her parents divorce, and life gets far more complicated. Yet, that in itself is not unusual either. What is unusual is the attitudes that surround her life, especially when she seeks help from those most trusted to her and most responsible for her safety.

The first incident is a Peeping Tom outside her bedroom, rattling the windows. She seeks help from her brother in another room, who ignores her pleas for help. In the morning, footprints are visible. Her sense of security was shaken, and the only question asked of her was "are you going to obsess about this all day"? Not long after, she thought there was an intruder, and the police were called by her mother. They didn't investigate much, just assuming she was jumpy. Even her mother regarded her with "the same kind of tight smile she used when I was six and knocked over a glass of milk at the dinner table."

Shortly after this, Hamberg was attacked by a man in her bed who eventually stabbed her and left. When the police came, they seemed disinterested in investigating the crime--they were sure it was an unhappy boyfriend that was responsible. The perpetrator has never been caught.

What makes the book so riveting isn't that these crimes occurred-we are all exposed to endless reruns of Law & Order that spill the gory details. More interesting is how Hamberg's family dealt with her. Her mother was, for the most part, inconvenienced by her daughter's troubles, and any time they discussed them she either implied that her daughter was imagining things or she would flirt with the police officers who responded. The attack that left Hamberg scarred turned into a situation where the mother made it all about herself and her own distress.

Hamberg then makes a conscious effort from then on out to protect herself, including becoming trained in self-defense. Yet even with her physical power increased and her mind practiced on how to recognize and avoid harm, she discovers that those skills aren't enough. As a film student, she rails against what is essentially a tradition in her classes: exploitation and violence of women as a way to generate interest. Her classmates attempt to outdo each other in horrific scenes, that all are labeled as art so as to avoid censorship.

Even in her personal life, despite her awful experiences and a world-view that is wise to danger, she finds herself in precarious situations. So awful that I didn't want to read any further. I really wanted to put it away, because the nature of evil against women and children is not pleasant. And I did, for a day or two. Yet I picked it back up, because I think there's a more serious question involved that needs to be evaluated. Beyond what happened to her on an event by event basis, what about her emotional anchorage? Where was her family? Why were they so quick to demean her by ignoring her and minimizing events?

As a parent, I had to continue to ask myself, why did no one listen? Is there something I could be doing that is preventing me from hearing what my children are trying to tell me? Especially mothers of daughters: how much active listening takes place? Could it be that our modern lives are so crazy busy and stressful that we tune out anything that could be "bad", just to avoid dealing with it? Or does the violence we see thrown at us on television (Law & Order again) desensitize us to danger that could be present in the real world?

All the questions raised by this book make me think it would be valuable to use in a school setting. In today's fractured families, perhaps there is a need for some sort of curriculum to let young women know that they are not crazy, not imagining things, and that they can reach out for help if others let them down. Most of all, I appreciate that this book gives a former victim a voice: so often perpetrators of violence minimize their actions, or blame someone else (usually the victim), or manipulate the facts to portray themselves differently. In fact, many criminals manage to use the same tactics as Hamberg's family (disinterest and distraction) to get away with terrible crimes.

Seeing Hamberg step away from this pattern and how she did it is the takeaway that could be useful to many women. It's not a formula book, there's no "do this and you'll feel better". But reading how she came through these experiences emotionally stronger makes for powerful reading.

Special thanks to Anna Shay of Route One Press for the Review Copy.

Irish Journal by Heinrich Boll (travel memoir)

2012-01-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

Translated from the German by Leila Vennewitz

At a pub before evening mass, Heinrich Boll observes a shrewish woman harassing and threatening a hungry child that she thinks is using too much vinegar on his chips. By chance Boll notes that "the savior was approaching"...a banged-up brute who pretends to kiss her hand, offers her a ten-shilling note, then interjects, "May I request you, Madam, to regard these ten shillings as sufficient payment for the six drops of vinegar?"

The woman takes the money, embarrassed, and the man left her with one last reminder, "May I moreover remind you that it is time for the evening service? Please convey my respectful regards to the priest."

Oh snap. Such a moment captured is one of the unforgettable scenes in Boll's Irish Journal, a collection of essays he wrote about his visit to the Emerald Isle in the 1950s that comes across much like a love letter to the Irish people. In the event above, he doesn't just leave it at his own observation, he brings it to the reader's consciousness, by making us wonder about the benefactor:

"The man who lives poetry instead of writing it pays ten thousand percent interest. Where was he, the dark, blood-stained drunk, who had had enough string for his jacket but not for his shoes?"

Just outside, in the same scene as above, he depicts the buildings:
"King John's Castle reared grimly out of the darkness, a tourist attraction hemmed in by tenements from the twenties, and the tenements of the twentieth century looked more dilapidated than King John's Castle of the thirteenth; the dim light from the weak bulbs could not compete with the massive shadow of the castle, everything was submerged in sour darkness."

The image he creates mixes characters caught between faith and tradition and modern change, yet still capable of vast generosity in the face of poverty. Anger mixes with empathy, and somehow the way he connects the fight over "vinegar" to the "sour" light makes it contain so much depth. And of course, the bum's reminder to the woman about mass, a dig at her less-than-charitable spirit, shows how Boll could see the irony in the situation.

Many of the images that Boll writes about are not far off from our pop culture image of Ireland, a place romanticized by many as a place of quaint cottages and endless green. (Those of us unfortunate enough to have seen the film, PS I Love You have further embellished that image with scenes of Gerard Butler and Jeffrey Dean Morgan meandering the countryside, spilling charm everywhere. Neither of whom are Irish.) Having come off a semester of Irish Studies, I realize that the reality is far different, yet the timing of Boll's trip and his ability to write about the people of Ireland without delving into the politics make this a lovely read.

In "Skeleton of a Human Habitation", Boll writes of the abandoned village he discovers on a walk with his family. "Everything not made of stone gnawed away by rain, sun, and wind--and time, which patiently trickles over everything; twenty-four great drops of time a day, the acid that eats everything away as imperceptibly as resignation." He describes the village much as a human body, with spine and heart and limbs--he puts the church as the head. He observes that the town has been left alone and not plundered, and how the doorways and walls, while decrepit, still remain. Only his own children, outsiders (the Bolls are German), attempt to raze what they can. It seems that he's making a distinction between the identity of a nation towards its own things, and notes that "this, then, is what a human habitation looks like when it has been left in peace after death." How many places permit this return to the soil? Is it perhaps that the soil feels alive, a dignified presence deserving of respect?

Boll draws attention to generous train conductors that help out when they can't change money, and good-hearted people determined to help without question when they are short on funds. He even describes something quite new to me: the private drinking booth. Inside it's leather curtain, "the drinker locks himself in like a horse; to be alone with whisky and pain, with belief and unbelief; he lowers himself deep below the surface of time, into the caisson of passivity, as long as his money lasts; till he is compelled to float up again to the surface of time, to take part somehow in the weary paddling: meaningless, helpless movements, since every vessel is destined to drift toward the dark waters of the Styx."

Incidental details make Boll's journeys rich, and he describes them in a voice that is simple and clear. I say that because I've been recently reading other German authors, namely Bernhard, Kafka, and Trakl, and at times I feel frustrated by my lack of understanding. At the time I was reading this, Irish Journal, I also read Boll's The Bread of Our Early Years, just to see how different his memoir voice was from his narrative voice. Both are deep reads, full of subtle clues, yet with surprisingly uncluttered prose. Fortunately, Boll wrote a great many titles, and I'm eager to delve into more.

As a side note, I found it interesting that the translator was the same for both books. This led me to discover that Leila Vennewitz was pretty much the only English translator for Bolls, and received numerous awards for her translations. In an interview in 2006, she stated that "she had always wanted to be a translator, she never made a major blunder in her work, she never had much trouble with editors and she preferred to take her time on each project. Vennewitz preferred to view the translator as "the boss," not unlike an orchestra conductor. She never had an agent and she pioneered the ability of translators to gain copyright for their own translations. She maintained she had always followed the early advice of a fellow translator: "Be bold." (BCBW 2007 archive, "Translation")

It should be said that while the essays were written in the 1950s, he did add an Epilogue dated 1967. In this, he does acknowledge more of the political problems that were developing and the change present all over Europe, but seems focused on not taking a political position. He has a bit to say about how the birth control pill will change Ireland, and it struck me as a bit unexpected, maybe naive. Because of his love of all things Irish, especially the children, I wonder if he was heartbroken when some of the little children he so admired died in hunger strikes years later. How pained he must have been.

From this all, of course, Ireland is still number one on my wish-list destination, and Boll's personal biography is the next thing I'm going to hunt for.

Special thanks to Nathan at Melville House for the Review Copy.

"Soundtrack of our Books" - article on coordinating music with literature

2012-01-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

On the Millions website (http://www.themillions.com/), you can find all sorts of book-related discussions and reviews. The following link is particularly intriguing. Sharon Steel wrote about publishers and authors who propose playlists that are directly (or indirectly) related to their characters and books.

What do you think? Would you want your e-reader to pop up with music at certain moments of a scene? Do you want to know what music the author was inspired by? Is music too personally subjective to have presented as part of the 'package'? In my case, I hate it when a book cover shows an actual person; it interferes with how I picture things. Along that line, I don't think I'd want a music tie-in necessarily...and I would especially dislike being pushed to understand a character by listening to their music (I would want that to be the writer's job). Wouldn't it open up a whole new industry, catering to book interpretation, which would then be subject to costing the reader money? Optional, maybe. But required? No way.

Thoughts?

http://www.themillions.com/2012/01/the-soundtrack-of-our-books.html

The Joy of Books video..and why my Kindle can't dance

2012-01-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

Sort of the coolest thing online, IMHO...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SKVcQnyEIT8 This was on Jason Boog's Galleycat blog this morning.

My Kindle can't dance.

Surface Effects in Winter Wind, poetry by Tobi Cogswell

2012-01-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

"Where kisses are given
and kisses received,
the charted course of
coffee and the smell
of jasmine outside
sweet as gold."

---from "This Kitchen"

Real people inhabit the world of Tobi Cogswell's poems in her collection, "Surface Effects in Winter Wind"---they breathe, eat, and sleep in a dreamy reality made beautiful by lovely word choices and unique images. I loved the sense of life that the poems contain. Not always happy life, but a life that is never lived with reluctance.

The most revealing is "Family Portrait," where Cogswell begins with the flat image of a staged family portrait: "They are frozen in time, not like the peeling wallpaper behind them, ticking off the years with nonchalant carelessness." But she doesn't leave it there, in the place where "affection is not present." Instead, she reveals what is happening off-camera and how the family history goes far deeper than the surface picture. They are examined in past, present, and future, revealing that while "they are clean, stiff, poor and worn as the shirts", their future holds a certain stability made apparent in the sauce "always on the stove, the smiles always just out of reach". In just a few verses, she's recreated their legacy and proved to be far more accurate than any superficial portrait could ever display.

The subject of family comes up often in her verses, such as when a generous tip becomes an emblem of "a good kitchen table with smiles, a pinch or two and misbehaving" in "Saturday at the Farmer's Market". This poem journeys from the noisy market to a private room, capturing the sounds that start with a crowd full of noise that decreases incrementally until the last stanza is simply a whisper. She contrasts dandelions with roses, talks of music and avocados, and reveals a core of affection that travels the entire route.

"The Boy at Cannon Beach" is probably my favorite, simply for the images of a foggy California beach, with a sky like a "sodden marshmallow". In it, a solitary boy, lost in thought, explores the beach in that singular way that can never be explained; a stream of consciousness that can be imagined but never shared or understood. He examines "the hands that will save him, his own private clock in his own human time". As he continues, "damp footprints remind him and everyone that we love the best we can and then we're gone". The universal nature of the sea, the way it invites somber reflection and daydreams, seems to contrast with the what we may imagine as immature-the nature of a child-leaving us with a complicated depiction of age and time. And given that the image is one of quiet, it's only afterwards that you realize she never actually uses the words "silence", "quiet", or "alone". It's all inferred, not by synonyms but by images.

The entire collection features a thread of romance that appears as a confident assurance of loyal companionship. A hasty gambler, an angry waitress, and images of bacon make surprising appearances in poems that never feel too precious or aloof, but explored with warmth.

Special thanks to Kindred Spirit Press for the Review Copy.

Sick of the word "awesome"? He is too....

2012-01-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-holland-20120106,0,246046,full.column

A British poet makes an excellent point about the pervasive use of a meaningless word...Los Angeles Times link.

January 2012 Australian Literature Challenge from Reading Matters

2012-01-01T22:21:00.000-08:00

If you haven't signed up for the continuing Eastern European/Russian Reading Challenge for 2012 here, or the amazingly ignored 2012 Mediterranean Review Challenge (also here), shame on you! Get with it! You know you need that push to read more!

Russia is big this year: Book Expo America made it the theme. The Mediterranean region is also full of topical events. Jump in! See the tabs up above for links to enter...

Now, if you'd prefer less committment, Kim at Reading Matters is hosting an Australian Literature Month Reading Challenge for January. Just one month to read one or twenty titles from Australian authors or set in AU. Sign up here: http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/australian-literature-month-2012.html

Best of all, she has these cute little badges to show participation (you can select one or all of them):

I went with the Kookaboora bird...he looks like he's got some serious attitude! Anyway, see the link to read instructions and find out titles you may enjoy. A few that I'd recommend are below:

Murray Bail, Eucalyptus. A quiet, peaceful book about a botanist determined to keep suitors away from his lovely daughter. The games he plays rebuff most men, but she manages to keep amused in her own way. Sweet, lovely, beautiful. Textual Xanax.

Tim Winton (any and all). Cloudstreet is probably his most famous, and appropriately so. Some scenes of pure joy and utter heartbreak, mixed with complicated times and intertwining families. Dirt Music and The Riders are both my favorites too. Breath was so-so. Blueback was preachy. The Turning is an excellent collection of short stories, as is In the Winter Dark and Minimum of Two. (Reviews of these are on the tab above for fiction, if you want more details)

The True Story of the Kelly Gang is a classic, you can't miss with it.

So, get out that new calendar and try to fit in more literature. Your brain will get a break from ugly reality, you'll explore new places, learn some Aussie slang (just don't EVER EVER suggest putting a shrimp on the barbie---Aussies are not amused by Crocodile Dundee impersonators).

Tuck a paperback in your tote, or buy a Kindle and fill it up. Just having it with you increases your reading all the more. Even audiobooks count, so fill up a long commute with an audio book!

30 Under 30-An Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers

2011-12-21T00:05:00.000-08:00

The title alone tells me that I may be too old for this by about a decade, but I jumped into it eagerly. And discovered I'm a lot dumber and decidedly less hip than I had hoped.

Edited by Blake Butler and Lily Hoang

The key is "innovative" and it really delivers on that end...the short stories that make up this collection bend all the rules, if not shattering them entirely. Metaphysical thought mixes with concrete metaphors, and the result feels inspired and youthful, even if it all doesn't make sense. Much of it went over my head, like hearing only the punch line of a joke and nodding amiably but cluelessly while everyone shrieks with laughter.

However, there is some dazzling writing here, and three I specifically want to mention, because they all lie outside the typical expectations about "good writing" may be. For one thing, the iconic story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men gets an experimental twist in "When Robin Hood Fell with An Arrow Through His Heart" by Todd Seabrook. The gang falls apart after Robin's death, not able to even kill themselves with their own arrows, despite trying. "The form starts to go when it hasn't been used," warns Seabrook. Having reached nearly the half-way point in the anthology, I couldn't help but think Seabrook was commenting on the very lack of variety and inventiveness in other forms of writing today, suggesting its "form" has already started to go from lack of innovation.

Joshua Cohen proves himself the master of killer lines in his part of the anthology, with seven short pieces all made visual and distinct with tight and compact wording. "On Location" delivers the line "It is a common problem in our cities today -- When you don't know you're in a movie that you're in." After the unknown director repeatedly coaches the good-natured resident, not an actor, on how he wants the scene played, he finally tells him "Just do what you did. You were so much better before." This idea of playing along with a different reality and having the simple images of role-playing and direction juxtaposed, Cohen has created an amazing sense of truth to an unreal scene in just a few sentences, and concludes with the image of "a woman so vain she wants to look good even for the surveillance cameras."

My favorite of the anthology isn't even narrative; it's a instructional/inspirational piece by Adam Good, entitled "Guided Walks". In this he describes what can be taken from meta-guided walks, and how the randomness of phrases and word blends can create a new direction or seed of thought. With supporting charts as documentation, he shows how reading, walking, or visiting with another person (or all combined) can create a new vocabulary that feels more real and vibrant than one expects. Something along the lines of what Amazon used to call "statistically improbable" phrases that become a signature of a work. Mixing and musing become an exercise in creativity, but giving a starting point for a potential writer rather than an empty prompt.

The entire collection is quirky and bold, but it's in no way childish or immature. From it's elementary-school picture day cover to the variety of ways text is manipulated, the collection offers a valid and respectable perspective of creative writing that is likely hidden from mainstream writing venues. Margins, backgrounds, formatting: all are subject to experimentation, with one entry by Zach Dobson actually looking exactly like a Mead Composition book that he filled in during homeroom. While I admit much of it was outside my realm of imagination, I loved the concept of changing or questioning the status quo of what can be considered creative writing, and making something solid and real that can endure as well something more traditional and mainstream.

The Circle, fiction by Manolis

2011-12-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

This is actually the second time recently that I've read a fiction novel written by someone I'd only known as a poet, and this departure for Manolis proves that a poet's eye may add detail a novelist may initially miss. The Circle is about the lives of many affected after 9/11 and how their actions are changed due to the event. Yet, the narrative takes this outside the typical American perspective and looks at it from the viewpoint of Iraqis whose lives were altered by the bombings and warfare that followed.

Often, the poignant storyline becomes uncomfortable, because it's so different from how our media and Western mindset portrays the events. Introspection seems inevitable, as characters, both from Iraq and the US, behave in ways that the reader has to question. The underlying current of the novel looks at the CIA's involvement in Iraq pre-9/11, and how innocent citizens were affected so dramatically.

Hakim is the protagonist, a student saved from the rubble and now a succesful American businessman. He's a curious sort, because despite his wealth and success, he's categorically unemotional and distant. The author intends for us to examine why that is the case. The most fascinating character to me was that of his similarly wealthy uncle Ibrahim, who adopts him as a son when his parents were killed. Throughout the story, I was debating with myself if Ibrahim was villain or hero, and of course, the answers are never that easy.

One thing that annoyed me a little was that both of the female characters that had significant roles in this novel were incredibly shallow and, shall we say, dumb as paint. Given their own histories, their interaction with political circles, and being eyewitness to some of the horrors, it would seem they'd have more to say, or at least engage in some sort of meaningful interpretation. To describe them as blindingly ignorant is not an exaggeration! After giving it some thought, I suspect that was intentional on the part of Manolis, and a way to subtly assert that many Americans may have a similar thought process when it comes to the more difficult questions and situations in life.

In places, parts of the story are rough going as they demand the reader to consider the future in view of past history, and this can be disturbing to acknowledge. Overall, however, I think this is a viable subject and angle to look at the post-9/11 world and disrupt any prejudices one may unwittingly hold.

Special thanks to Libros Libertad for the Advance Review Copy.

Dahlov Ipcar-two new heirloom children's books-One Horse Farm and Wild Animal Alphabet

2011-12-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

I've raved about Islandport Press before, and fair warning, I'm going to do it again. I found them a few years ago when a now-defunct children's magazine (called Cookie) had a rave review from author Dave Eggers for The Cat at Night, a lovely and unusual children's story book by an unknown-to-me artist, Dahlov Ipcar. I ordered it immediately from an online retailer, and was delighted with the story about what the family cat actually does at night while everyone sleeps. My little guy liked it too, but above the storyline, the art work is tremendous. Ipcar creates an unusual world of colors and shapes that is all the more rare for children's books: this is serious art.

Ipcar uses bold colors in opaque "milk" tones with heavy lines and rough outlines. What's more surprising is the use of black (until recently, practically never seen in children's books). The result is a retro/vintage look that isn't a trend but the life art of an amazing and gifted artist.

So I was excited to get two of her newer titles: One Horse Farm and Wild Animal Alphabet.

One Horse Farm is a simple story with a theme of loyalty that is woven around the childhood life of a boy on a country farm. Daily activities repeat as the child grows up and his perspective on the "small" farm changes. Modern technology comes to the farm and changes things, but the sweet story is that some things can never become obsolete or tossed aside in favor of progress. That the book says all this without being preachy is an art in itself....

The story itself is engaging for a three-year-old and up to understand; younger than that, a toddler would likely love the photos and unique colors. As always, this is a hardcover with pages printed on heavy stock with a quality look to it that makes it a likely heirloom in our family...seriously, there is a difference in quality among publishers of children's books.

The other title was a board book from Ipcar, Wild Animal Alphabet. This is the second Ipcar board book Islandport was produced with Ipcar's work (the previous was Farm Animal Alphabet).
The cover shows the kind of artwork Ipcar is famous for: cute but not overly sweet. Bold colors and lots of interplay with shadows and light make each page interesting, even if it is "just" the alphabet. I enjoy this difference from other children's book styles because when we read 4-5 stories before bed each night, I get really sick of cutesy pastels and pages that are over-saturated with random graphics. Ipcar's work is easy on the eyes, simple, and unique. Am I raving again? Of course! I only wish I could have decorated the baby's room around her artwork.

Special thanks to Melissa Kim of Islandport Press for the review copies.

Disclosure: I loved this publisher and bought their books before I ever reviewed for them!

After reading Barbara's comment, I went to her website...her Ipcar work is stunning so the link is here if you are interested. More heirlooms to collect (an obsession of mine since my only inherited treasures

consist of an icky old Avon bottle and an unfinished quilt)!!!

http://www.shopclassicrug.com/The-Dahlov-Ipcar-Collection-c14/

Call for Cash: year-end fundraisers at Rain Taxi, Three Percent (Open Letter)

2011-12-14T19:09:00.000-08:00

Three Percent - Open Letter is the face of translated literature right now, and as a nonprofit publisher, they could use some $$$$. When planning year-end giving, consider going to the link to contribute to their annual fundraising. They sometimes send out nifty little things like a car air freshener, just to remind you how generous you are!
http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=3759

Additionally, Rain Taxi literary magazine is hosting a series of Ebay auctions to raise money (they're a nonprofit too!). Signed books and other literary stuff is on auction now: http://www.ebay.com/sch/raintaxi/m.html?hash=item3f1145a597&item=270872716695&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&_trksid=p4340.l2562

Copper Canyon Press is also finishing out the year attempting to raise funds at https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/donation.asp. Yep, they're a nonprofit.

Forgetting for a moment books in favor of children, the Jack and Abby Neonatal Foundation is working on getting a $25, 000 grant from Pepsi to provide a guest room for parents of critically-ill babies. The details are at http://www.jackandabby.org/news. Having spent several weeks away from home when my baby was in the NICU, having a place to crash nearby the hospital meant I could be with him at almost all times. The place I stayed was a block from the hospital, the guest room that Pepsi would provide would be right in the hospital! More times for hugs and kisses!

Or, if you are more of an animal lover and would rather help them, consider the Pacific Wildlife Care Center's fundraising drive at http://www.pacificwildlifecare.org/supportus_donations.html. This nonprofit is amazing: they tried to save a poor hawk that was injured near our home. Several volunteers contributed funds and their time to try and get him back on his wings, but he didn't make it. Yet, they tried and many are saved. This last year from Jan through Nov, they treated over 1800 animals on the Central Coast, reintroducing them to the wild as soon as possible.

My Choices, top 2011 reads!

2011-12-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

It's just the first week in December, but everyone's putting up their "best-of" posts so I guess I had better get busy!

This year was really fun for me. Because I've been fairly insistent on maintaining my niche of Eastern European or Russian titles, these have arrived in abundance and there's so many treasures!

Top 7 Fiction ---too many great titles to pare down any more: 5 of 7 were translations!

The Devil's Share by Kris Farmen, McRoy and Blackburn. http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/01/devils-share-by-kris-farmen-literary.html Unusual protagonist, Alaskan wilderness, rapid-fire pace and a plot full of twists with nothing routine in it.

Bandit Love by Massimo Carlotto and Europa Editions: http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/09/bandit-love-by-massimo-carlotto.html Italian crime, goodhearted criminals, and a dry wit that keeps it all moving forward

Frozen Time by Anna Kim, Ariadne Press: http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/05/frozen-time-by-anna-kim-translated.html Heartbreaking vision of the after-effects of the Balkan war, with unbelievable detail and real, flawed characters.

Heaven and Hell by Jon Kalman Steffanson, MacLehose Press
http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2011spring/stefansson.shtml

The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka, MacLehose in UK, will release from Tin House in 2012 in US
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/08/sickness-by-alberto-barrera-tyszka.html

We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/08/we-drowned-by-carsten-jensen-translated.html

Waterline by Ross Raisin, Penguin UK
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/10/waterline-by-ross-raisin.html

Top 5 Poetry 3 of 5 were translations!

Before the Troubadour Exits by Jeffrey Alfier
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/05/before-troubadour-exits-by-jeffrey-c.html

A Fireproof Box by Gleb Shulpyakov, Canarium Books (Russian bilingual)
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/08/fireproof-box-by-gleb-shulpyakov.html

Signs & Wonders by Charles Martin, Johns Hopkins U P
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/04/signs-wonders-poems-by-charles-martin.html

These Hands by Per Aage Brandt, Host Publications (Danish Bilingual)
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/05/these-hands-per-aage-brandt-translated.html

Yannis Ritsos-Poems by Manolis
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/06/yannis-ritsos-poems-translated-by.html

Other categories:

Nonfiction Memoir:

Tramp by Tomas Espedal, The Art of Living a Wild and Poetic Life, Seagull Books
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/06/tramp-or-art-of-living-wild-and-poetic.html translation

Maman's Homesick Pie by Donja Bijan, Algonquin
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/10/mamans-homesick-pie-by-donia-bijan.html

History:

Tashkent, Forging a Soviet City by Paul Stronski U of Pitt Press
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/02/tashkent-forging-soviet-city-by-paul.html

Shadows Walking by Doug Skopp (physician ethics, Holocaust) Technically a fiction novel but enough detail that I'm calling it history.

http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/11/review-shadows-walking-by-doug-skopp.html

Favorite Publishers: too many to list, but MacLehose, U of Pitt, New Directions, Archipelago, and Peirene are lovely to work with....

Favorite literary magazine: Rain Taxi, of course! But the PEN America journal is tied with Words without Borders for most fascinating coverage of unusual authors and themes. World Lit Today and Tin House for their poetry coverage.

Favorite online book coverage: HTML Giant, Galley Cat, and the Los Angeles Times Book Section (what's left of it).

My favorite blogs: Manoflabook.com for Zohar's intense analysis, Bernadette's Reactions to Reading, Lisa Hayden's lisasotherbookshelf.blogspot.com, Mary Whipple's thorough coverage http://marywhipplereviews.com/, Daisy's Aconcise.blogspot.com where she streams through and posts the best lines of current novels, and the blogs for Open Letter, The Millions, and Conversational Reading.

Favorite Classic (Rediscovered): Beowulf. The Seamus Heaney version. It finally makes sense, so maybe I've matured!

Great Russian Short Stories, edited by Paul Negri

2011-12-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

Remember Dover Publications? They run anywhere from $1.50 to $4.00 for a paperback, and I remember depending on them in high school for English assignments. So, while a Penguin or Norton edition looks more elegant, there's nothing like a collection of cheap reads to keep in the car or to collect old classics.

So this title was one I purchased online at Powell's, just to get to know a few of the more obscure Russian authors. This was surprisingly delightful!

It features Dostoevsky's "White Nights", "The District Doctor" by Ivan Turgenev, "Lady with Lap Dog" by Anton Chekhov (my favorite), and the timeless "How Much Land Does a Man Need" by Tolstoy. These are short enough to complete one in a sitting comfortably--I've kept my copy in the car when I wait on someone and when I'm not in the mood to deal with my Kindle (which sadly is way too often!). Gogol's "The Overcoat" is in it as well, and while the stories seem rather simple and harmless, they are actually amazing at analyzing human nature and all the nuances of greed, shame, and embarrassment.

A cheap read, great background for Russian literature, and a great start for year two of the Eastern European Reading Challenge.

Disclosure: I bought this.

Continuing--The Eastern European Reading Challenge 2012

2011-12-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

Due to popular demand, 2012 will continue the Eastern European Reading Challenge from 2011. We've ended up with 72 participants in 22 nations for the 2011 READ EAST.

Since BEA this year will be focused on Russia, it seems only appropriate to continue with the Challenge. Many literary magazines are continuing to focus on Eastern European themes. This month's World Literature Today was focused on modern Russian poetry (!!!!!).

If you've already entered, there's no need to sign up again unless you want to. The previous years entrants are listed on this link; http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2010/12/2011-eastern-european-reading-challenge.html

If you are new to the Challenge, here's the deal:

Leave a comment to this post with your name and your country of residence. You can shoot for 4, 8, or 12 titles. Report back to the links below with links to your own website reviews, or titles you enjoyed and want to share with others.

Regions: Choose titles about or by an author from any of the following regions: Croatia, Ukraine, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Hungary, Belarus, Estonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Rep., Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Romania, Moldova, and Kosovo.

Titles: Can be any genre: crime, poetry, literary fiction, history, historical fiction, memoirs, etc. If possible, try to select titles that are translated works to help support the continuing exposure of Eastern works to Western readers.

Open Letter Books, Archipelago Books, Peirene Press, Melville House, and Ugly Duckling Presse are all small publishers that focus on a wide variety of translated titles of fiction and poetry. Check them out!

Links to reviews of Eastern European or Russian titles are in the comments box here:

http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/01/links-to-your-reviews-of-eastern.html

Suggested titles by participants are here:
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/01/suggest-title-for-eastern-european.

Several new titles have come out since last year's challenge:

Poetry: Into the Snow by Gennady Aygi; On the Border of Snow and Melt by Georgy Ivanov

Literary Fiction: the Penguin series by Kurkov, Dukla by Stasiuk, Wunderkind by Nikolai Grozni

Nonfiction: On the Road to Badabag by Stasiuk, Karaoke Culture by Dubravka Ugresic

Feel free to share details on your own blog and link to this page. On February first, a trivia question regarding Eastern European lit will be posted with a Amazon UK or US gift certificate as prize. It's going to be tough!

Just to be clear, yes...I have two Challenges running this year. Enter either or both! My focus on accepting review copies will again by as closely limited to the Mediterranean and Eastern European regions as possible.

Announcing...the 2012 Mediterranean Reading Challenge!

2011-12-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

This year's Eastern European Reading Challenge hasn't yet ended, but it's time to think of next year's reading challenge. I chose to go with the Mediterranean region because not only is it topical, it's also an area where translated works are flourishing. And it's supposed to be healthier too!

The 2012 Mediterranean Reading Challenge!

So, start planning what level you'd like to try for if you decide to enter. The last two years of reading challenges had over 70 people from more than 20 countries participating.

2012 Mediterranean Reading Challenge Map

The following countries are included: Algeria, Albania, Tunisia, Spain, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Monaco, Slovenia, Crete, Cyprus, and Malta.

Need ideas to start? You can explore at Archipelago Books (archipelagobooks.org), Peirene Press (www.peirenepress.com) or Open Letter (openletterbooks.org) to find translated fiction and poetry, as they are the preeminent publishers of translated works.

Levels:

3-Tourist

6-Explorer

9-Scholar

To enter, leave a comment on this post with your name and home country and reading goal. Another post will be created for you to leave links to your reviews or to post titles you may want to share. To keep things relevant, I'll add occasional news topic posts to the blog that deal with this region and may be of interest to participants. You'll soon find a tab on the home page that will control information for the Mediterranean challenge details. If I'm really ambitious, I may throw in a recipe or two.

Additionally, the Eastern European Reading Challenge is going to continue...there's been enough interest to keep that in play for the next year. You'll find a new post that allows you to enter if you haven't already.

http://www.worldatlas.com/

According to the World Atlas site, the Mediterranean "is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia, and in the south by Africa. This 969,100 sq. mile body of water is approximately 2,300 miles in length, and has a maximum depth of 16,896 ft. Major subdivisions include the Adriatic Sea, Aegean Sea, Balearic Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, Ionian Sea and Ligurian Sea."

For purposes of Spain, the Catalonian region is included. Extra points if you can find works from the islands of Cyprus, Sardinia, Malta, or Sicily!

Some ideas:

A Mind at Peace                                                                   Death in Spring
by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar                                                      by Mercè Rodoreda
translated from the Turkish by Erdag Göknar                          (http://www.openletterbooks.org/)
(http://www.archipelagobooks.org/)

Open Letter Books

White Masks

by Elias Khoury

translated from the Arabic by Maia Tabet
(http://www.archipelagobooks.org/)

grab a button for your
blog....CUT/PASTE

Please join this year's challenge and see if we can discover new regions and cultures, while helping support the efforts of small presses and translators to make global literature accessible to all.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, new Giveaway!

2011-11-21T12:39:00.000-08:00

Algonquin has generously provided me with an extra copy of When She Woke, the latest from Hillary Jordan. This futuristic novel plays on concepts found in Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic, The Scarlet Letter.

So far, everyone I know that has read it says it's amazing! My review will coincide with the week of the giveaway and appear then.

To enter, you must be a blog follower and leave a comment below. PLEASE include contact info (email) in your comment so I can let you know if you win. US only, ends Dec 15, 2011.

Winning! Three giveaway winners listed here!

2011-11-21T10:53:00.000-08:00

Three giveaways have ended, so the winners are listed below. I'm contacting them via email...

Shadows Walking: Bev

Child Wonder: The Dawson Family

11 x 14 Canvas Print : Kristin Lucille!

Show Up, Look Good by Mark Wisniewski (novel)

2011-11-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

"...I'd need to begin and finish before anything worthwhile came of what a woman like me could do with a cheap paintbrush, four signature colors, and a decision to live with nerve."

This decision to live with nerve comes pretty quickly when Michele decides to leave her cheating fiance in Kankakee and move to New York. Specifically, Manhattan. To become an artist. Something she's never done before. Art.

I know! You're thinking, "I know where this one is headed!" Too many Country Mouse, City Mouse stories have made the small-town-girl-goes-to-the-city seem like a sad, predictable genre of its own. Or maybe it was Crocodile Dundee II that did us in. In any case, hearing the basic layout makes one think this young woman is going to end up as a serial killer's victim or a suddenly-discovered genius who ends up in a penthouse with a view, buying Jimmy Choos and designing a fragrance collection. You just know beige leather sofas and clear glass vases of tulips are on their way.

So... you'd be wrong. I was wrong. There is nothing predictable or routine in this story of starting somewhere new and trying to reinvent yourself. (Geez: Just that previous line sounds as corny as the genre!) First off, Michele is smart, and she's not expecting much. She knows everyone back home is expecting her to fail, which propels her to succeed. She's not looking for glamour; she's looking for a parking spot for her crappy Renault. Her time is spent looking for an apartment, then a room, possibly a closet: anywhere to live and remain in the city. That she's willing to bathe her new old lady landlord to instill "trust" shows her desperate need to stay. The city means that much to her.

Making rent money is an issue, and she starts an innovative street business that has something to do with David Letterman. She sells the Renault in a scene where you can't be sure if the perspective buyers want a test drive or just free use of the car. Significantly, she meets an elderly man, an ex-Yankee, who gives her some guidance and life advice although he can't speak.

Between a fire, an audition for Stupid Human Tricks, and a job as a clerk in the world's most disgusting grocery store, she manages to survive. She even survives a side trip to Astoria with a creepy new age couple who seem to be overly helpful--that she considers walking away from them an 'escape' is telling.

It's not all fun, and just when you are reading along and giggling, a transition takes place that smacks you down. Wait! What happened? Could she be the subtle and evil villain known as the 'unreliable narrator'? Things change, and now the story takes on a different aspect. Same people, same places, but with a bit more information. It's not as funny, but that doesn't mean it's diminished. It's manipulative! It makes you reassess what has been happening so far.

"Then there's the reality very few people care to face: unless you have majestic beauty or power, your secrets rarely matter to anyone but yourself." She said this in the beginning, but I didn't catch the ominous tone. With the shift, though, comes even more suspense. Who is Michele? The breathless voice she's used to describe her adventures...was she holding back? What secrets did we need to know?

This is a great read that went too fast. I loved that it didn't play to type and that Michele never becomes that celebrity-wannabe that appears on every other reality show. The only thing I don't understand is, what's so bad about Astoria?

Special thanks to Gival Press for the Advance Review Copy.

The author, Mark Wisniewski, is not just an ace writer; he

writes some of the most amazing poetry you're likely to read!

THREE Giveaways, ending soon! Enter now....

2011-11-14T13:26:00.000-08:00

Just to recap, there are three giveaways going on right now. To enter any or all, leave a comment at each link.

Open to US only, blog followers:

Child Wonder, new paperback by Roy Jacobsen, from Graywolf Press. A translated fiction novel set in Norway. http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/11/child-wonder-giveaway-and-read-east.html ENDS NOV 15, 2011 at 9:00 pm PAC time.

Shadows Walking, new paperback by Doug Skopp, from CreateSpace. Historical fiction circa WWII.
http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/11/theme-week-shadows-walking-by-professor.html ENDS NOV 20, 2011 at 9:00 PM PAC time.

CANVAS PRINT OF YOUR CHOICE (UPLOAD YOUR OWN!), 11 x 14, by EASY CANVAS PRINTS. LIKE them on Facebook and leave a comment to enter. http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/11/canvas-print-giveaway-enter-now-to-win.html Even if you don't win, you can get 50% off and free shipping by liking them on FB and referring to TBSD. ENDS NOV 20, 2011 at 9:00 PM PAC time.

An example of a canvas print from EASY CANVAS PRINTS.

Review: Shadows Walking by Doug Skopp

2011-11-14T12:57:00.000-08:00

...The conclusion of the week devoted to the new novel, Shadows Walking.

"More people thinking everything is stupid or corrupt or evil than people who think things are good. More people hating. Wanting to do someone or something harm. Anti-Semites, Anti-Communists, Anti-Women, Anti-modern art, music...Hating everything and everyone different from them. We're all in trouble if this doesn't stop."

Philipp's prophetic words appear in an early chapter of the book, Shadows Walking, by Douglas Skopp. I've noted already that I think highly of the novel, which is considered historical fiction but based on detailed and thorough study of historical documents from the time period prior to and through the Holocaust.

Philipp is a friend of the protagonist, Johann Brenner, and they lead nearly parallel lives as the novel begins just after WWI. Both are medical students, eager to make a positive impact in their community despite the troubled times that Germany is experiencing. Their friendship becomes strained as an underlying current in their social class begins blaming the Jews for the problems.

Thus begins a study, not so much of the Holocaust exactly, but more precisely a study of the how studies in eugenics and the desire to rid Germany of "undesirables" was used to justify the killing of millions. Author Skopp analyzes how both men felt about eugenics and how it conflicted with their code as physicians. In Brenner's case, it becomes a question of status. As a trained physician he feels that he's due more distinction in his life, while Philipp as a Jew faces questions about how his beliefs in ending unnecessary suffering are twisted into a vindication of the evil the Nazi's perpetrate.

"Johann felt unable to dissect Hitler's categorical statements, to think of opposing arguments, to consider the implications of what he was reading. He had never been taught to think critically, to ask why and how an author might be trying to grab his mind and shape his convictions. His whole generation had assumed that if a statement appeared on the printed page, it must be true."

The novel is grim, but it displays significant restraint in not trying to exploit the subject for gratuitous horror. Two features especially stood out to me as noteworthy. One was that it provides especially detailed insight in the period between WWI and WWII and the context of pre-Holocaust years. Few books go back that far to find the links; they only start with WWII. I can only think of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief as one that lays the groundwork for the events, and even it doesn't go back as far as this novel. To me, this information was both new and critical to understanding how people were manipulated so thoroughly.

The other key to this novel is the rendering of the character of Johann Brenner. While we know from the start he's a villain (for lack of a better word), the story goes backward to explain how he came to that end. He's never a sympathetic character; as a reader there's never a point where he is especially appealing. Yet, rather than portray him as a stereotypical mad scientist, the novel proceeds to show how his flawed reasoning came to be. Additionally, a sense of suspense and tension is created because he's hanging around the Nuremberg Trials, incognito, while his peers are being tried for war crimes. As a reader, I wanted to know why.

Special thanks to CreateSpace for the Advance Review Copy.

Thanks too, to author Doug Skopp for his input this week.

To enter to win a copy of the book, leave a comment below. US only, ends Nov 20.

Tomorrow, a lighter side of reading will appear, with a review of the new book,

Show Up, Look Good.

Conclusion: Author Interview--Doug Skopp "Shadows Walking" and the Nuremberg Trials

2011-11-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

....the last of a series of a questions I was able to ask Doug Skopp, author of Shadows Walking.

Enter to win a copy by leaving a comment on any of this weeks' posts or at

http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/11/theme-week-shadows-walking-by-professor.html

Amy: Could you explain how the Nuremberg Trials ended and the long-term impact of their judgment?

Doug: There were many trials at Nuremberg. The one most people know about is the first one, the International Military Tribunal, which focused on the highest ranking or most influential, captured Nazis, most notably, Hermann Goering (and on one Nazi, Martin Bormann, head of the Chancellery and Hitler’s private secretary, tried in absentia.) My novel refers to this trial, but I am most interested in the “Doctors’ Trial,” the first of twelve more trials at Nuremberg against significant Nazis or supporters. Allow me, please, to summarize the little essay on this trial that I have written on my website, www.shadowswalking.com

The “Doctors’ Trial” was officially called the United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al. Karl Brandt, an actual character in my novel, was the highest ranking medical officer captured by the Allies at the end of the war and brought to trial; therefore, his name precedes all the other defendants in this trial.

Twenty-two men and one woman were indicted on October 25, 1946: twenty, including the one female, were physicians; the other three were Nazi officers involved in some aspect of medical administration. All twenty-three were accused of being significantly involved with Nazi initiatives to kill those held to be “living lives not worth living” and for experiments on human beings. The trial opened on December 9, 1946 and concluded on August 20, 1947. The defendants were charged with “conspiracy to commit war crimes” and with “crimes against humanity,” which meant plans for mass murder in phases of the “euthanasia” programs, and for medical experimentation on prisoners and civilians without their consent. The Tribunal determined that the charge of “conspiracy to commit war crimes” was “beyond its jurisdiction” but found incontrovertible evidence linking the defendants found guilty to “crimes against humanity.” Many were also charged with membership in the SS, a criminal organization. Of the twenty-three defendants, seven, including Brandt, were sentenced to death, and hanged on June 2, 1948. Seven more were acquitted of all changes. The remaining nine received prison sentences of ten years to life; but none—eight men and the one woman defendant—served the full term of his or her sentence. Excerpts from the transcript of the Doctors’ Trial can be found through the link provided by the University of Missouri-Kansas City at

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/NurembergDoctorTrial.html.

The most important result of the Doctor’s Trial is the Nuremberg Code, which establishes a foundation for an ethical research protocol involving human beings. Elements of the Nuremberg Code first were articulated by Dr. Leo Alexander, a prominent psychiatrist and medical educator who had emigrated to the United States from Austria in 1933. His six principles, plus four more added by the judges at Nuremberg, are now widely recognized as a standard in the United States and beyond. The first principle is “voluntary consent of the human subject, based upon his or her full freedom of choice and awareness of the nature, extent, purpose and duration of the experiment, as well as any hazards and effects it might cause to the subject’s health; obtaining this consent is the duty of the experimenter.” The Nuremberg Code provides an anchor for all subsequent medical ethics. Its wisdom, if followed, should prevent such atrocities from occurring again—but we already know that they did occur after it was established, and that it is entirely possible that they will continue to occur, given the high stakes of prestige and material gain that dangle above unprincipled medical researchers and those who encourage them. (To see the other Nuremberg Code principles and sources for further reading, please go to my essay on “Nazi doctors” on www.shadowswalking.com website.)

Amy: Do you see any parallels between post-1989 Eastern Europe racial wars/genocide and the Holocaust?

Doug: Unfortunately, wars and genocides all now resemble each other in that they seek total commitment from the combating societies. As a result, governments and radical groups generate propaganda and develop ideologies that deliberately undermine rational thinking. We are encouraged to think in terms of “us” versus “them.” To suspect “the other,” whoever the “other du jour” may be. To simply stereotype the enemy as the devil incarnate and set in motion the instruments of his destruction. Modern instruments of destruction are particularly brutal, as in Bosnia and in Eastern Europe. But machetes achieved the same end in Rwanda. We are a violent species. Our propensity for violence is evident now in the hostility in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians and their supporters, and in the conflicts between the Sunni and the Shias. Biological, chemical and nuclear weaponry makes such confrontations all the more fearful. Until we learn how to see every human being as a reflection of ourselves, we are destined, I fear, to see more genocides.

Amy: Finally, was it difficult to write such a complicated protagonist as Brenner without resorting to stereotype?

Doug: Yes, I didn’t just want to write a simplistic story of a “bad guy,” like a GI-Joe comic book or a caricature like “Hogan’s Heroes.” It was painfully difficult to write about someone like Brenner—far more difficult than I ever imagined. The worst part was having to “become” Brenner, in the same way any author must enter into the persona that he or she is trying to describe and make real for the reader. From 1990 until 2006, when I retired, I only allowed myself to write on the novel during summer vacations. Each summer, I forced myself to begin by re-reading portions of the transcripts of the Nuremberg Trials, and each time I did, I experienced anew the horror of what happened because of Nazi brutality. It took me nine years before I could actually write the first sentence which describes Brenner’s initial vicious act. I remember weeping after I wrote it.

But then I began to experience another kind of problem. The deeper Brenner got into his Nazi mentality, the more I began to mirror his attitude towards his victims. I found that I, too, was becoming indifferent. Each time I felt this, I returned to my copies of archival materials and to the trial transcripts, in order to remind myself that I was not Brenner. I must tell you, I didn’t enjoy writing Shadows Walking whatsoever. I know it is not an enjoyable book. It was painful to write, and it is painful to read. I tried to not let my writing affect my health and outlook on life, but I can’t be sure that it didn’t. As much as possible, I tried to keep the brutality and violence in the story to a minimum; to keep it off-stage, so to speak—but since it is about Nazi atrocities, I did not know how to leave that all unsaid. In short, I didn’t write this novel to entertain anyone, least of all to provide a voyeur what has been called the “pornography” of violence. I wrote Shadows Walking out of my deep conviction that we must try to understand what each of us is capable of doing. Learning that about myself was indeed painful, especially given my Jewish heritage. I can only hope that it is worthwhile for others to learn, too.

Special thanks again to Professor Skopp for his help in providing this week's backstory to the novel Shadows Walking and his insight on the Holocaust and keeping the topic relevant in our forgetful society.

To lighten things up quite a bit, stay tuned for a review next week of Show Up, Look Good by Mark Wisniewski, possibly the most amusing book I've read this year....

Author Interview Pt. 1: Doug Skopp, Background to Shadows Walking

2011-11-11T18:02:00.000-08:00

Doug Skopp, author of Shadows Walking, has generously provided an intensive focus this week for TBSD regarding the Holocaust. I felt his book brought up issues worthwhile to consider, which is why I've devoted so much time to it. I had a few additional questions that he's answered below, which I'll continue with tomorrow.

Amy: When WWI devastated most of Europe, most of the nations were impoverished and confused. Your book depicts the hyperinflation that plagued Germany that created a severe financial crisis. Given that other nations were in a similar position, why was Hitler so successful in Germany? Was it the situation that created the monster or could a similar dictator have risen up in another part of Europe? Why him, and why Germany?

Doug: Before I answer these and the other powerful and challenging questions below, if anyone is interested, my novel’s website— www.shadowswalking.com —has six thematic bibliographies listing works in English about these topics. There I also provide links to seventy little essays I have written about the actual persons, places, incidents and circumstances (e.g., Hitler, Versailles Peace Treaty, hyper-inflation, etc.) around which Shadows Walking is woven. Please go to the website and click on ‘Further Reading,’ then scroll down to the bibliographies and below that, to the alphabetical listing of the little essays.

Now, to the first group of questions. World War I was a “total war.” It demanded every speck of material from a war-time economy and enormous sacrifice for all the warring nations. As a result, everyone in those nations, both those in uniform and all civilians behind the lines, was at war. Even before the war ended in 1918, economic crises became evident. The weakest state—Imperial Russia—dissolved into a civil war in 1917 that lasted until 1923, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks solidified their power. Imperial Germany held out as long as it could but finally had to agree to an armistice in November 1918. It teetered on the brink of revolution until 1920, when a new government, the Weimar Republic—Germany’s first democracy, based on a remarkably progressive constitution—was formed.

The victorious Allies were not much better off. They held Germany responsible for all their losses in men and material, and were determined to make a vindictive peace. The reparations payments they demanded would have indebted Germany to them for generations. When Italy wasn’t able to negotiate what it thought was its fair share at the peace table, it disintegrated into fascism, with Mussolini in control of the government in 1922—another victim of the costs of the war.

At first, the new German government refused to pay, leading the French and Belgians to occupy Germany’s coal mining region and attempt to extract coal as payment for some of their losses. Britain attempted to reconcile with Germany, fearing a communist revolution there and a continent that would be dominated by France. Finally, the German government began to pay by printing money—staggering sums of money. This lead to hyper-inflation—one German mark was eventually worth about a billionth of its pre-war value; it was cheaper to burn the paper for fuel than to try to buy anything with it. As a result, Germany’s payments to its war widows and orphans, its public servants and others on fixed incomes and pensioners were rendered meaningless. Those with savings, large sections of the working and middle-classes, were ruined. Revolution was a real possibility.

By 1923, Hitler and his supporters tried to overthrow the Weimar Republic, accusing it of spinelessness, and imagining conspiracies dominated by “the Jews” who either sought a communist revolution or who profited from the economic crisis. Wherever Hitler pointed, he saw “the Jews”. His Putsch failed. He was brought to trial for treason and sentenced to five years in prison. He served only nine months, during which he wrote Mein Kampf, and was released for good conduct. Meanwhile, in 1924, the United States agreed to subsidize the German government, which could now afford to pay the reparations payments to Britain, France and Belgium, which in turn could re-pay the United States for the money we had loaned them in the war. This stimulated post-war recovery. For five years, the 1920's roared along to new prosperity.

The Great Depression ended this euphoria. The stock market crash reverberated across Europe. Banks failed. Unemployment soared. Revolution again seemed likely. Especially in Germany. Hitler’s Nazi Party had lost leverage between 1924 and 1929, even though he profited from the national attention he received in his trial and became independently wealthy because of the sales of Mein Kampf. In 1929, the Party’s fortunes rose dramatically. From then until October 1932, the Nazi Party gained in seats in the Reichstag, the national assembly. But then they lost votes to the rival socialist and communist parties. Conservatives in the government feared a revolution from the left; they invited Hitler in to be chancellor, overcoming whatever distaste they had for his politics and appreciating his nationalistic fervor. When the Reichstag building is set on fire a month later, Hitler declares a national emergency, blames the socialists and communists, sends them to the first concentration camp built specifically for this purpose, and begins the systematic destruction of any opposition to his dictatorship.

Could this situation have happened anywhere else? Yes, I think so. It all hinges for me on the vindictive peace treaty, itself the product of the merciless viciousness of the war. The Allies wanted to punish Germany. If any other nation had lost, a fascist dictator might have come to power there (as was the case in Italy, and after 1936, in Spain). Fascism was an understandable strategy to deal with economic chaos and possible communist revolution. It was supported by capitalists, conservatives, and religious leaders who feared the alternative. A few warned at the time that a harsh peace, unless it could be enforced, would produce a monstrous tyranny in reaction. But the monstrous tyranny that most feared throughout the capitalistic, nationalistic world at the time was Bolshevism, not fascism. It turns out, alas, that both of these ‘isms’ allowed those who championed them to display the very worst traits we have as human beings.

Amy: Regarding the medical experimentation: Did these Nazi doctors simply have free reign to do as they wished, or was there scientific methodology they were trying to adhere to? Were there any long-term benefits from their "research" or was the nature of it, as "fruit of the poisonous tree," rendered worthless?

Doug: There were two general research agendas: to determine appropriate strategies to deal with combat conditions, wounds, deprivations, as well as methods to conduct more efficient warfare—chemical and biological weapons, for example; and to advance what was claimed to be scientific understanding of human biology, disease, and heredity. The government provided funding and material support for both of these endeavors. Concentration camp conditions permitted researchers great latitude in pursuing them. In all cases, this research was based on racist ideologies that were justified by Social Darwinism and eugenics. And there was no informed consent from the victims.

Nazi medical research did reach some significant conclusions. Before the war, for example, epidemiologists and laboratory researchers demonstrated the direct link between nicotine and lung cancer, and recognized the influence of specific environmental conditions on other cancers. Unfortunately, this research was discredited after the war, in great part by the tobacco industry, because it was conducted by Nazis in the Third Reich. See Robert N. Proctor, The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).

Obviously, medical research in the concentration camps is highly problematic. Victims were offered little to no accurate information about the treatments they were forced to endure—and even if they were, can we really imagine that they gave genuinely voluntary, informed consent? There is a strong argument that subjecting a human being to such treatments without voluntary, informed consent invalidates the research findings: the prisoner’s lack of autonomy quite possibly affects his or her body’s responses to the treatment. Who’s to say that our mental state doesn’t impact even our most fundamental biological activity? The more we learn about the mind-body connection, the more we realize how important it is.

Just the same, some Nazi research did produce valid information or at least led to further, more responsible research that has become significant. For example, in the field of cryogenics, we have come to understand the importance of lowering body temperature in order to treat specific traumatic conditions or increase success in some surgical settings; and improvements in designing prosthetic limbs can be traced back to some of this research.

In any case, all such research is unethical. It uses human beings as a means to an end, in violation of widely agreed upon, fundamental and responsible religious and ethical principles. The significant question remains: should we now use whatever is valid information that has been learned from such experimentation? Some say, yes, we should, in order that others may now benefit, and so the victims’ sacrifice will not be in vain. Others say, no, we should not, because of the sordid way in which the information was obtained, lest we rationalize that such ends will justify similar means, and in an attempt to honor the victims’ pain and sacrifice. It is a very controversial topic among medical ethicists and philosophers. At the least, discussing it heightens our awareness of potential abuses in medical science and practice.

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You can still enter to win a copy of his book by leaving a comment below, US only, ending Nov 20.

Guest Post: Doug Skopp on "Holocaust Fatigue"

2011-11-09T00:05:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Professor Doug Skopp----

When I was writing Shadows Walking—I think I had finished the ninth draft, sometime in 2006—I tried to find a literary agent who would help me find a publisher. I sent out letters and got back over thirty rejections, most with relatively curt, impersonal replies. One agent, though, sent back a more detailed explanation. Aside from her criticism of my characters’ development and my plot—both entirely valid observations that I hope I have dealt with—she wrote, “Nazi atrocities are passé.” Needless to say, I was stunned.

Aside from the fact that she turns out to have been wrong, based on the recent spate of successful books, films and plays on themes related to aspects of the Nazi regime’s rise and fall, what could she have meant? There were several possibilities, but each raised its own problem. Worst would have been that she thought Nazi atrocities were make-believe? As an historian who has spent uncountable hours in German archives looking at original documents, trying to unravel the labyrinthine dimensions of Hitlerism, and reading in the vast scholarship by dozens of responsible historians who have come to some understanding of the beast, to say nothing of my conversations, going back to 1960, when I first went to Germany, with men and women who were in a position to know what happened to them and to those who were, as a result of the regime’s predations, forever silent, I knew without question that a deliberate, state-sponsored genocide had happened. Arguments to the contrary are absurd. “Holocaust denial” is a centerpiece in the agenda of the age-old hatred we know as anti-Semitism.

If the Nazi state had only targeted one child—no matter what its ethnicity, nationality, gender, physical or mental abilities—it would have been a monstrous crime; adding up the Nazis’ victims to total this or that many millions does not make the genocide perpetrated on any of them proportionately worse. As John Donne wrote five hundred years ago, “Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind…” And some fourteen hundred years before Donne, we read in the Mishnah, the codification and explication of the ancient Hebrews’ oral tradition, that “anyone who destroys one soul…is reckoned by Scripture as if he destroyed the whole world; and anyone who saves one soul…is reckoned by Scripture as if he had saved the whole world….”

Perhaps the literary agent meant that the Holocaust was over-emphasized as a calamity? That other, more recent genocides deserved to be studied and publicized at least as much, or more, since that bloodshed is still fresh? I agree, the Holocaust was not the first genocide—and certainly not the last. As a teacher, I tried to tell my students that every page of our history helps us understand who we are and what we could be. It’s hard for me to imagine that we would not want to know all we can about what we have come to call the Holocaust, or about any such chapter in human history, especially the most recent ones.

I finally decided the literary agent thought that we were becoming dulled and made indifferent through “over-exposure” in the media and in our schools to Nazi atrocities. In education, this is what has come to be called “Holocaust fatigue.” You’ll instantly get well over one-million “hits” if you “google” the term. I can understand that an obsession with anything can be counter-productive. But how much attention is “too much”? Or to put the question differently, is there such thing as being “over-exposed” to the truth?

In March 2008, the German Foreign Ministry issued a report about “Holocaust fatigue.” Dr. Benedikt Haller, a ministry official, described the efforts in Germany to integrate a more detailed study of the Holocaust into the public schools than was earlier the case. At work were a newer generation of teachers, a more engaged and aware student population—thanks to easy access to more information than had ever been available before—and a more methodical approach to the teaching Germany’s history in the twentieth century. He feared that instead of promoting greater sensitivities, so much energy and effort expended on learning about the Holocaust was becoming counter-productive and leading to indifference.

In the United States, too, there is a wide-spread determination to teach more details about the Nazi regime and all its activities, driven in part by mandated curricular reforms, in part by the need to provide guidance to youth who can so easily gain access to misinformation. Depending on how this teaching is done, there might well be “Holocaust fatigue”—or at least an overload that can lead to complacency.

I know many teachers and have taught many students who have entered the profession. I have read widely in the textbooks that are being used, here and in Germany; in fact, I have helped to write chapters on recent European history, including the Holocaust, and/or served as an editorial consultant “on European history” for nine textbooks currently in use in the United States. In my judgment, if there is a problem, it is in the burdens we have placed upon teaching as a profession, not in the topic we are asking teachers to teach.

Our schools are painfully vulnerable to fluctuations in the economy. They subject to political pressures that have little to do with sound educational practices. Teachers just the same are asked to perform miracles: deal with large numbers of unevenly, often inadequately prepared students; help them resist or avoid the temptations of our distracting, pixilated world; deal with peer pressure pumped at them in an unprecedented way through social networking technologies; be focused under time constraints on subject matter that requires patience and skills—especially reading and writing skills—to interpret and comprehend it ; and, through it all, be of good cheer. If our students are fatigued, our teachers are, too—and not just in trying to make sense about the Holocaust.

Nuremberg Trials

It need not be this way, of course. There are proven strategies to avoid student boredom and teacher burn-out in teaching the Holocaust, or any historical topic. Making a good-faith effort to engage each student, based on his or her unique capacities—to become an active partner in the learning process—is, of course, the most important one. This means helping students imagine how life was in a different era, finding ways to help them tell stories about it, to make it a personal, fulfilling vision of what was, and why it was what it was. It means opening the student’s mind to raising questions that he or she wants to answer, rather than force-feeding answers to questions the student has no interest in exploring. It means acknowledging that names, dates and statistics are definitely not what history is about; instead, affirming that history is about real human beings, about all of us. It means that we must offer our students an opportunity to understand the context of the ideas we hope they will explore. We must be prepared to help them understand why perpetrators wanted to do what they did, and why victims behaved the way they did in the face of their tormentors. And we must be clear in what we expect to achieve in our teaching. In the case of the Nazi genocide, for example, I would want to help my students realize the consequences of choices and attitudes that foster arrogance and hatred. Then I would try to help them cultivate and express their compassion and empathy. A tall order for any teacher with any age-level of student. But the consequences of not doing all we could do in this cause, I believe, are terrifying.

Let me conclude with an excerpt from an unsolicited letter that I received from a 10th grade student who read Shadows Walking over the summer; I find it remarkable for the sensitivity and thoughtfulness it conveys (and I readily admit to envying this young woman’s writing skills). She writes,

“Thanks to the efforts of many who, like you, worked to keep the past in memory, the Holocaust is taught in school as part of the regular curriculum. I know that it has not always been this way, that some feel that history class should focus more on American victories than on such morbid subjects. Nonetheless, my classmates and I have studied the numbers, the statistics of the Holocaust. We have been taught the vocabulary, and have regarded the maps of German trains running from cities to concentration camps. But I could never understand the How. I envisioned Germany in the 1930’s as being full of skinhead-personalities: pre-occupied with war, and with questionable intelligence and no grasp of logic. How they managed to get control of an entire country, I could never figure out.

“Shadows Walking—leading me through the experiences of two men whose lives were eaten by the Holocaust—is the only thing that helped me understand, and reached me like no textbook ever could. I could too easily put myself in the shoes of every character, and see why they did what they did…. For the first time I see how a young person, just like me in every way except one, could see sense in such insanity. If I had not been raised in a culture valuing compassion and equality, I could have been one of the surly, mutilating nurses of the concentration camps.

“Your novel is in the genre of historical fiction. If I had never heard of the Holocaust, I would think it a ridiculous futuristic dystopia. I would have believed—I would still rather believe that you had made this all up. I would rather believe that the Nazis were not men but mannish machines. But I know that this happened in a country just like this one. That is why this book read like a horror story—not only because of the depraved individuals and inconceivable tortures, but because of the ominous message I found throughout the book. I don't know if you meant to write this between the lines, but your novel impressed it upon me deeply that this can happen again. That the Holocaust did not die, but is lying dormant in our society, in any and every society.

“With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, I am reminded less of that day than its effect on the world. Any person who looks vaguely Middle-Eastern is viewed with suspicion by many Americans. An anti-Middle-East and anti-Islam ideology has seeped far into our culture. Your novel has shown me that the ground is already laid for another movement powered by hate and racism. Though I do not think that anything of the magnitude of the Holocaust could happen today, now, I am uneasy. We speak of the Holocaust as if it is in the past, but the world is always changing. I wish I could be sure that my children, and grandchildren, and all of my descendants will never have to witness the horror you've written about, or feel like they are facing frontwards in a backwards society.”

I wrote Shadows Walking hoping for just such a response. Just imagine my joy in receiving this letter! I am deeply honored by this student’s—and by your—attention to my work. And I hope, like her, that you will find it worthwhile.

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The ongoing giveaway for a copy of this novel is currently on through Nov 20, 2011. Leave comment to enter. US only please.

Guest Post: Doug Skopp "Why I Wrote Shadows Walking"

2011-11-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

By Professor Doug Skopp

I am—rather, I was, before I retired in 2006—a teacher of history. The hardest part of my job was convincing my students that history can be fascinating, indeed exhilarating. For those who are willing to really look into the past—to realize it, that is, literally, to make it real—studying history is empowering and humbling at the same time.

I tried to teach my students that the past is done, irretrievable except through the stories we tell about it. It is not what happened, but what historians say happened that constitutes our understanding of history, of the past. This telling of stories about the past can awaken us, frighten us, empower us, energize us; cause us to tremble, weep, worry, and rejoice. At the least, if we look into the mirror of the past as closely as we can, if we honestly try to see who we were and who or what we might have become instead, given the revelations and dangers that are evident on every page of our history books, we can become empowered for the opportunities we have. Just as important if not more so, we can begin to find humility and compassion in the responsibilities we bear. Given the precariousness of our lives and the obvious dangers that are too real in lives of our children and grandchildren, it is more imperative than ever that we learn who we were, in order to prepare ourselves for who we might (again) become.

On April 14, 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke a warning in a “fireside chat” that was insightful then and still relevant now: “Democracy has disappeared in several great nations,” he said, “not because the people of those nations dislike democracy, but because they have grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness…. Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat.”

One of the nations where democracy disappeared was Germany. Until Hitler came to power, Germany represented the epitome of Western Civilization: brilliant, profound philosophers; inspiring, unequaled composers and authors; astounding insights in science, especially medical science; technological geniuses—all these and more were justifiably celebrated in their native Germany and throughout the world. Within the space of a few years, this legacy was betrayed by Nazism and replaced by unspeakable tyranny and atrocities. The perpetrators of Nazi ideology were highly educated. What went wrong? All of my scholarly research was directed at learning more about this question. I needed to try to understand how this had happened. And I wanted my students to join me in asking ourselves how it could have happened there, and what would prevent it from happening here.

I was fortunate to receive a Senior Fulbright Scholar/Teacher Award that allowed me to spend the 1985-1986 academic year in Germany as a guest professor at a university and to have time to research medical ethics and practices in Germany from 1880-1945. I envisioned a scholarly work detailing and analyzing this history. Before I could complete my research and produce a manuscript, however, several other excellent studies were published. All of them, I now see, are superior to anything I could have produced. And thanks to them, we know an incredible amount about the administration and practices of Nazi medicine, about its perverse experimentation on unwilling human beings, and about the sufferings of its victims. We especially know a great deal about the monstrous personalities and the highest ranking physicians and medical administrators who shaped the Nazis’ cruelties toward their victims.

Just the same, all of these studies, despite their merits, to my mind did not adequately explore the why or the how that a typical, well-intentioned, thoughtful, even idealistic young physician could decide to become a Nazi. How could such a person do what we know Nazi doctors did? What could lead a person, especially a person whose career is supposed to be one anchored on compassion, to choose this path? What would happen, I asked, if he came to realize what he had done? (Most Nazi doctors did not realize the extent of their crimes.) How would he try to explain himself? (Most would have shirked blame.) And what should happen to him, once he did? (Most died in their beds, having resumed their practices; some even achieved prominence and praise.)

Nuremberg Trial Defendants, from Jewishvirtuallibrary.org

The problem was, “ordinary” Nazi doctors did not leave a conspicuous paper trail. I began to imagine one’s life, a composite of the fragments of some actual careers I could trace. I wrote a “biography” of this imagined Nazi doctor. I put him into the context of the events he most likely would have experienced—the pre-World War I era of his childhood; World War I and the disappointment at Germany’s defeat; the hated, punitive Versailles Peace Treaty that demanded unimaginable reparations from Germany; the ensuing economic crises, especially the Great Depression; the euphoria in thinking that Adolf Hitler would solve all Germany’s problems. I knew that my typical Nazi physician would certainly be a strong nationalist throughout these events, rather than an internationalist, a socialist or a communist.

As the unavoidable backdrop to these events and the sentiments they evoked, I knew that my typical Nazi physician would have imbibed at least some of the pervasive, long-standing animosity toward Jews and the unspeakable racism that authenticated it. Anti-Semitism was by no means unique to Germany, or even at its zenith there; on the contrary, it was in minds and hearts wherever the sun shone down, in Europe, the Americas, even in places where there were hardly any Jews, such as Asia. Another, related ingredient in the values of those times was the sexism that held women in contempt; even while lip-service was given to them as mothers, they were seen as unfit and needed to be protected from the realities of a world they could not possibly understand or change.

My story would have to include the wide-spread enthusiasm for medical science as taught in all the major universities of the day. Leading the way was German medical science. It promised itself that it would eliminate all human ailments and cure every disease. Medical science at the time was animated in great part by eugenics—the pseudo- scientific belief that human health—some even argued, the survival of our species—depended upon having the will to cull and terminate those whose “lives were not worth living” and the “useless eaters.” At the same time, and more reasonably, there was enthusiasm for fresh air, good nutrition, exercise, and public hygiene as a way to transform the human race into noble specimens more like gods and goddesses than men and women.

By 1990, I had sketched out a version of Shadows Walking. I gave my typical physician, Johann Brenner, a family, friends, associates, and ultimately, victims. I created a plot. I invented a disguise for Brenner once he survived the war. I began to write my novel.

Over the next twenty years, I wrote fourteen drafts of my novel. I had six working titles and nine possible endings. I published it myself, not being willing to risk never seeing it on the shelf. I know it can be better. I wish I had included other characters, for one. I wish I were a more succinct writer. (The length of this piece shows I’m not.)

My students always came to life and had better insights when we were reading fiction from or about the era we were studying. I believe in fiction as a way to explore the past. It helps me discover others’ values and test my own, as a way to discover myself. Learning about others’ lives helps me learn about my own potential—my capacity to be whatever the historical record shows human beings have been—saints and sinners; beggars and royals; the powerful and the powerless; the wise and the foolish; the brilliant composers and the maniacal destroyers; a Mozart, a Mengele; the one who does good and the one who, like Camus’s protagonist in The Fall, who walks by someone in need of help. As best I can, I need to know what made a well-intentioned man willingly choose to become a Nazi doctor. I think we all need to know that, if we can. We might in the process become more humble. We might better appreciate the courage of his victims and regret their pain. And we might be more inspired to do the right thing when, as President Roosevelt warned, democracy can be sacrificed in the face of desperation.

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Special thanks to Doug for this guest post. His next post will discuss whether or not the concept of "Holocaust fatigue" is legitimate and what can be done to avoid that label.

http://www.shadowswalking.com/

The book can be purchased at the website above, at createspace.com, or at Amazon.com.

A Kindle version is available.

Canvas Print Giveaway! Enter now to win 11 x 14 art canvas print!

2011-11-07T16:39:00.000-08:00

Megan at Easy Canvas Prints is offering a new giveaway for followers of The Black Sheep Dances!

It's open to US residents and the winner gets an 11" x 14" canvas, where they can upload a favorite family or pet photo.

See their website at htttp://www.easycanvasprints.com for a variety of samples and instructions.

You can add visual elements and making a statement. They even allow you to see your print in comparison to your living room size and decor.

Also, to win you must LIKE Easy Canvas Prints, and even if you don't win the big giveaway, you can get 50% off and FREE SHIPPING just for liking their FB page here: http://www.facebook.com/EasyCanvasPrints

Comment below to enter, and also if you have any questions. Ends Nov 20, 2011. US only.

Theme Week: Shadows Walking by Professor Douglas R. Skopp (and a giveaway!)

2011-11-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

This week I'm introducing a historical fiction novel by Douglas R. Skopp; a title that is so significant it warrants more than the usual brief review I do. This week, Professor Skopp will be guest posting on topics related to the novel, Shadows Walking. Later in the week, I'll interview him with questions I pondered during the reading, and conclude with my review of the book itself. There's even a giveaway for one copy to an interested reader!

It should be noted that while novels set around the Holocaust are somewhat common, Shadows Walking spends a great deal of time examining the pre-war dynamics that set the horror in motion. It also links the studies of Nazi eugenic experimentation to previous experiments here in the US. Investigating the role of physician (with the ethical qualities implied) in the Nazi party, Skopp has created some dramatic characters that must make personal choices while appearing to support a national movement. After the war, the Nuremberg Trials closely examines the behavior of the physicians involved, most of whom denied wrongdoing.

First, to introduce him, here's a brief biography:

Professor Doug Skopp

Douglas R. Skopp was born in 1941. After attending public schools in Los Angeles, California, he enrolled at attended Dartmouth College, where he studied European history and German, and Albert-Ludwigs Universität in Germany. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1963. He received a Master's in Medieval Studies at Connecticut College (1964) and a Ph.D. in European history, focusing on modern Germany, from Brown University (1974). From 1972 until his retirement from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh in 2006 with the rank of Distinguished University Teaching Professor of History, Skopp taught courses on aspects of the World Wars, the Holocaust, medieval and modern Europe (especially Germany), education in Western civilization, survey courses in European history, and historical research skills and methods. In 1989, he received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching; he served as chairperson of the History Department for ten years, was often president of his faculty’s professional union, and in the final three years before his retirement, presiding officer of SUNY Plattsburgh’s faculty.

In 1985-1986, Skopp received a Fulbright Award to research medical ethics in Germany between 1880 and 1945; that research provided the base for Shadows Walking. An inaugural Fellow in SUNY Plattsburgh's Institute for Ethics in Public Life, he continues to assist in the Institute's "guided inquiry" faculty seminars on ethics, ethical practices, and the curriculum. Skopp has published many scholarly articles on aspects of the history of the professions in Germany. He is also an editorial consultant and/or author of chapters on European history in numerous public school textbooks. In 1989, Skopp published Bright With Promise, a history of SUNY Plattsburgh’s first century; he continues to serve as SUNY Plattsburgh's College Historian in his retirement. Having taken twenty years to write Shadows Walking, he doubts that he will ever attempt another novel…at least his wife hopes so.
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A website featuring the title with significant historical links is to be found at:
http://shadowswalking.com/Shadows_Walking/Welcome.html

This extensive website features excerpts, historical citations, and lists for further reading.

To enter to win a copy, leave a comment with contact info. US only, it will end November 20, 2011.

The Girl with The Brown Fur by Stacey Levine

2011-11-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Gently Read Literature, November 2011 issue, with the title "Missed by Casual Contemplation"

“There’s such a terrible tension that exists between something and nothing.”

Such are the words of a tired nurse towards the end of one of Levine’s short stories, and it becomes a theme throughout this collection. All of the tales are unique, and not a single one complies with the reader’s predictions. Rather than being confusing, though, it illustrates the complexities that are present in everyone’s life.

The stories show a mastery of depiction—scenes are created that are completely unknown and sometimes impossible. So how is it that they feel so real? Because amidst the inconceivable lie basic truths. For example, in “Alia,” a young woman desperately wants a family. Yet her method of assimilating into the life of a friend goes awry. As her own personality submerges, she recognizes, “I was younger than I had been, I felt much older; and in the future, we would all become unimaginably older, diminished…”

“And You Are?” questions the identity of a time-obsessed woman who finds that merely going to the movies once a week makes life exciting. Her small-town life and her edge of hostility belie her words, as she reveals an unexpected insight (and possibly an explanation):

“The good side of life was simply better…though there were sides to life that were neither good nor bad; there were sides that were both, too; there was yet another side that no one could seem to express, and though there should have been no further sides to life, unfortunately, there were.”

It’s these other sides that repeatedly surface, at times just as a glimmer, in these tales. Perhaps Levine has discovered that addressing these realities through the language of make-believe will make them easier to accept, or grasp. Maybe they’re not even meant to be accepted, but rather to act as a launching point into thinking deeper than we may find comfortable.

In “Sausage,” an improbable factory of upside-down bicycles makes sausage by enslaved workers. At the point of escape from the horror, one worker’s experience translates into a slanted commentary on the pharmaceutical industry.

“Let’s now look at all the shame you’ve ever endured and collect it together as in a little half-shell, so you can feel it all at once, along with the fallacies to which you cling, and then, perhaps, you will see yourself more clearly.

‘We will learn why you chose to take on the guilt of another, and why you wanted to be more free, and tried, sometimes, to escape into sleep, with the white tablets you so cunningly ground into powder…’”

As a whole, the collection of tales feels like an exploration of the disparity between the inner self and outer actions that frighten us. Does anyone really want to admit that their identity, if replicated down to the DNA structure, may not appear the same? This can’t be read quickly and set aside; there’s another dimension that I fear might be missed by the casual contemplation.

Special thanks to Ted Pelton of Starcherone for the Advance Review Copy.

Thanks to Daniel Casey, editor of Gently Read Literature, for the publication of the original review.

Child Wonder Giveaway and Read EAST 2011 Update

2011-11-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

First off, there's officially just two months to complete the 2011 Eastern European Reading Challenge! How have you done so far? The original link is here: http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/p/scandinavian-challenge-participants.html.

To recap, the goal was to read from 4-12 books from Eastern Europe in any genre. I haven't totally out all the reviews so far, but just in the last month Krista, a Russian historian (Leia1912), has kicked in six reviews, and I know Lisa and Daisy have at least that many submitted.

To date, we have 72 participants in 22 countries playing along. That ALMOST tops last year's 78 for the Scandinavian Challenge....

For 2012, BEA's main country of focus is Russia, so that should generate even more interest in Eastern European titles. However, in 2012, The Black Sheep Dances will be pushing literature from a different region: any suggestions? Stick with Eastern Europe? Focus solely on Russia? Move to Spain? Perhaps a South American reading challenge so we have an excuse to linger over Pablo Neruda? Suggestions, please, in the comment box for a geographical region to pursue. I wouldn't mind staying where we are....just add your two cents!

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Next: Child Wonder is a new novel by Roy Jacobsen. Graywolf Press (graywolfpress.org) has generously given me an extra copy, so it's time for a new giveaway! I've read it already (I read the MacLehose UK version) but I haven't put the review up yet. It's a Norwegian translation that focuses on the relationship of a mother and son when significant changes enter their household.

This giveaway is for US only (sorry!) and ends Nov 15, 2011. A random winner will get the new paperback copy, but if you can't wait, it can be purchased at graywolfpress.org or any online retailer. To enter, be a blog follower and leave your name in a comment below with contact info.

Maman's Homesick Pie by Donia Bijan (memoir)

2011-10-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen

Cardamom. What IS cardamom, and where do I buy it?

This is one of the first questions to plague me as I read this memoir by Donia Bijan, an accomplished chef with a life story that is as fascinating as it is bittersweet. Initially, I hesitated before I began reading, as the last few memoirs I’ve read have been sort of “blah”. And when I saw that this book contains recipes, I thought that was a cutesy gimmick, as I once read a mystery that had recipes enclosed, which annoyed me to no end (yes, I get easily annoyed).

However, I curled up with it on a recent rainy day and couldn’t put it down. It’s lovely. Really. Bijan writes in a natural pace, and her stories brims with poignant details. It begins with the tragic death of her mother, and her task of going through her mother’s objects. The task is dreary until she finds her mother’s collection of recipes clipped from newspapers or on cards from friends. At this point, she finds the theme that ties her life to her mother’s: food. As a chef, the recipe cards she finds are revealing because they show how her mother, exiled from Iran, tried to adapt to American life at a time when being from Iran was a cause for suspicion.

Going back to the beginning, Bijan recounts her childhood experiences of living in the hospital that her father built. While he was a successful doctor in Iran (and devoted foodie on his own), her mother was head nurse and cook for the patients. Bijan and her sisters assisted their parents and were an active part of hospital life. The nature of food in that hospital was not simple of sustenance but of comfort; meals were designed to be shared, lingered over, and enjoyed as a communal activity.

is it really $47 for a 2 ounce bottle?

After her parents are exiled, Bijan goes to school in the US and later to Paris where she is trained at the Cordon Bleu. As she remains close to her mother, her relationship with her father is strained as he envisioned a future for her more prestigious than that of a chef. Bijan works in the field, rising to the top of San Francisco’s cooking scene before deciding to return to France to work as an apprentice to hone her craft further. At all points of her story, food is always treated as a purposeful endeavor; the composition of a home-made meal the ultimate display of love and attentiveness.

The recipes included are those that tie into each story, and there is nothing gimmicky about them. Several I have earmarked to try. But nothing tops the story itself—it is heartwarming and genuinely lovely to read. Definitely a feel-good story and I seriously think it would be a great gift for a foodie friend.

It can’t be denied that Bijan’s life was one of privilege: her parents were wealthy and she pretty much was able to undertake whatever opportunities appealed to her. But her hard work and self-sacrifice keeps the reader from feeling that her life was an exception. But to illustrate, at one point she describes life in Paris where she is toiling under brutal teachers at Cordon Bleu:

“Most evenings, on my way home, I would stop to buy half a baguette, then heard to the fromagerie for a wedge of cheese I had never tasted, and finally go to the produce stand for a single peach, or two figs, maybe a tomato.”

Maybe that is supposed to sound minimal, but being that it’s Paris, PARIS (!!!!), it sounds impossibly elegant. In all seriousness, a fromagerie isn’t exactly in the strip mall in town. I admit, that single statement evoked much jealousy on my part, and possibly would on any woman’s part, because we know she gets to go back to her small but elegant apartment with a view of the Seine. In any case, the envy I felt didn’t diminish the book in any way. The reader sincerely wants her to succeed in her endeavors. Highly recommend!

Special thanks to Michael and Kelly of Algonquin Books for the Advance Review Copy.

Los Angeles Stories by Ry Cooder

2011-10-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

"I had made up my mind to quit worrying. Los Angeles was the Land of the Brighter Day, something good was bound to turn up."

These last two lines sum up the motivation that lies with the numerous characters that musician Ry Cooder offers up in his new collection of short stories. While the stories are nominally linked, the variety is enormous: mariachi players, park prophets, backalley dentists, tailors, and disc jockeys are all introduced in their native milieu. Set in the first half of the twentieth century, these stories are based on the inner life of the inner city.

This is not postcard or travel agency Los Angeles; there is no glamour or celebrities to dress it up. Even the weather doesn't seem to cooperate with stereotype: fog and rain are as frequent as bar brawls. The characters are the faceless many that work off the books, just trying to get by while the city appears as a predatory character, breathing and pulsing, foiling any attempts at the good life.

The collection is also an excellent geography text to significant Los Angeles locations--Griffith Park, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Union Station, Bunker Hill, and Hollenbeck Park all serve as backdrops, and Cooder seems to know the streets and back alleys very well. Cocktail bars and bowling alleys are among the seedy gathering places of the working class and small time criminals that Cooder writes about and who occasionally cross tracks with each other.

My favorite was "Who do you know that I don't?" set in 1949, wherein a tailor to the mariachi clientele attempts to solve the murder of a popular jazz musician, Johnny Mumford. Cooder creates a world of layaway payments, shiny and finned cars, and musicians desperate to wear a good suit but not eager to pay. Memorably, the tailor even makes one suit to be shared by two musicians who can't afford their own, later assisting them to escape the cops while he helps search for links to the murder. A prize collection of 78 records becomes a significant clue.

Another story focuses on a resourceful guy whose job is to fill in the details on the City Directory, going door-to-door to collect information from suspicious citizens in boardinghouses and side streets. The essential absurdity of compiling an accurate book aside, Frank is diligent and thorough. Though he's essentially a simple man, his path crosses with three suspicious murders and suddenly he's a suspect:

"Once they see a pattern, they think they know it all, and they think they got you. That's not the way life is. Take it from me, life is random and inscrutable, like the City Directory."

The stories are well-plotted and heavily detailed, and the characters feel real. Cooder develops each protagonist well, and creates their world for the reader in inscrutable detail. In fact, that may be one of my only concerns about the collection: at times I felt like there was too much name-dropping and references to streets and neighborhoods and pop culture of the period. Sometimes, the many facts slowed down and derailed the narrative from its pace. I think the same effect could have been achieved without so many points of reference and still have remained realistic.

In comparison to the series by Akashic Press of Los Angeles Noir, I liked this title better. LA Noir by Akashic, with its various contributors, seems to have more of a pervy element to it, shock value placed over storyline, that made me end up giving it up.

Special thanks to Alyson of City Lights for the Advance Review Copy.

Shadow Traffic, Stories by Richard Burgin

2011-10-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

“It would be too humiliating to face him on the playground if he stole my money.”

Jeff is a self-made man: with his new condo and telecommuting job, cash, and good looks, he’d seem to have it all. Yet in the second story of this collection, “The Dealer”, author Richard Burgin creates a complicated persona that is distinctly childish and insecure. But he’s not simply a dumb guy; that would be too easy. Rather it’s the disparity between his sense and naivete that makes the character so intriguing. It’s not easy to write someone so complicated without the reader impatiently dismissing the character as stupid. Yes, he makes stupid choices, but it’s the normal ones that are the most revealing.

In the story, “The Dealer”, Jeff befriends a fast-talking musician that plays basketball in the neighborhood and conveniently supplies Jeff with pot. Of course, he has a cool name, “Dash”, and appears to be the role model that the more conventionally successful Jeff aspires to. Yet, as shown in the quote above, their friendship seems to be based on more of a nine-year-old awareness than a grown man; while they play basketball at the school, the clue is that Jeff calls it “the playground”. Burgin creates an uneasy relationship between the two that hinges on Jeff’s unwitting struggle to find a friend.

My favorite of the collection is “Memo and Oblivion,” a futuristic story about battling pharmaceutical companies, one of whom has created the pill “Memo” to restore every personal experience and memory to those that take it. “Oblivion” is marketed by another secret organization and promises “to obliterate only painful human memories.” Immediately the contrast engages the reader: which would they choose? To be able to remember the first time you bit into an apple? Or to be able to completely erase a painful event?

As the two companies struggle with trade secrets and human testing, the level of tension arises as to what side effects the pills may create. Burgin pokes at different concerns, from legality to ethics, as his characters discover for themselves that all choices have consequences, no matter how well-intended. This story could stand alone and would make a great movie.

"Memorial Day" tells of a grieving son, left with money to burn, travelling to find a purpose for his suddenly empty life. In London, he meets a woman that defies his expectations, and vice versa. The two are strangely connected, and what ends up happening reminds the reader of the adage, "he who hesitates is lost".

While the stories are random and varied, all have a sense of humor and a wry look at modern life. They leave the reader sensing that they need to answer for themselves the questions that were cleverly proposed and threaded into the narratives.

Special thanks to Johns Hopkins University Press in Baltimore for the Advance Review Copy.

It was just released this month.

The Fragile Day by Amy MacLennan (poetry)

2011-10-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

"I've done the right thing my whole life. Kept my father's house, solved every case, never broke the rules. It's not easy being this good."

You know when all-around good girl and role model Nancy Drew starts lamenting her perfect life that this is no ordinary book of poetry. Amy MacLennan's chapbook is rich with alternative viewpoints and rich metaphors, and the poem cited above, "When Nancy Drew the Line," is just one of them.

Many times she addresses the contemplations of an imperfect life...the thoughts that assail us when we should be sleeping, or the sense that we could worry less if we only had "facts splayed out, a plan, a map" to guide us. A runaway truck hints at lives that feel out-of-control, desperately needing a safe place to land, and an afternoon thunderstorm is pictured perfectly as "a sulky girl slamming the door".

"In the Labor Room" summons that quiet moment right before birth, when the concept of new life mingles with the recognition of the passage of time, and that despite years of friendship and change, "we haven't even aged." I loved this one, and how it felt to me like acknowledging that despite my getting older and having children of my own, I still feel like a child.

My absolute favorite was "If You Write a Love Letter to Disappointment", where MacLennan instructs the reader on how to address defeat.

"Avoid sarcasm, but accept grief.
Draft the letter as if
you could only write it once.
Use a long salutation
and a short goodbye."

MacLennan's poetry is accessible and relatable. It doesn't come off as overly structured and pretentious--it's simple, yet the meanings are deep. It's not Language Poetry, that ends up confusing me and making me feel like a dolt for not getting it (aka Armantrout's Versed). Instead, this feels like a gift of conversation, and the style reminds me of Tobi Cogswell, Susan Rich, and Angela Long.

Special thanks to Spire Press for the Review Copy.

Waterline by Ross Raisin

2011-10-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

“And see if he did put a claim in then the reminders would be there the whole time—for months, years, however long it took—and even that is still ignoring the main thing: why should he get a windfall? Him that brought it into the house and handed her the overalls to wash and here’s two hundred grand, pal, take it, it’s yours—you deserve it.”

After the death of his wife to mesothelioma, Mick has to start his life over, struggling with the guilt from her death attributable to residue from his job in the shipyards. While his children hint at getting a settlement, to punish the company that virtually saturated their employees in asbestos, Mick resists any idea of what he imagines a payoff for her death.

While the story proceeds with his descent into grief, it never plays into the stereotype of the grieving widower who travels through five stages of grief to recover and find love again with a sweet old lady down the street. Instead, his journey is literal. Unable, emotionally, to reside in the house anymore, he starts sleeping in a shed outside, and his focus changes to minor things to avoid thinking about the bigger issues. He begins finding a kinship more with the birds he feeds than with other humans.

“He listens, enjoying the sound of it, as they begin skittering on the concrete outside the shed door...Until recently there’d been just the one – probably the same patient guy that’s been coming all the while –but he’s obvious gone and let dab to all his mates that they can come and eat here, and now there’s a whole mob of them. Good for him, no keeping it all to himself. Obviously no an English bird. A genuine Southsider, that sparrow. “

The quote above reveals a wry humor that Mick has, told in his warm Glasgow accent. It’s revealed again as he’s run out of money, and thinks about the possibility of asking his brother-in-law for money:

“…he’d be pure delighted, guaranteed. A great song and dance over it, the ceremonious fetching of the chequebook, the smug showy putting on of the wee reading glasses. How much would you like, Mick? Really, it’s not a problem. How much?”

Instead of resorting to that indignation, Mick chooses another option: complete departure, from both Glasgow and reality. He ends up in London living a life he’d never imagined, and one that he hopes to hide from his sons left behind, who know nothing of his location.

Mick’s voice is full of irony and desperate humor, especially when he remarks on the cheap condolences friends make when they see him. He’s a realist that knows far too well how little people really feel about his loss. In this many vivid side characters are pulled in, and while they don’t appear long, they are memorable for the way they are described.

Midway through the novel I glanced at the author’s photograph in the back. It stopped me in my tracks. It’s a young guy that wrote this aged voice! It sort of put me off, for a day anyway, because I couldn’t imagine how a young man (anyone younger than me qualifies in that regard) could create such a complex persona that melds humor, regret, guilt, and anxiety in one realistic character. Topping it off is the Scottish voice that Mick delivers his thoughts in; sometimes an accent is hard to read because it doesn't flow, but in this case it was much of the charm. (Would make a killer audiobook!)

Especially noteworthy is that while it is essentially a quest motif, the fact that neither the reader nor the protagonist knows the object that is being sought makes it mysterious. The pace speeds up as you literally follow Mick through a labyrinth of people and places, and you really don’t know where he’s headed. And the questions continue to plague you: what happened to his sons? Who were the men at the door? Will he go back to Glasgow? What was up with Craig?

This is on target for my top five titles of 2011. Not only because of the main character and the plot, but also because of what it reveals about those living outside the margins of society. While the underbelly of large cities is often presented as a place of crime and prostitution, Waterline exposes the remote lives of immigrants and the homeless, attempting to live an honorable life while no one wants to meet their eyes.

Special thanks to Joe Pickering of Penguin UK for the Review Copy.

National Book Awards 2011 Finalists Announced

2011-10-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

Today, the finalists were announced:

Fiction Finalists

The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak***

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Nonfiction finalists

The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism by Deborah Baker

Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Mary Gabriel

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss (first graphic novel ever included in this category)

Poetry Finalists

Head Off & Split by Nikky Finnery

The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa

Double Shadow by Carl Phillips

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems: 2007-2010 by c

Devotions by Bruce Smith

***My vote goes to The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak...Austria/Hungary circa 1914...my review was in the online edition of Rain Taxi earlier this year: http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2011summer/krivak.shtml.

Beauty and The Inferno by Robert Saviano (essays)

2011-10-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Italian by Oonagh Stransky

"We discussed...how everything you seem to see is not the real story. How you always end up understanding less of what is happening rather than more."

This excerpt was from a conversation between two journalists, Saviano, and the Italian legend Enzo Biagi. Saviano's thoughts on Biagi fill a chapter in this collection of essays from Saviano's experiences as a journalist --work that would probably never be printed or aired in the United States.

First off, it's important to know that because of his work, Saviano is a wanted man. His journalism doesn't use the typical references to "an unnamed source" or an "anonymous tip". Instead, he fully exposes the names of organizations, politicians, and individuals that are involved with criminal activity in Italy, even if it endangers his life. Thus he's in hiding because of tell-all stories about the mob, and the way his articles explain not only who is committing the crimes, but also the structure of power and the methods (or businesses) they use to manipulate politicians, sell drugs, or launder money.

I'm not sure the difference in legalities that allows for such focused criticism that is relatively unheard of here. Even stating that a suspect is "alleged" is frowned upon here, whereas Italian newspapers can indicate full names and addresses. It makes reading his essays shockingly different from what a US reader may be used to, and makes his living in hiding completely understandable. Many times I had to pause and ask, "can he say that?" Seriously, I would not want to be his bodyguard.

Beyond the exposure though is a real intent to educate citizens in Italy about their government and what is happening around them. In describing Enzo Biagi, as mentioned above, parallels are seen between his goals and that of Saviano's: "Biagi was capable of looking at fragments of the daily news. He examined things bit by bit. He never jumped to a solution, but always advanced slowly...He examined our daily concerns about taxes, terrorism, schools and health and used them to ask bigger questions. He wanted to explain, freely and to spread information and make it known, but to do this with discipline and control" (127).

This is the model Saviano uses as he writes, at all times attempting to avoid both the cynicism that marks many reporters and the focus on elegance and style that detracts others. His reporting is for ordinary people and he tries to reveal it without frills. Like Biagi, he wants to motivate his readers to take notice, especially of the scores of unsolved deaths occurring around them:

"Can you really believe that none of this depends on you, or on your want of indignation? Do you really think that worrying about your everyday life is enough? Are you satisfied by the answers to these questions? Does saying "I'm not doing anything wrong; I'm an honest person," allow you to feel innocent? Can you let the news wash over you, over your soul?"

From that he describes the sixteen people who have been murdered by a mafia gang called the Casalesi who run businesses that profited more than 500 million Euros, while the rate of congenital birth defects increased 84% due to their illegal dumping of toxic waste. Their profit equates to 7172 deaths from cancer per year. So this lovely countryside in the South of Italy, namely around Lake Patria, has become an almost Wild-West type of region where the carabinieri and others trying to fight the criminals are threatened or killed, along with many innocents in the way.

In other essays he looks at similar issues facing the South of Italy, and at many times incorporating details of the culture of Italy, both ancient and current. Saviano is well-read: he references operas, plays, poetry, and literature in his writing. The pace of the essays are fast even while the details are disheartening. Seeing how crime is perpetuated as a business, focused on efficiency and results, is hard to accept.

One thing that alienated me a bit at first is his Preface, where he describes his efforts to live in hiding. It's off putting at first, as he seems to dwell on his imminent danger and how unafraid he is, given his important sacrifice. Since I'd never heard of him, it felt like a bit of bravado instead of reality. Yet, after I read the essays, I totally get it. I would hide too, and I now can respect that he has made tremendous, unimaginable sacrifices in the pursuit of truth. I just think it would have appeared better as an Epilogue than hitting the reader with all that indignation right up front.

Special thanks to Paul Engles of MacLehose Press, UK, for the Advance Review Copy.

Bandit Love by Massimo Carlotto (translated fiction)

2011-09-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar

“This was underworld business: it was a mathematical certainty that it was going to end badly… Somebody was going to die. That was the only thing we knew for sure as the car raced eastward in the night.”

It starts with a kidnapping that makes little sense, and moves nonstop into one of the most enjoyable literary treats I’ve read this year. Even though this crime novel is serious business, there’s an air of humor that surrounds a trio of ex-cons and bad guys that are called in to solve the crime. Yep, these guys, having paid their dues as tough guys and retired from that life of crime, now just want to sit back and drink Calvados, eat pasta, and listen to the blues. Except for the lead, Marco Buratti, who also happens to be addicted to home shopping television shows.

The action is non-stop as it crosses through Italy and into the Balkans as the three men try to solve two mysteries. They had previously got involved in a hit that went wrong, the moral of which was, “know who you do business for and why before you shoot someone.” Since they didn’t obey that rule, they have to backtrack and solve that before the kidnapped woman can be found.

The characters that they run into are just that: characters. Carlotto makes them memorable, with little clues that make them feel much more complicated than just a simple definition of “bad guy”. Drug smugglers have egos and their own tragic flaws, of which these experienced searchers exploit, while at the same time they lament,

“Why do Mafiosi always seem to have one useless son?”

This leads to an amusing conversation as they analyze The Godfather and The Sopranos to point out just which characters were intellectually-challenged. The rapport between the three is priceless, as they unquestionably back each other up, which would seem unlikely for the world they live in. And what a world that is, when drug smuggling and police corruption is impossibly powerful, with so many innocents thrown into the conflict.

I can’t even begin to explain why this book was so much fun, given the subject matter was serious and at times, appalling. Perhaps it’s the universal simplicities that unite everyone-good or bad-the power of a good meal? A view of the sea? The comfort of a regular table at the trattoria?

Special thanks to Europa Editions for the Advance Review Copy.

Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye...now in Paperback!

2011-09-20T14:01:00.000-07:00

Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye

For those who haven't yet read this fiction novel yet, be advised it's out in paperback now from Unbridled Books! It was in my top-four books of last year, and I read a ton last year!

It's a literary fiction title that explores the relationship between a father and son who've held a long-standing silence, with the backdrop of a horrifying ship wreck. Family mysteries unravel and the two main characters are both compelling.

Enjoy this over the fall, and wear a sweater (the descriptions of the cold at times will make you shiver).

Eye candy....Geology.com

2011-09-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

Collision between spiral galaxies

Today I was doing research on a completely different topic, but found this website, www.geology.com/nasa. Amazing stuff....images of volcanoes, glaciers, cloud formations, etc from satellites. Several were a slide show, one of which is above, about colliding galaxies. The thing is, and I am completely confused at how this is possible, is that they seem to have before and after pictures of the collision. At least, that's how it appears. If you need a break from your books, check out the images....

Help Support Translators! Buy this Ebook (preferably today!)

2011-09-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

From Chad at Open Letter:

"You may already have heard about this, but to mark the fourth anniversary of Three Percent, we just released a $2.99 "best of" ebook entitled "The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translation, and the Future of Reading."

As with other Three Percent activities, the point of this is to help support literature in translation. Which is why all of the proceeds from the sales of this ebook will go directly t...o paying translators. So you can think of this as a sort of $3 donation . . .

To try and game the system (a bit), I'm urging everyone I know to buy this book today, Friday, September 16th. That way our sales ranking will jump up and will help us get the word out to people who don't normally support literature in translation.

These pieces are organized into a number of parts designed to provide an introduction to the contemporary publishing world. Ranging from pieces about the economics of publishing literature in translation, to explanation of the very different publishing scenes found in different countries, to profiles of translators, to mini-rants about book marketing, technology, and 99 cent ebooks, "The Three Percent Problem" is kind of like Andre Schiffrin's "The Business of Books," but with more swearing (and jokes). "

Three bucks is a cheap donation for a worthy cause and looks to be a great read as well...if you've ever listened to one of their podcasts, you know this will be snarky and fun!

Snatched from Chad's Facebook feed....

Vintage Gray by Joshua Michael Stewart (poetry)

2011-09-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

"...And you turn
back to your first memories,
when you were the one
and even a trip to Kmart
had the potential for greatness.
Your whole life you waited
for that moment when purpose would be defined.
Gradually the troll moved out of your closet,
and you came to agree with Hoffman,
that indeed Kmart sucks. But still you wait."

---from "Answering Machine"

From looking at punctuation in an entirely literal light to analyzing Jimmy Stewart's voice, Joshua Michael Stewart's collection takes a different angle to look at things we see every day. Concrete poetry with stark visual images and a gentle wit combine into poetry that is easily readable, even when at certain points you have a sharp intake of breath at just how sneaky he threw in that raw wire of emotion.

There's something fun about his poems, even when the subject is not joyous. His choice of topics make you happy that someone still thinks about things like Bing Crosby's voice or who can describe that moment of silence after a mother slaps her child. In "Vintage Gray", he allows an old radio show transport him to a place in the past which softens his present. He captures the thoughts that occupy us while we exist in the present and imagine places we've never seen but that feel like memories.

In "You Are What You Eat", Stewart describes life as a butcher, "a hook in my back", and wanting to quit. His plea, "but I don't have the guts," mixes humor and the sad reality of being stuck without options, and the way your viewpoint changes on observing those making their own choices.

My favorite of the book is "Ripping a Charles Simic Poem Out of The New Yorker", as the character plans a significant crime (at least to the nasty saleslady), but the trail of subscription cards falling out of the magazine are surely going to give him away.

There's nothing overly conceptual or meta-physical about this grouping of poems. This is a collection of reality, askew at times, but pictured vividly, with all of its shadows and light significantly focused. Of all, I came away from the book smiling at the wit that thinks of elephants in pajamas and of playing poker under a church pew.

The chapbook is available at http://joshuamichaelstewart.yolasite.com/.

I purchased my own copy at that site.

Animalinside by Laszlo Krasznahorkai and Max Neumann, and Why Your E-Reader Can't Touch This

2011-09-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

Images by Max Neumann

Translation from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet

Sure, you could probably read the text of this on a Kindle or Nook. But you'd be missing everything, and I don't just mean the Neumann images. This book actually smells good! It feels good. It's a tactile experience that engages your eyes and other senses, while your brain tries to solve the mystery of who is the Animalinside.

First off, this is a novella that started with a Neumann painting that inspired Krasznahorai's text about a creature that defies easy description. After that, Neumann provided more images with the same dog-like beast, to inspire further chapters from the Hungarian author. Prefaced by Colm Toibin, who states that the author "stands closer to Kafka than to Beckett, but he is close to neither in his interest and delight in verbal pyrotechnics, in allowing the sheer energy of his long exciting sentences full sway."

The monster of the story, if indeed that is what it is, is trapped in a place where he is excluded and in pain. "...I don't even exist, I only howl, and howling is not identical with existence, on the contrary howling is despair, the horror of that instance of awakening when the condemned--myself--comes to realize that he has been excluded from existence and there is no way back..."

The words of the beast, shown in the images as a sort of fierce two-legged dog, are almost always horrifying...caged, it waits for release to wreak havoc and battle for kingship over a wasteland of earth. At lighter moments, though, it speaks almost in a panic over the search for its food dish, but the threats he makes about its loss are nothing adorable.

Much of the imagery and words confuse me...I sense that a deeper measure of the meaning involves the ugly results of binding the voices of small, defenseless peoples until their defense is their only option. Their obsession.

And about that, "smells good" remark? New Directions designed this as part of their Cahiers series, #14, and it's designed in a seven step printing process that makes for thick, waxy pages, with layers of thick inks and contrasting textures. Maybe it's all the chemicals involved, but it smells and feels amazing. Heirloom-quality, if that's possible for a novella.

Special thanks to New Directions for the Review Copy.

Scott Wannberg: not your hipster poet, but the real deal

2011-08-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

I heard this evening that one of my favorite poets, Scott Wannberg of Florence, Oregon, has passed away. He had a wicked sense of humor mixed with a voice that spoke for the little people.

One of my favorites of his many works:

Agony River by Scott Wannberg

Temperature has a headache

swears it won't rise to your occasion
Speeding patrol cars out of fashion
find enough time to spotlight your cold skin

Agony River just called collect
promises to flow to the front door in a few hours
Strange faces from the ongoing confusion
only make the decision that much harder

Pull the plug or mop up the bleeding deck one last time
in hope it will never show up again
Pain aches for you and it calls me over and
wants to know the secret of reaching you

Idiot, I tell it, the only secret is in
the sunlight, how it still finds a way to bathe you
when all the experts have run off to the airport
for their red eye flights home

Agony River winds its way to the sea
and we are nothing more than
belligerent fish
waiting for some omnipresent hook
to call on us for some kind of sustaining belief

If anything, I'm glad his pain is over. He has a spoken word CD called 3 Fools 4 April that has some especially moving poems. In one, he actually is weeping as he reads....the poem was about the death of someone close and the strange mix of dealing with death, finding a meal, making 'arrangements', and grieving all at the same time. He never just read a text, he felt the emotions and exuded those feelings. Not your hipster poet, for sure. Strange Movie Full of Death is a huge collection of his works-the definite grouping.

The words will be treasured as the voice is missed...

We, The Drowned by Carsten Jensen (translated fiction)

2011-08-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder

"War was like sailing. You could learn about clouds, wind direction, and currents, but the sea remained forever unpredictable. All you could do was adapt to it and try to return home alive."

Carsten Jensen was already noted as a journalist long before We, The Drowned, was published. Perhaps it's his observation skills from that career that make this fictional maritime novel so enthralling. Yes, that's a gushy word, and this review will contain many of them. See, I had heard about the novel quite a bit, and had a few people recommend it. And last year I was so adoring of anything Nordic or Scandinavian (still am, actually!). But there was so much hype about this that I figured it may be too 'important' to be enjoyable. I had it sitting a few weeks, looking like a great white whale among my other review copies....intimidating me. Then I dove in. And everything else pretty much got pushed aside in favor of reading this novel.

The scope is epic---generations of families living in the Danish port city of Marstal live and die, mostly via the sea. Going to sea is a right-of-passage for most every boy, and those who never return seem to outnumber those that do. Yet, it's not overly sentimental--the stories are told in a more distant, reporting style, rather than as an emotional narrative. Sections of the book are laid out almost as short novellas that interlink. The most intriguing feature of the arc of the novel is the family ties. We begin by meeting Laurids Madsen, an unflinching and unbending character who appears to be the model of wisdom and good. The story moves through him to his son, Albert, and beyond. Yet some vignettes feature new characters interlacing with old, and it seems like instead of a family tree, Jensen has created a city tree, donating a bit of space to each character.

"As we stood there, gazing out at the water, it seemed a great mystery lay before us: the mystery of our own lives, spread before our eyes. No matter how often we came here, it was a sight that always rendered us speechless."

Despite the many characters in play, however, none of them are similar. They all feel distinctly individual, with traits that are too unexpected to be imagined. I wondered if Jensen had collected a gallery of individuals from his reporting days, little mannerisms and odd habits that he saved to put together in this tale. Because it feels so real...no one behaves perfectly and things never go to plan, yet it feels right. He recreates the speech of children, their inner thoughts, and moves on to the worries and equivocations of an older man. Here he shows the child's reaction to fear: "They were probably scared of him and so they did what boys do around any object of fear: they went up close, pointed a finger, gave it a nickname, and masked their terror with roaring laughter."

In a section about a vicious schoolteacher, it concludes,

"Limping and bleeding, our skin black-and-blue with livid bruises, we were always aching in some exposed place. But that wasn't the worst of what Isager did to us.
He left his mark in another far more frightening way.
We became like him.
We committed appalling acts and only realized the horror of what we'd done when we stood gathered around the evidence of our atrocity. Violence was like a drug we couldn't relinquish."

As Jensen tells it, it's clear that he's devoted to the tenacity of the Danish people. Many times, but not always, he employs the David vs. Goliath archetype, with the small town victorious over much more feared and powerful nations. In this way, he introduces a political and historical thread to the stories about the townsfolk, without becoming dull or stalling out over the explanations of war and battle. In fact, as a journalist Jensen mentioned this in detail in an article from the BBC World Service, in regard to why Denmark hasn't joined in accepting the Euro but retains the krone for its monetary unit:

"To understand the reason for this obstinacy in a people that historically has mostly been known for its lack of passion and its willingness to adapt, you must understand then in Denmark nationalism takes the shape of moralism.

In a world where almost all nations are bigger than Denmark with its number of inhabitants that is only half of that of London how do you compete? How do you become visible on the world map?

By claiming you belong to another world, that of moral superiority. Big is bad and small is good, you claim. You celebrate David as the symbol of your small nation and take on the rest of the world as if it was a kind of Goliath. It is not your contribution to the world that singles you out, it is your resistance to the world, the stones you throw at it" (1).

Back to the novel, we are shown that drowning is at the back of everyone's mind, whether in peacetime or war: "Every sailor knows this bitter feeling: the coast is near, but you'll never reach it. Is there anything more heartbreaking than drowning in sight of land? Is there a single one of us who hasn't at least once felt haunted by the fear of slipping away within sight of a safe haven?...Every terror needs a yardstick, and surely the yardstick for the unknown is the known?"

Marstal, Denmark

As the people recover from their familial losses, they gain in other ways. Marstal changes, and even the personality of the town is altered by the sea. The losses from war aren't always physical, as Jensen shows clearly by even considering the economic conditions of the town.

I think I had two favorite aspects of the story, as well as a special fondness for Laurids and his son Albert. The family line that is conveyed, with the lineage that is similar enough to feel related even if they hardly know each other, owes its success to the writer's skill of somehow incorporating DNA into the text. Without telling the reader outright, one can sense the hereditary gifts (and faults) from father to son.

The other draw of the story is the writing itself--fast-paced, lean, yet incredibly descriptive and atmospheric. In some points you pause to reread a well-worded passage. For example, one sentence knocked me out..."their blue faces made them look like mermen born of the boiling foam." It felt poetic, and stuck in my head, until the point I thought the line was almost too perfect and alliterative. Yet gorgeous metaphors like that appear throughout, without being too precious. The locations too, from Australia to Samoa, Hawaii to the Caribbean and back to Marstal, feature realistic portrayals of ship life and the arduous journeys.

In an interview in World Literature Today, Jensen stated one purpose to the book for the city of Marstal today. "...for the widows of Marstal whose husbands were lost at sea, there was never an ending. No burial, no ritual of saying goodbye--like a sentence without a period. I felt like I was finally providing an ending to their story, bringing the dead back home and burying them. I was constructing a symbolic or metaphorical cemetary" (2).

For those ready to read this, it may be helpful to take note of a few of the names early on...the men who are captured by Germany and the boys in school in Marstal. They reappear. And don't let the large size of the book overwhelm you; the brisk storyline builds to a roaring adventure quickly and keeps it up.

One last note should address the beauty of the book itself, from the font and page numbers to the subtle graphics and monochrome color scheme. Everything about it feels classy, and this is one book I'm not lending out.

Special thanks to Hannah Harlow of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the Review Copy.

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/twt_euro/euro_jensen.shtml Web.
(2) Taras, Ray. "A Conversation with Carsten Jensen". World Literature Today, May-June 2011, p57. Print.

What You See in the Dark by Manuel Munoz (fiction)

2011-08-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

Change-both progressive and regressive-is the theme of this quiet thriller set in Bakersfield, California in the 1950s. Three stories are told that intersect in varying ways, leaving the concept of "what you see in the dark" meaning entirely different things. Darkness is the time to ruminate over bad decisions, the time when crime often occurs, and the only way to see a movie-all demonstrated in this novel.

As the book begins, we're introduced to a young couple who defy their small town's expectations by dating, even though their 'interracial' relationship is a scandal. He's white and successful, a veritable catch, while she's a poor Hispanic, living alone in poverty, abandoned by her mother. As the town gossips, the story seems to be on track for a fairly predictable resolution...that is, until you realize that the narrator isn't identified. Who is this person that seems to be watching and seeing what is going on in the lonely town? This unknown element changes the novel, making it less predictable and adding tension.

While this is going on, a famous Actress comes to Bakersfield with a Director to film a new and somewhat scandalous new movie, using the small town as a location to set their prospective movie. I was terribly annoyed by the way the Actress and Director were only referred to by those titles...it became annoying. Yet, it's not long before you figure out that Munoz is alluding to Janet Leigh and Alfred Hitchcock, and that the movie is a not-subtle nod to the film Psycho. The film's elements also refer to change, in the form of what is seen on film in terms of morality and violence.

Amid this is a small hotel (Bates, anyone?) on Highway 99 facing obsolescence due to the progressive new I-5 freeway being built nearby. (I've driven these roads before, so it's easy to picture the setting.) Again, change threatens to alter both lives and the city itself, and when a unexpected murder occurs, the intersections all make sense.

At times the story loses its rhythm, often in lengthy asides wherein film history (European vs. American style) is analyzed for far too long. Yet, in other places, the methods of filming and lighting individual scenes is fascinating. It's almost as if there's too much knowledge packed into the novel that might have made an excellent nonfiction film exploration.

In any case, I didn't really get attached to any of the characters. Arlene, mother of the popular young man and owner of the hotel, is a sad old woman living in the past, and who doesn't want to move forward. The young Hispanic woman, Teresa, seemed far too stereotypical to be believed; too dependent and needy for a young woman already managing on her own. And the Actress, who studiously analyzes her role and the implications of it, comes off more like Pollyanna than real.

The setting of Bakersfield is spot-on, however: the street names, weather descriptions, even the crops and sports are all true to life. The anomaly of this small town being just a few hours from Los Angeles, yet world's away culturally, and the conflict between both ways of life, is something that propels much of the action.

Special thanks to Michael Taeckens of Algonquin Press for the Advance Review Copy.

The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka (translated fiction)

2011-08-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

"Tears are very unliterary: they have no form."

This is possibly the most dog-eared book I've ever had. Folding down corners is my method for marking significant (to me) passages, but it clearly wasn't working with this fiction novel because I was marking every page. I'd never read this Venezuelan author before, but I hope to find more of his work translated into English.

Delicate prose, deep moral questions, and a stunning pace are what kept me hooked into reading this in one sitting. The story itself is rather simple: a successful doctor discovers that his father is seriously ill. Their close relationship is strained as the son weighs the consequences of telling his father the details of his illness. In the meantime, another man, virtually unknown to the doctor, begins stalking him, imagining that he holds the cure for the the list of complaints he suffers from. There's a push and pull to the narrative, as the poignant moments between father and son,nuanced with shared memories of grief, intertwine with the creepy certainty of the stalker.

Because of the health issues that permeate the novel, questions about the nature of health and wellness are explored, but in a brief, compelling way. The author cites quotes of famous authors, ethicists and physicians, but he's not showing off, they are actually appropriate observations of how the human body deals with illness. These asides never go too long or feel like a lecture, they fit the material in the most uncanny way.

For example, Tyszka quotes Julio Ramon Ribeyro, who provides possibly the best explanation for the euphoria that exists after an episode of physical pain:

"Physical pain is the great regulator of our passions and ambitions. Its presence immediately neutralizes all other desires apart from the desire for the pain to go away. This life that we reject because it seems to us boring, unfair, mediocre or absurd suddenly seems priceless: we accept it as it is, with all its defects, as long as it doesn't present itself to us in its vilest form - pain."

Tsyzka presents simple scenes with insightful observation. On trying to read the face of a doctor while awaiting possibly bad news:

"It's the illustration that accompanies a bad diagnosis, the first installment of an expression of condolence."

On imagining his father's worries:

"Are the monsters of old age as terrible as those that assail us when we're children? What do you dream about when you're sixty-nine? ....Perhaps this is what his father dreams about: he's in a laboratory, in the bowels of a hospital, surrounded by chemicals, sharp implements, gauze, and strangers all repellently dressed in white...."

Events proceed in unexpected ways, and as a reader, you never quite know what direction you're being pulled in. You feel empathy and disgust in altering passages, and the underlying fear is riveting. I did find the ending a bit confusing...I still am not sure I've understood all the implications laid out.

One scene confounds me: It takes place on a ferry, where an obnoxious businessman makes a production of his 'importance' and maltreats his seemingly intelligent and kind wife, all the way to the point of beating her to the ground. I'm not sure what the symbolism is, although I know it's present in that scene. Is Tyszka trying to say that people are subject to humiliation, by oppression or illness, no matter how virtuous they are?

In full, this is easily going to be in my list of favorites for the year. While the subject revolves around illness, it never quite defines which 'illness' is being addressed: is it disease? regret? evil? The questions are posed, and only each individual reader can answer.

Special thanks to Paul Engels of Maclehose Press, London, for the Review Copy.

Additionally, I jumped the gun on this review: it will be released in the US in 2012 by Tin House Books, but is available in the UK now.

My Bottom Five-the worst books ever (IMHO)

2011-08-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so there's way too many Top-5 lists, right? Why not come right out with the worst and confess the total annoyance a reader may feel after a terrible book (the kind you keep reading, despite the awfulness, rather than throwing at the wall). Please contribute your suggestions...

1. The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard: WWII-era story of the "ideal" man, a researcher in Japan and China who falls in love with a fifteen-year-old angel (of course, he waits till she is of age to seriously consider her as a companion). It's not the creepiness of his crush on her, but the author's characterization of this always well-dressed, perfectly groomed, wealthy, intelligent, respectful, proper, and unreal man-Alfred Leith. He's so perfect you actually begin hoping he does something awful, even so much as belch, just to take away the sainthood Hazzard smothers him in. The dialogue between he and his little darling is so contrived as to create laughs instead of romance.

2. The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier-Unhappy academic moves to Amherst, buys terrible house. Finds good friends and wonderful contractor, fixes up house on supply of endless funds. Begins wearing eye shadow to match the paint on her walls. Alas, wonderful contractor not suitable as companion because he's not an academic like her-but her good friends help remodel HIM so as to be worthy of their company. ICK.

3. PS I Love You by Cecilia Ahern-I only read this because the movie was coming out soon, and frankly, Gerard Butler, Harry Connick Jr, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are a trifecta of handsomeness. The movie wasn't ghastly, but the book was. The dialogue was so false and every single incident drizzled with sentimentality and too many coincidences to be real. Corny is the best word for it.

4. Winged Obsession by ???? This is a newish nonfiction title that could be great-it's about butterfly smugglers operating around the world, mostly set in Los Angeles, and the scale of the endangered-species trade is huge. Yet every specimen is referred to as looking like Angelina Jolie, or Beyonce, or Cher. Seriously, give the butterflies a break! The author name drops way too many brand names and celebrity names and cheap gay humor to make you take the actual issue of illegal smuggling seriously.

5. An Dantomine Eerly by JD R Middleton-I admit, it's probably me. I'm not smart enough to get this. Imagine drinking three pots of coffee, having your eyelids taped open, endless episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba on while a strobe light fills the room, with an audio tape of Ethel Merman playing, while you're trying to read James Joyce, all after having not slept for a week. That's sort of how I felt. I couldn't figure out if I was holding the book incorrectly or if I was just completely clueless to the meaning of the rambling phrases and images. I passed it on to a friend who called and wanted to know if this was, indeed, in English. (And yes, I realize this publisher will likely not send me anything ever again.)

Art of the Novella Reading Challenge-Melville House

2011-08-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=32999

Melville House is promoting a lively list of novellas this year, and a new challenge has been started. There are varying levels of participation...I'm going for reading nine of the titles (I believe there's something like 42 listed). In fact, five of the novellas are all called The Duel by varying authors....

I'm starting with some of the Russian novellas and will post here as I complete them. See the website above for entry requirements...you may win something cool! Authors are varied, as are genres...

M C Escher, Ascending and Descending

2011-08-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

Another Escher classic....

A Fireproof Box by Gleb Shulpyakov (bilingual edition)

2011-08-02T00:05:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Russian by Christopher Mattison

Interactive poetry-complete with questions and answers (and a few prompts)-make up this collection from Gleb Shulpyakov. The collection is personal, as he tells you about himself immediately in the section "Flick": "I mean, I simply don't know where to begin, so I loiter, like a school boy hanging out after school...." In his poetic 'loitering', he throws out images and ideas and creates parallels you don't expect. Then, he teases you a bit by questioning what he just laid out.

In one sense, Shulpyakov is a painter, using words to create a vision (and even mentioning Vermeer so we get it right):

Evening, sorrowful as snow in a painting
(late Vermeer, unsigned and dated)
in an aged scrawl). A lamp in the middle
of the room. The ticking clock

     is audible at snowfall's end.
     Classics staring back from the shelf.

What can we add to this painting:
a hot flame in a Hollandish fireplace?
a pair of borzois on a bearskin rug?
ringlets? festoons? patchouli? pastels?

     A map of a country on a stand?
     A checkered floor in perspective?

By the end of these verses, he's went from creating the vision to questioning the stereotype of it. Small villages he describes seem quaint, yet then he mentions the statues of tyrants that lend a sense of foreboding to the image, and the quaintness implies hidden suffering. The quiet is less serene.

He creates another unforgettable image in the following poem, made poignant by the hints at passing time found among the words 'waves', 'fades', 'moths', 'silhouette', and 'end':

A white Viennese chair sets against the sea
and you--time fades in the landscape's
evening waves. Sculpted cheekbones in profile
and a child's sand-plastered shovel.

When you're here, red wine
flows for two, and the bitter wafts into salt air.
When you're here, everything's made right
as the sun eats away at the beach like moths.

Sunset over the sea! Tragedy's classic
moment. Silently gazing out to a point,
I see not you, but a color--and in it your
silhouette. And this point is not an end.

The poet writes to the reader, not necessarily for the reader. The sense of conversation is intense at times, even when it is often humorous. He mentions names from art, history, and politics, and assumes you know what he means (more than a few I didn't....thank you Google!).

That summer at the dacha I wrote a play...
Something from the classical genre: love and the seaside.
And a pistol must be feared near the finale.
Each day, after flipping through more journals,
I headed up into the garret.
I opened my laptop and all the heroes
poured out at will: babbling and dashing around.
You know what it's like to write a play?
You give them words and they create a ruckus--
quarreling with each other
barely enough time to keep track of them all!

I tripped over my words in reading this, I thought he meant that the pistol must be fired...as in Chekhov's gun rule, which states that if a pistol or rifle appears early on in a story, it must be fired or the audience is left uncertain. It's a form of foreshadowing called repetitive designation, and given that Chekhov and Shulpyakov are both Russian, I thought immediately of the connection. But this wording, 'feared' instead of 'fired', gives another dimension. Feared can mean revered or venerated (besides dreaded), so perhaps this is a nod to the violence of Russia's past and how necessary it seems in literature to add the conflict of violence to make a plot work.

The bilingual edition is lovely to look at...I only wish I could read the Cyrillic alphabet and hear it as Shulpyakov wrote it!

Special thanks to Canarium Books for the Advance Review Copy.

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky

2011-07-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

Translated from the German by Tim Mohr

"I was a fundamentally generous person, and I valued the interchange between generations. Helping support Sulfia in raising my grandchild didn't bother me at all. Neither did drawing Sulfia's attention to her own frequent mistakes. All I ever did was for her to improve herself."

Perhaps this should be called The Battle Hymn of the Tartar Mother....The narrator of this fast-paced novel is a mother more like Mommie Dearest than June Cleaver. She's actually kind of scary. Yet her witty observations, completely oblivious of her own sinister attitude, makes the reader both laugh and cringe.

As it begins, Rosalinda is bemoaning her stupid daughter--an ugly thing with no prospects for success and an unplanned pregnancy to boot. She believes in some sort of immaculate conception because she's sure no man would have her hideous offspring. Eventually, the child is born and it's up to Rosalinda to try and create a stable and loving environment away from the child's hapless mother.

And yet, Bronsky has given us an unreliable narrator, the classic type that makes you begin to question everything about the story. Little hints are thrown out, via Rosalinda's stream-of-consciousness thinking, that tell you more about why she is so difficult. It soon becomes fairly clear that her daughter is not the idiot we're made to envision.

"I had tried to teach her that nobody should be able to see when you were scared. That nobody should be able to tell when you were uncertain. That you shouldn't show it when you loved someone. And that you smiled with particular affection at someone you hated."

The story progresses as the three generations of women fight for survival, and Rosalinda's influence is felt everywhere. She really is the story; the characterization of her is full of revealing details. She knows just when to let her hair down (literally) to get her way, and when and what kind of flowers to send for a bribe. She knows that certain events require heels and the fur coat, while at other times her beauty must be downplayed. And she thinks nothing of throwing a boot at her daughter's face to get her way.

Aminat and Sulfia aren't as fully developed...but really, how could they, given the magnitude of Rosalinda? Another character that is intriguing is Kalganow, Rosalinda's husband, who leaves her after a particularly harrowing cross-examination by her. His presence in the story is at the periphery, but every scene he appears in is priceless.

In all, the story had me laughing in shock and awe at her atrociousness. Yet it grew tiring too, by the end, as she never seemed to mellow. I still enjoyed it, but I thought that underlining her pushy character was already done and I was convinced. I did like how certain factors that explained her behavior were subtly incorporated without excusing her. This will likely be in my top five fiction titles for the year....and the cover art is just brilliant.

Special thanks to Europa Editions for the Advance Review Copy.

Vernal Equinox by Manolis, poetry

2011-07-27T14:14:00.000-07:00

Of the collections of poetry by Manolis that I’ve read and enjoyed, Vernal Equinox is by far the most romantic and, shall we say, the steamiest. Perhaps the Greek mythological god Eros had an influence on this set of verses, although they wouldn’t necessarily be considered erotic. It’s said of Eros that “his quality of love was thought to be spiritual as well as physical, and was generally believed to be the deity who caused the love of beauty, healing, freedom, and many other good things as well as the love between people” (1). The Romans called him Cupid, and he was known for his quiver of arrows that struck often at random.

What is created in Vernal Equinox goes beyond just passion…this is no Harlequin poetry selection. Instead, the focus is on the feelings of both solitude and space that affection fills. The grace of companionship through difficulties, and the familiar grasp of a hand that soothes after a nightmare.

The Church is a frequent character in the poems, sometimes as setting and other times as a foil to the romance it seems to hamper. If anything, Manolis seems to contrast the pomp and drama of “grandiose” Church philosophies with the simplicity of tangible human affection. The addition of love changes the geography of the world in which we live, he seems to suggest.

In “New Dusk”,

In the streets we built
For our future encounter and
Our little talks at twilight

We’ll construct new signposts
And erect small statuettes

Opposite a descending sun
A poet of the insignificant
We’ll anoint our new saint

While you and I bestow benevolence
Onto this city with her grandiose churches
And the grieving priest shedding false tears

Authentic affection isn’t easy to find, as lamented in some of the poems. It often disappears without a trace, or misses its mark. In one poem, “Peeling,” a lonely woman prepares a beautiful feast for her husband, craving just a bit of appreciation and affection. Yet his hockey game on television is where his heart is focused. In “Ambience,” the sense of transitory affection propels the words so descriptively you can sense the couple inevitably being torn apart:

Ambient solace of your
Embrace where I seek refuge

Your fingerprints tangle
My beard into rolled anguish

Stay—stay with this a while don’t
Disturb equanimity of

Reddish dusk or let a lonely cloud
Cover this serenity or allow your

Day’s anxiety to hide behind
Our desired meditation on this

Moment in your arms and don’t
Let it go for even

An infinitesimal fraction of
Time frozen or fiery

The juxtaposition of frozen and fiery in the final line seems to allude to heaven and hell, and cements the idea that this romance is purely earthly, and that neither participant wishes to move beyond any imagined heavenly reward or hellish punishment. Incidentally, I was curious why Manolis wrote “a while”’ and not “awhile” in the third stanza, and if it was significant. It turns out that yes, it does mean something: ‘a while’ is a noun meaning a period of time. This usage underlines the ephemeral nature of the intimacy between these two lovers (2).

Lastly, in “Search,” the contrast of harsh light with comforting shadow reinforces the nature of seductive affection and how we even see differently when we are in love.

That you always search in dark corners
Believing you know what you seek

That you always yearn for a shadow
To help you pass unnoticed by moonlight

Beyond arm’s reach of your lustful appetite
And try to conceal your eyes behind sunglasses though

You can’t fail to be stunned by sunshine still

Only harsh light without him by your side

The title Vernal Equinox is most appropriate for such an assemblage of poems. It’s said that conception increases dramatically on the date of the vernal equinox (3). Perhaps it’s just a myth, but the concepts of rejuvenation and rebirth are linked to that date that begins Spring. Day and night are equal on the date of the equinox, which happens only twice a year. The adorable sheep shown in the photo was born this year on the first day of spring, and I assume it's understood why I chose his picture.

thanks to Ekstasis Editions of British Columbia for the Review Copy.

(1) http://gogreece.about.com/od/greekmythology/a/eros.htm

(2) http://www.bluepencilediting.blogspot.com

(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/20/first-day-of-spring-2011-vernal-equinox_n_838124.html#s255588&title=A_newborn_sheep

Deep Country by Neil Ansell (memoir)

2011-07-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

Peace and quiet. Time to hear yourself think. No need for a clock. All things that sound pretty wonderful to me, and that are found in this lovely book. Neil Ansell spent five years in PenlanCottage in Wales, an extremely isolated location where you won't hear your neighbors argue or their car alarm going off. Instead, bird song and silence....bliss.

Let me say immediately that this book is not for everyone. There's no car chases, not really any suspense (unless you count the search for where mother Mandarin duck laid her eggs), and no wild characters (except for the hares that speed through occasionally). But, for those of us who crave a little calm, this book is relaxing and appealing.

Ansell is a journalist, and he craves isolation as well. He's also precise in describing, for the most part, the types of birds that frequent the area and their breeding habits, even conducting a survey of species and totals.
A few of the birds I didn't recognize by their UK names, so I had to Google them for pictures. All of his descriptions of their stealth and means of throwing off predators is fascinating. Lots of facts are sprinkled in, such as how bats can live thirty years and return to their roosts the entire time.

Yet the book isn't just about what he sees outside the decrepit cottage, but what he sees inside himself. After a health scare, he observes:

"What remains if you peel away all those things that help you think you know who you are? If one by one you strip away your cultural choices, the validation you get from the company of your peer group, the tools you use for communication? Then what is left behind? If you had asked me that three or four years earlier, when I was just arriving at Penlan, I imagine that I would have guessed: your true self. But I soon found that in fact I rapidly became less and less self-aware; my attention was elsewhere, on the outside. And now that circumstances had forced me to look inward once again, it was to discover that there was perhaps no fixed self to find. So what was there instead? Now, more than ever, I had the sense that my life was no so very different from that of the birds fluttering on my bird-feeder, as though a boundary between us had been broken" (188).

I think this would be an amazing audiobook (Martin Shaw or Alan Rickman on the voice, please!) because the subject matter is soothing. When I went through a recent health scare, often it was suggested I use visualization to relax, especially during a few procedures that were without anesthetic. The nurses all said, "picture a long, sandy beach at sunset....". Nope, in the future I'll picture a rainy cottage with a wild-eyed rabbit perched on the back step and through the fog, a tree covered with yellow birds.

Very special thanks to Hamish Hamilton Books, an imprint of Penguin UK for the Review Copy.

Summer time...BBC crime and audiobooks

2011-07-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

In between recent reads, my husband and I have gotten hooked on British crime shows. I've always liked them, but now he's obsessed too. The great thing about these series is that we don't know who is a famous guest star or not, so there's no hint to 'whodunit', as sometimes happens when you see the guest stars listed for Law & Order. We've discovered these streaming on Netflix...

MI-5 is called Spooks in the UK

Wire in the Blood is one that features a sort of Monk-like character who is a blundering but genius psychologist. The characters are interesting but the stories are downright gruesome and just too gory for watching when you want to relax. Ick. Luther features an extremely tall detective (seriously, extremely tall!!!) who is trying to solve a murder while being stalked by the main suspect, and who most definitely lets criminals know how he feels. The storyline carries over all the episodes in the series. Very tense and fast-paced. Sherlock is a series of three episodes that resurrects the Sherlock Holmes character (Watson is a Gulf War vet), and modernizes the stories to feature new technology. It's a shame that Sherlock is so incredibly annoying. But all the props are there: the Baker Street address, Moriarty, etc. MI-5 is by far the corniest, silly at times because it takes itself so seriously, yet it's still better than reruns of CSI or L&O.

Collision

A few of the best: A Touch of Frost follows a cranky senior detective as he solves crimes around Denton, England. It has an ensemble cast, and none of that annoying music video style production that CSI seems to have developed. Another is Lewis, meaning Inspector Lewis, with two sort of bland actors as detective partners who actually kick ass in a rather polite and respectful way. Very mellow, very clean, sort of a vanilla crime show that is relaxing. Collision is a five-part series dealing with the before and after of a major car wreck, with two detectives backtracking the activities of all the drivers involved. Really, really good.

My favorite is Inspector George Gently, with two partners made of an aging detective (who remains dignified and sober even when he's furious) and his annoying young sidekick (who should be shot purely for his irritating habits, but they're just so darned polite they keep him on). This is a fairly new series but it's set in Durham County in the early 1960's, and they have done something with the lighting that it almost looks black and white with James Bond-style music and retro clothing and cars. Martin Shaw and Lee Ingleby are the stars and the writing is crisp and the detectives are flawed but compelling.

Another recent development is I've become hooked on audiobooks again. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan is a wonderful book, and having it read dramatically while I clean house or work on beading jewelry is kind of cool. I'm also listening to Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urberville's (read by George Gently star Martin Shaw) at night to relax before bed. The Tiger's Wife by Tea Orbecht and Hardy's Return of the Native (read by Alan Rickman) are next in line. There's something very peaceful about hearing a quiet voice reading aloud. Years ago I had a lengthy project where I listened to John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener as I worked. Today when I drive by and see the finished project I start remembering the story...they are cemented together.

If you're up for trying an audio book, Audible and E-Music both offer free trials. You can also download an audio book right off Amazon to your MP3 player or PC.

Field Report by Dennis Barone (lyric essays)

2011-07-21T00:23:00.000-07:00

See this sheep? Doesn't it appear a bit confused? Befuddled? This is a bit how I feel after reading Dennis Barone's book Field Report. It's a collection of essays (lyric possibly?) and short observations about all matters of life. I actually liked it a great deal, but some of it left me feeling like the perplexed sheep above.

First off, Barone has a great voice--light, energetic, and with a subtle wisdom that doesn't come off as pretentious or self-important. Some of the stories are humorous, such as "My Big Fish Story". Another one is deeply emotional, "Communion Rites", wherein Barone shows how an ordinary event can suddenly be remembered as significant. My favorite of all involves a trip he makes to Italy to try and locate the home of his ancestors. Eagerly he journeys all over, follows paths to nowhere, getting lost, and ultimately, not locating the source of his search. Yet, as he states,

"And what does the undiscovered house offer--an invitation to return, of course. And I will gladly do so....I have no complaint. I enjoyed my morning. I liked the town. My only problem will be my very breathlessness until the moment that I do return."

In another, "Immunity Radio", he makes some observations on media and what is the focus of society's gaze:

"Connections between the intense fear of age and the usurpation of fulfillment have created a euphemism for survival...By using the most horrifying story to organize a mounting demand for law and order, one merely dramatizes results. Live surrounded by mirrors, seek to escape an imaginative state and neither art nor religion has so overwhelming an idee fixe.... Public experimentation corrupts an entertainment...."

The confusion I felt came from a few essays that I had not a clue what the meaning was about. They felt like puzzles that I needed to solve, and couldn't. I think I'll return to these later to try and grasp his metaphors and allusions. In one, "Now and At the Hour", it felt like part war veteran hallucination mixed with an underlying theme of the work of a writer. One phrase is repeated: "...that ripping sound, one colon torn from a soldier's spine, a hand...." At first I was thinking of physical violence as part of the veteran's memory, but the words ripping, colon, spine, and hand can all refer to parts of book-text as well as the physical book. As I read, I couldn't make the two make sense in my head.

In all, it's an entertaining book that has the advantage of not leaving you 'finished'. Rereading is certain to reveal more details and meaning.

One tiny and possibly petty other thing must be mentioned....the press release for this book was so over the top that I actually giggled at it. It came off a bit Nicole Krauss-style...remember this gem? As I read it, a part of me wondered if I could indeed ever read another book and not end up disappointed after the magnitude of this title. Fortunately, the press release writer and the author are not at all alike, and Barone's book is very good, with none of that mega-hype being necessary.

Special thanks to Quale Press for the Review Copy.

This Way-Covering and Uncovering Tadeusz Borowski's "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen"

2011-07-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

This art book takes on the Holocaust in an unexpected way: by reviewing numerous submissions for cover art for the book This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski. The range of styles and images is widely varied, all touching upon different nerves. An editor would be hard-pressed to choose which one best represents what the book is all about.

As background, the collection of cover art also contains essays by six well-known scholars in studies of the time period. Especially noteworthy are the essays by Berel Lang and John Bertram. What is unique about their approach is instead of looking at the Holocaust from a more traditional approach, they examine how words and art were used as tools to influence attitudes and reinforce assumptions (as is typical even today).

"Hitler was a megalomaniacal artist intent on remaking the world, not only through murder on an unprecedented scale, but by destroying the ethical relationship between words and truth and images and reality."..........Liebe Geft, Director, Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance, 2011

In reading this, I learned stories of Holocaust bravery and resilience that I never knew, as well as the vicious effect on survivor's ability to restore normal emotions. One essay by Alicia Nitecki, "The Man Behind Tadeusz Borowski's Prose: Anatol Girs," details the biography of a Polish graphic artist who ended up in Dachau. He ended up designing a book cover for one compilation in this way:

"Girs published the book in an edition of 10,000 copies and dressed most copies just as Auschwitz had dressed them: blue and gray prison stripes, a thin white strip of cloth with the letter "P" inside a red triangle and next to it a number. No title on the cover. No author's names. No publisher's mark.

He covered an unspecified number of the volumes, he notes in his colophon, "in 'stripes' cut from original prison uniforms." He also covered a few copies in the leather from SS uniforms, and binding his own copy in barbed wire." (This Way, 42)

Leaving aside the historical significance (if at all possible), the art in this book is compelling and fascinating. I have it on a side table and everyone ends up browsing through it.

More info on the project that inspired the book is found at http://www.thiswayproject.org/. The book can be purchased at that site or at http://dunmore.circlesoft.net/.

Many thanks to Debra, a friend, for the gift of this book. I will treasure it!

A Poet in Crete...

2011-07-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

photo copyright Jeffrey Alfier

A photo from Crete, taken by my friend Jeffrey Alfier. Love the rustic windows, the shadows, and the muted colors...the way they are so saturated and deep. Also, the contrast between the children and the age of the buildings....stunning. The stories this street could tell!

Saving Sea Turtles by James R. Spotila

2011-07-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

Extraordinary Stories from the Battle Against Extinction

James Spotila conducts a worldwide study into what is causing the decrease in sea turtles throughout the world. Going beyond just what is causing it, though, he carefully explicates why the decline is so important to all living things.

The biggest curiosity seems to be "what loggerheads are doing...during their oceanic stage." Scientists can study what happens at each end of their journey, but not everyone agrees about what is happening en route. They know that turtles in the western Pacific are declining, but due to what? This mystery heightens the risk the turtles already face on land.

For example, dogs, raccoons, birds, coatis, crabs, and crocodiles all are known predators near shore and in nesting areas. Humans have a surprisingly huge impact as well, in two ways. One is that real estate near the nesting areas is deemed more worthy than the marine habitat, so new homes and new pets, as well as pollution and traffic, all get closer to the areas essential to turtles for laying eggs.

"My man does not need turtle eggs.
Because he knows they don’t make him more potent,”
says the caption.

Beyond that, turtle eggs are sought by many for consumption. Turtle eggs placed in beer allegedly increases sexual stamina, a sort of Viagra for men in South and Latin America. Cantinas can charge a great deal for the perk, so looting is common in the endangered habitats where sea turtles lay their eggs. One conservation group launched a publicity campaign with an Argentinian model to discourage the practice, only to be shut down by women's groups offended by the scantily-clad model.

Turtle eggs are also used in baking, and a quick Google search yields many recipes. Apparently, turtle eggs make a fluffier cake. In Malaysia, 90% of turtle eggs are harvested by people for these reasons.

Global warming is suspected as another reason for the decline. One reason is that the sex of the turtle is determined by how hot the egg gets during incubation. Hotter beaches mean an increase in egg temperature that produces more females than males. Less males mean that even if the turtles are healthy, they can't always reproduce. Global warming also effects the food supply that the turtles depend on.

The book is a fascinating read, with many anecdotal examples. The big shocker in it, though, has to be where the author promotes nuclear power as a way to avoid CO2 emissions, especially in India and China. Given what has happened in Japan after this book went to press, that solution may not go over well.

Special thanks to Johns Hopkins University Press for the Review Copy.

John Banville and Benjamin Black, via New Yorker

2011-07-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's issue of New Yorker has a fascinating article on the use of pseudonyms, and takes on the writing of John Banville as himself and as Benjamin Black.

"Pseudonymously Yours"

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/07/11/110711crbo_books_kavenna

Joanna Kavenna writes beautifully about both, with an eye for minute detail that makes me sure she's a huge fan. She notices how artistically Banville writes in his books, while Black's are more detective noir. She makes a case for the disparity, but just when you settle in and agree, she does a 180 and shows how similar the works actually are. References to phrases and signature motifs are key, and as she interviews Banville at the same time, giving a wide-scope picture of what might have seemed a narrow topic.

For fans of either, it's a great exploration of writer's craft and intention.

Voices by Arnaldur Indridason

2011-07-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

As a treat, I bought several books in the Reykjavik series by Indridason, and this week I'm goofing off with Icelandic crime. This is an older title...Hypothermia is the most recent (I think), and one I reviewed last year.

In Voices, the ensemble cast of three detectives is great--they all seem fully developed and competent, complementing each other's styles. As far as the story goes, this was intriguing and fast-paced, but not particularly unusual in terms of plot. In fact, I can't even say much about the outline without giving anything away. Maybe I'm jaded, but I kind of knew where this was headed much earlier than any of the detectives did. I was sort of surprised at the naivete they had that prevented them from solving the puzzle sooner. That said, it was still an entertaining read.

Two complaints: Eva Lind is the troubled daughter of the main detective, who is troubled in his own way after losing his brother decades before. The interaction between the father and daughter is frustrating. She seems incredibly whiny and childish, and he's far too patient to be for real. While he seems to dwell on his loss for much of the book, it doesn't feel invasive. While her self-pity is just obnoxious and less sympathetic. I'd have loved to have seen less of her.

The other thing is that for some reason, Iceland's unique location doesn't appear in much of the settings; instead, Icelandic motif sweaters get a lot of mentions but not the actual geography/geology/history of the region. Sure, almost all of the scenes take place in a hotel, where artifice reigns, yet still, I wished for more of the scenery...the George Gudni landscape that is both awe-inspiring and frightening at the same time. Sadly, Gudni passed away recently in June, which actually inspired my seeking out this series of novels.

Two sublime Gudni photos...

The Kindle Review-pros and cons after a month of use

2011-07-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

So, I've had my Kindle 3G for about a month now, and I'd love to say that Amazon provided it for review. No such luck, I bought this myself as a treat. It's different than I expected, and hopefully I can share some observations that may help if you're looking for an e-reader.

Get an Ipad. Seriously! The only objections or things I don't like about the Kindle could be avoided with an Ipad, not another e-reader. As an e-reader, having used two, this Kindle is pretty great, but I wish it could do more.

The surprises: the instant Whispernet download thing is pretty cool. It says under a minute but I find myself timing things and often it's seven seconds or less and it's on the Kindle, with no cables, conversions, or link to a computer. Very cool. I downloaded several of the Open Letter Press titles that were on sale from Amazon, and was pleased. I also got several free classic texts available in the Kindle store (PD Wodehouse, Tolstoy, etc). There's no problem with not having something to read.

A big perk is that reading PDF files is a breeze. That matters because it was the primary reason I bought the Kindle-I wanted to be able to read ARC's rec'd in PDF form without my laptop (which drives me nuts). These are different in terms of downloading-you simply send the documents to yourself at the free email Kindle address that you are provided with when you get the Kindle. It is sent via Whispernet and is ready for viewing immediately. That's the only time you need a computer with it.

not my Kindle, but shows how M-edge cover fits,
and it folds back to allow single-hand page-turns

I was most impressed with reading newspapers and magazines on it, more so than even books. I still love the feel of a print book, especially that if I drop one in the tub or spill coffee on it, it's not a huge financial loss. And I thought the wide-format of a newspaper would make reading it on the Kindle a bore. Actually, it's so much more convenient. The articles are sorted by title, making it easy to scroll through sections and read what you want. Also, the access to worldwide newspapers in multiple languages is sort of fun when the Ambien has yet to kick in.

As far as reading an actual book on it, it's okay. I am a fast reader so that page turn button, which is supposedly improved on this latest generation, still seems too slow. The print itself is adjustable, which is nice, and the way you hold the Kindle (oriented to right or left hands) makes it possible to hold it in one hand and change the pages with that same hand (leaving the other free for snacking!). It's comfortable to hold and is very light. Also, you can view it in portrait or landscape mode to maximize screen area.

It's not backlit, which many people complain about. I don't see the fuss-a book light at night is just fine. Backlighting just hurts my eyes anyway. Better yet, there's no glare, so reading outside is clear while working on my laptop outside is next to impossible. It's not in color, but none of my books are either (except photos)...not even an issue for me. BUT, if I wanted my kid to read a book on it, color would be nice (see Ipad statement above).

this is the cover I bought, comes with a fabric
envelope as well for travel

The battery life is great, even though I leave the wi-fi 3g on all the time. With it on, it delivers my subscriptions automatically and they are ready for viewing immediately. By the way, subscriptions to magazines and papers is cheap...I am paying $2.99 a month for New Yorker-much less than the print issue and hopefully saving a few trees.

So, the cons.....strangely enough, turning it off is really hard. It's easy to set it to sleep (where you have a bunch of screensavers rotate), but not all the way off. I wish it were simpler to do that and I would like to select one of the screensavers instead of the rotation. It would be nice to be able to customize it a bit as well (other than buying after market accessories)-but since it's not in color, it's not a big deal. The font on the pages seems boring and the list style of much of the options is dull-thumbnails would be better. A touch screen would even surpass that.

The web browser is experimental, and it's crap. Nearly impossible to view a webpage well, but I remind myself that I didn't buy it to surf the Internet. I think email would be nice, but again, it's an e-reader.

One of the biggest annoyances is if you need to type in a name or term-the QWERTY keypad is tiny and awkward, and there's no number line (that involves extra buttons), which is totally unacceptable in terms of convenience. Also, the main menu button, a 4-way switch with center select is, at times, hard to accurately press.

There's the ability to select certain passages to save as clippings-but why not be able to highlight them in a pale grey background or something? Going to the clippings file is a pain-it would be nice to scroll backward and see some sort of change in grey scale or font to signify your selected areas. It's difficult to sort the clippings as well, at least with PDF files, because the first few lines refer back, not to the selected text, but to the document name. Hard to explain but basically a pain.

Another negative is the price of accessories. I bought a cheapie cover first but it was sort of insulting to the Kindle. I ended up getting a New Yorker cover by M-Edge, which is very well designed and looks great (although a pocket would be nice). The assumption that cover designers seem to make is that you'll never need to take notes with an e-reader, so few have pockets. The price for the cover was pretty outrageous, as are 'skins' and booklights for it. I'm pleased with the cover itself but it was just under 25% of the price of the Kindle which seems a bit much. Some covers (Kate Spade and Cole Haan) run about $100 each...yikes.

So, why the Ipad? I think it would be cool to streamline my calendar, contacts, and email with the e-reader, and be able to have games for the kid to play when we're stuck at the doctor. The Ipad is the only real option for that, as would be another laptop, which just seems silly. For convenience for reading on the go, this is great...but it could be so much more. The idea of carrying a PDA and a Kindle and a digital camera and a paper notebook seems excessive, yet putting them all together usually lessens the qualities of one of the components.

One last remark on the proprietary use of Kindle books as opposed to others---yep, you have to purchase Kindle titles only (so no Googlebooks or Nook books). Some people get really upset about this, but one guy online pointed out that his razor and cartridges have the same issue-those aren't interchangeable either. I don't fault Amazon on this end. Xboxes don't play Playstation games. Some things can be converted (EPUB to Calibre, for example) for use on the Kindle. I don't see it as a big issue or artistic limitation.

Memoirs of a Gulag Actress by Tamara Petkevich (nonfiction)

2011-07-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Russian by Yasha Klots and Ross Ufberg

Astonishing. Painful. And incredibly difficult to put down...

I am not sure what I was expecting when I started this book. The idea that any form of entertainment was possible in the Gulag prison camps seemed bizarre. Yet her part in a theatre troupe is not the most amazing part of the book-the book as a whole is a fascinating exploration into personal character in the face of paralyzing evil.

First off, we learn that Tamara was regularly beaten by her somewhat mysterious father-she faced extreme punishment in the home for the slightest perceived error. However, her father was captured and imprisoned, taken away from the family, and leaving her mother and three sisters without assistance. The mystery of her father's 'crime' became meaningless as just finding sustenance for one day became a challenge. She feels deeply concerned about providing for her family, given her mother's emotional instability and the changing political climate. Eventually, she decides to marry a man who has been exiled to a distant city because he was a doctor, part of the intelligentsia that the Soviet's so despised. Her move to him there, in the hopes that she could send money home to her family in Leningrad, was possibly the worst mistake she could make.

The Soviet paranoia couldn't understand why someone would willfully choose exile, so she was under suspicion immediately. Not only was she unable to help her family (her mother and a sister died during the Siege of Leningrad), but her so-called friends and acquaintances turned her in and made up charges against her (likely to receive basic necessities for themselves or some sort of leeway in their own troubles). Imprisoned and sentenced, she ends up in the Gulag, serving hard labor by harvesting and processing hemp.

There's so much about this book that is covered--personal life, Russian politics, family interactions (her mother-in-law is a piece of work!), and unimaginable horror, that it's hard to review and not tell it all. There's so much beyond just the facts but how she processed them as they occurred. It left me with many questions.

Namely, given that she doesn't appear to have many close friends that have remained loyal, no family to count on, no spiritual connection to draw on, and very few examples of courage, how did she remain sane and decent? What gave her the strength to go through it all, essentially alone in every aspect? A cheating husband, a sister who can't forgive her for leaving (and failing to protect her), a son ripped from her arms who ends up never wanting to be part of her life? The physical pain of hard labor, starvation, and beatings?

As a personal history, it's astounding. Her voice throughout it is never self-pitying, and in fact, at a few points I imagined she was being a little too positive about the situations. Was it just in her nature to look for the best in it all? Suicide was an option of many-for her it was unimaginable.

It's very fast-paced and dramatic, and while a knowledge of some Russian history is helpful, I wouldn't think it's essential. A few moments of confusion occurred for me as many of the names were not only difficult but she didn't use each name consistently, sometimes she would use a nickname or a surname or the Russian patronymics (patronyms?) interchangeably. I felt like I needed a sheet to keep track of names. Also, it gave me a bit of pause to consider that she doesn't really reveal anything negative about herself: no flaws or weaknesses. Genuine history generally shows both sides, the good and the bad, to merit accuracy. Yet, it's her biography so I'm sure it was her right to share only what she wished. I just kept hoping she'd be a little more human and lose her temper with her conniving and hideous mother-in-law or give her cad husband a little more grief.

However, I'd recommend this to anyone interested in Russia. It's a clean read too, nothing explicit or unsavory, so even young teens could read this and learn just how ugly history can be. I can't help but think anyone who reads this is better off in their own life by seeing just how, by contrast, our society is pampered and simple.

Special thanks to Northern Illinois University Press for the Review Copy.

A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black

2011-07-04T21:38:00.000-07:00

Good old Quirke. The coroner/sleuth/ladies man is back to solve another puzzle. I've read the other Dr. Quirke books by Benjamin Black, and there's just something so appealing about the Dublin city life and Dr. Quirke in it: his mournful boozing, the earnest but misguided attempts at parenting his adult daughter, and the stream of women that never ends, despite no apparent effort on his part to attract them. In fact, I picture him much as the detective George Gently played by Martin Shaw on the British television series Gently.

In any case, this story involves the suspected suicide of the high-profile society member and horseman Richard Jewell. Quirke ends up at the country estate almost immediately and assists in interviewing the widow, a striking French woman who is calm and collected despite the horror she just discovered. As in many television shows, the medical examiner here seems more of a detective than a doctor...he pretty much leads the investigation for all purposes. Yes, it's a bit of a stretch but Quirke is just that kind of character, one that Black (a pseudonym of author John Banville) writes well.

Because it takes place in Ireland, there are gorgeous descriptions of country estates, drawing rooms, and endless cups of tea. As in all Black novels, many descriptions of the facets of light and dark, the penumbras of shadow play. I noticed a new motif in this particular novel-trees are often described extensively and with a sense of purpose to the story. It's a nice touch that makes the story feel more of a journey than a procedural.

Brit actor Martin Shaw, how I imagine Quirke

So with all that going for it, it should be better than it is. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the series and the character of Quirke is up there with Wallander for me in terms of crime fiction. But this one disappointed me in two ways. First, it introduces a story line about Sinclair, Quirke's assistant, and his possible relationship with Phoebe, Quirke's troubled but plucky daughter. It's compelling, but it doesn't seem to develop-it drops off completely. Then, there are the other characters that make up the suspects, and I felt like they were all sort of caricatures-from beginning to end, they never changed in their behavior. Instead of developing some complexity or depth, they simply remained the same as when the story introduces them. This made predicting and solving the crime fairly easy for the reader. Usually in a detective story, the underlying rule is 'nothing is as it seems'; yet in this one, yep, it pretty much is exactly how it seems.

And, no spoilers here, but in terms of imagination, the plot of this book has been on every other episode of Law & Order SVU. Mental illness, homeless children, anti-Semitic hate crimes, and business corruption fill in the blanks, but the basic premise is pretty bland and predictable. It's still an enjoyable read, as there's something strangely peaceful about the old-school sleuthing that Quirke does.

Special thanks to Jason Leibman of Henry Holt for the Advance Review Copy.

This title releases today, 7/5/11.

A Cloud of Witnesses, Jason Stumpf --prose poetry

2011-07-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Reading Jason Stumpf's collection of prose poems from Quale Press requires you to set aside any preconceptions about what you are about to read. Because this is a really weird book. Weird in a good way...A delightful way!

First off, the thing that hits you as you begin is the random words thrown (skillfully) together in a strange mix that creates intense visual images. In one, "An Evening's Entertainment", the picture is outlined with first a "brute pianist" who doesn't play the piano but bangs "his digits on the tusks". Dead flowers, distracted twins, and a old portrait fill the scene. The choice of words (tusks instead of keys, for example) instills a sense of violence in what others might portray as a simple image of a guy and a piano. It's almost like solving a puzzle, as you notice what words Stumpf chose in view of what might have been more typical.

"Dinner-Time" is a word play that is both comic at first but ending with an ominous tension...only the last word reveals that a 'secret' is threaded within the previous paragraph. So it snaps you back into wondering, what was the secret?

The most critical part of the book is the End-Matter...surely they could have been moved to be the First-Notes, however. Because reading those helps get a sense of the depth of each piece...I wish I had seen them earlier instead of later. Stumpf calls on Scripture, Rothko paintings, classic poets such as Shelley, Neruda, and Keats, and novelists such as Joyce, Hardy and Beckett for inspiration.

The End-Matter helped me better understand "Re-Tailing a Lion" because it explains that each word is found in Keats "Ode to a Grecian Urn", although this new telling has a different perspective than Keats' memorial vision.

My favorite of the collection is "Fronts", about a man not healthy enough to go to war in 1944, yet well enough to suddenly become a popular choice for a companion for the town's women since the men are gone. "Transmissions from a sinking ship, he once remarked, sound something like a waltz." And then the Morse code follows the paragraph (SOS, I think!)...underscoring the element of a silver lining for this frail man. The bitter loss of others ironically heightens his status.

Lastly, "MCMXLIII" explains the swaying confusion of a man reading the Bible over the course of a year, with an appropriate theme of a water voyage. "From Adam to the epistles, male to mail, he read, and in dreams that year saw a flotilla of begats sailing near. He took comfort in how, like reeds, even kings sometimes lied down, broken in the sea."

The collection is in no way typical and requires more than a casual reading to enjoy it best. I read it rather slowly, just one a day, to try and visualize the images he makes instead of rushing through them. Focusing on word choices and their impact (instead of a tamer or more typical synonym) gives the reader a visceral response that sometimes is surprising.

Special thanks to Gian Lombardo of Quale Press for the Advance Review Copy.

My Cat, Coon Cat by Sandy Ferguson Fuller & Jeannie Brett

2011-07-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

I've never hid the fact that I adore Islandport Press for their heirloom quality children's books (and also regional books about Maine). So if I gush, forgive me. For this new children's book is very worthy of lots of gushing!

My Cat, Coon Cat is a picture book that follows a stray who turns up at a gorgeous Cape Cod-style home, and over the course of a day explores the area and gets friendly with the owners. Maine coon cats are known for being enormous, and the friendly cat that scores the best possible new home is no slouch. A little girl, about ten or eleven-years-old, encourages the cat to stay.

The art work is expressive yet simple. Highly detailed from the little girl's eyelashes to the patterns on the cat fur make it gorgeous to look at. The artwork also has subtle clues as to what the household is like, and my four-year-old likes discovering things in the pictures. One bunch of roses on one page has launched a heated debate as to whether they are berries or roses. They're roses. I'm positive, but he is just as sure that they are clumps of red berries.

The story is simple, sweet, with a gentle rhyme. Appropriate for all children and cat lovers alike, the reading level would probably be considered K-1 grade. As with their other books, Islandport uses heavy-weight paper stock, matte inks, and a printing and binding process that means this book will last and be enjoyed by (hopefully) my grandchildren some day.

It joins Islandport's Dahlov Ipcar titles on the 'favorites' shelf at our house.

Special thanks to Melissa Kim of Islandport Press for the Review Copy.

The Meagre Tarmac, Stories by Clark Blaise

2011-06-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

"Despite external signs of satisfaction, good health, a challenging job, the love and support of family and friends, no depressions or mood swings, no bad habits, I would not call myself happy. I am well-adjusted. We are all extremely well-adjusted. I believe my situation is not uncommon among successful immigrants of my age and background."

Clark Blaise has created a short story collection (a few of which are linked) that explores the world of first-generations immigrants from India who now reside in the West. Most are financially successful, and are often working in the business sector of computers and banking. Extensive education in India and in London makes allows many of these immigrants to surpass the abilities of their American co-workers. Yet as the quote above reveals, high wages and business savvy do not ensure happiness.

Ties to India and family remain firm, even though their new culture has a hard time understanding the connection. A sense of family and standing within the family is underscored in many of these stories, and much of this is due to two factors: the traditions of inheritance and arranged marriage. In the case of inheritance, oldest sons seem blessed by getting most of the family wealth. To be a younger brother means continually fighting for a fair share. In many cases, extended family live together in India; sometimes, one part of each family has just a room of their own, and are subject to the whims of the senior son. In one story, a successful and mild physician at work turns into a plotting madman at home, scheming to get rid of the older brother by lawsuit or darker means.

Arranged marriages are a fascinating part of the story, especially in that even a very successful Indian businessman can feel a need to replicate the tradition and marry one of his "own" despite numerous opportunities to marry anyone he wants. Children too, of first-generation parents have their own battles. Raised in the US, they don't understand the traditions while their parents desperately want to keep their children out of harm's way. They look back to India as a place of innocence and control.

In one story, a successful Pac Bell engineer is worried by his ice-skating prodigy daughter (who has her own secrets). The sure answer to him is for them to return to India, but her objections raise entirely new issues for the family to deal with. Many of the stories remind me of the style of Ha Jin's A Good Fall, which dealt with Chinese immigrants in New York. Respectability and behavior are far more important to many immigrants than they are to long-time citizens.

Another story has a hugely successful banker seeking a Parsi bride, even being middle-aged, his mother is still nagging at him to find the proper Parsi wife that will honor the family, a tough search given only about 50,000 Parsis are left. His search leaves him questioning his own beliefs and what exactly makes for a solid relationship.

Partition, castes, progress and family honor are all explored in this fascinating book that I wish had been longer. Blaise ends many stories with a question...leaving the reader to imagine the ending. I didn't mind that, but I'd love to see some of these characters again. Especially intriguing is how many of the immigrants return home regularly, offering financial assistance and with an open mind to permanently return. This was a surprise to me, as it seems that once people get acclimated to a new region, the past represents too many limits. I was also intrigued by a point made in one of the early stories that Indian transplants do not form social societies here in the US, such as other races do. Little Tokyo and Chinatown may be a way for some Asians to recreate a social and culture center here, while Indo-Americans resist unifying in social groups.

Special thanks to Biblioasis for the Advance Review Copy.

Changing Planet, Changing Health by Dr. Paul Epstein

2011-06-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

The topic of global warming always gets a few people annoyed...there's some that do not think it's real or important enough to care about. On top of that, any intelligent conversation about it seems to get sidetracked into a political stance that calls in lots of unrelated subjects and distracts from the focus.

So, what if a doctor were to examine the subject from an outside view, subjective only to his viewpoints as a physician, and left politics and policies out of most of the discussion?

The answer is Changing Planet, Changing Health by Paul Epstein, MD. While he does get into some political issues towards the end, for the most part the focus is on what happens when the earth gets too warm. It's not simply warmer weather that is the issue, and it certainly doesn't go away when a large winter snowfall appears. Rather, he analyzes the data related to weather change. Areas that receive more heat than usual obviously have a drought. But where does that water go that heated up? It's not gone forever, but is evaporated up and into weather systems (water weighs much more than air) that dump that water somewhere else, leading to widespread flooding and furious storms. Dry ground can lead to wildfires, which the resulting smoke can actually alter weather patterns, making the imbalances continue.

The pattern of extra water and invasive flooding sets up a domino effect in plant and animal life, and these combine with pathogens to exacerbate the change. What Dr. Epstein shows is what happens next: viruses appear that were dormant or unheard of regionally before. Excessive plant growth alters feeding patterns of animals, causing less (or more) of them and thus further altering the previous balance.

His point is clear and crosses political lines. Focusing on the delicate and fragile balance of the Earth's ecosystems, he shows how change perpetuated by pollution, poor resource management, and greed make for very real consequences in terms of health. Asthma and allergies are only some of the results-major infectious diseases run wild when an ecosystem is out of balance.

It could be a dry read, but it isn't...anecdotal stories and hard data make it lively and potentially scary. When one CDC expert goes to testify before Congress, she has most of her testimony redacted to prevent offending some of the audience. How can the problem be solved if no one gets to hear the truth about it?

One website features an interesting interview with the author, wherein he suggests the political polarizing option of a slight (ACK! The horror!) tax increase to raise funds for better infrastructure. In addition, he makes the case for the way European manufacturers have to prove the safety of their product-a far different stance than the US method. It's an interesting article. http://adventures-in-climate-change.com/climatecentral/index.php/2011/04/22/changing-planet-changing-health-qa-with-dr-paul-epstein/

Just for a kick, NASA has some fascinating charts with average land and ocean temperatures here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/.

Special thanks to Kathleen Carney for the Advance Review Copy.

Tramp, Or the Art of Living a Wild and Poetic Life by Tomas Espedal

2011-06-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Norwegian by James Anderson

"Everyday tasks: wearing yourself out trying to find something new, a new word, a new sentence, a new book."

Espedal is a walker, or more specifically, a traveller. Rather than allowing the destination to be the objective, each journey he makes is made meaningful by the act of arriving. Almost exclusively on foot, Espedal has travelled numerous European countries (and well beyond) just to discover new things and contemplate the old.

As he travels, he analyzes works by Rousseau, Whitman, Cezanne, Wordsworth, and other philosophers and poets who also live for the journey; he finds a common ground through time with them by either citing their references to exploration or by simply imagining their impressions. His adventures are not first-class, as he actually prefers travelling as lightweight and unburdened as possible, and his taste is not for air-conditioned insulation from the masses that so many people find essential to relax. Instead, his only necessities appear to be cash and a warm coat.

Some travel books get way too narrative: "I did this, then I did this, and later I did this..." No thanks. This is far more interesting. Especially in that he's a writer by profession, and he's able to not just explain where he goes but what he gets out of it. The reader, who may be stuck at home with only a adventurous spirit, can enjoy his work and not feel completely ignorant in the face of his numerous literary references.

Sometimes he talks about the puzzles of travel: how an enormously crowded city may feel lonely, how a perfectly beautiful and tranquil evening may prevent a good night's sleep, and even how the perfect writing desk in an inspirational space can induce writer's block. In other places, he expands on the idea of novelty, how it's not so much where a person ventures to that brings refreshment but simply the act of doing something different: taking an unusual route, sleeping in a different bed, or eating different foods. Routine is the enemy of restoration, and he makes a strong case for wanting to be on the move as much as possible.

Espedal calls the place he lives between journeys a 'waiting room'; a place to wait for the metamorphosis of change. Rousseau talks about the common sensation that most people have, to get away from 'it' all, but who are unable to define what 'it' is. Again, the novelty of the new and unexpected is Espedal's answer to what is needed. Coincidentally, as I read this, Thomas the Tank Engine was on, and Gordon the big engine came to the same conclusion: "a change is as good as a rest." Who knew kid's shows could be so philosophical?

In any case, I completely lost myself in the travel and the ideas and was completely envious of it all. And yet, upon reflection, part of the freshness of what he suggests isn't as accessible as he makes it out to be. Sure, it'd be swell to explore without itinerary or restrictions, yet who actually can do that for more than a few weeks here and there? To travel off the beaten path also means being inaccessible to those who may need you; most people have some sort of commitments to fulfill.

Don't get me wrong, I don't deny the beauty of the journey. In fact, he's the only writer who has put into words the joy I feel at two small hotels that I escape to on occasion, alone, just to hear myself think. And I definitely sense the Nordic feel of his work that reminds me, somehow, of the character of Arvid Jansen in two of Per Petterson's novels. There's definitely a cultural component to the desire for solitude because I've known many people who are completely helpless alone, while others thrive in isolation.

Special thanks to Bishan of Seagull Books of India for the Advance Review Copy.

From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus (translated fiction)

2011-06-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

"She had to begin to live. Because the Veteran was a moment and grandmother's life was many other things."

Thought to be insane by her family, the grandmother in this story attempts to recreate a sane and normal life to prove them wrong. Her reputation and behavior dissuades suitors from pursuing her, and without marriage, life in a small Italian village circa WWII leaves her a social outcast. Shortly before the war ends, however, she meets a widower who agrees to marry her; it appears to most that he did so only out of duty to her family for their supporting him financially. Their marriage is marked by tolerable distance and quietness, and while she wishes for children, health issues prevent her from carrying a child full-term.

Eventually her husband sends her to a health spa on the sea, in the hopes she'll heal and recover. Perhaps she does so, but too well. For there she meets a man she refers to only as the "Veteran", one who loves her unconditionally and who finds her far more fascinating and vibrant than any 'normal' woman. He thinks she's beautiful, intelligent, and witty. Finally she is loved for who she is...until it's time for her to return home.

She returns home with new vigor and soon discovers she's pregnant. Her husband is thrilled and their marriage appears to thrive amid the love for their new son. But who is the Veteran? Will she see him again? Why did she return if she was so loved?

Milena Agus frames the story as a narrative between the grandmother and her granddaughter, both unnamed, and flashes back and forth through different parts of their family history. The grandmother is a complex character: a woman who will secretly work like a slave to acquire a piano for her musical son, but who is unable to bear hearing him play it. As the granddaughter hears her story, she has to evaluate how much of it is true, and begins to question what role the Veteran ultimately had. More and more questions appear, but Agus keeps the story tight and keeps revealing details right until the end that ultimately turn the story upside down. Nothing can be taken at face value, and while the grandmother is possibly an unreliable narrator, maybe the granddaughter is too.

The story is fast-paced and hard to predict, and surprises are sprinkled throughout. Images of the grandmother searching Milan, looking for the Veteran around every corner, are detailed so intricately one can practically feel the fog that obscures the city and her motives. Italy plays a supporting role as the sun and the sea seem to brighten the background of simple village life even during wartime. If anything, the story is almost too quick. More questions could have been answered or expanded upon. Yet in all, a satisfying glimpse of human perception and frailties.

Special thanks to Europa Editions for the Advance Review Copy.

The Guinea Pigs by Ludvik Vaculik (translated fiction)

2011-06-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Translated from the Czech by Kaca Polackova

I began reading The Guinea Pigs amused and entertained by the main character, Vasek, a family man who wishes to get his city-bound family back to nature. Since buying a rural cottage is unrealistic, he instead acquires a guinea pig for his family who live in Prague. Vasek appears to be a firm but doting father, and the first-person narration seemed almost sweet at first, as he narrates the story as if telling a child's bedtime story or guide for the care of small animals. Yet as I read, I found an underlying bit of darkness that is revealed more as the book proceeds. In the case of the guinea pig, a gift for his son Pavel, an allusion is made that I missed at first:

“It had all the attributes of a good gift…To think of a present like that, a person would first have to be to be really clever and observant; then, he would have to be quick; furthermore, he would have to have a feeling for the rarity of the moment: to know the desire of the recipient, to have a certain feeling towards him and know how to estimate the response. He would have to possess good taste combined with a sense of humor, be profound…He would also have to be a considerate person, not to have bought the weasel.”

It seems at first like good-natured humor, praising his own success with the beloved gift, but the line about the weasel--Who would buy a guinea pig AND a weasel? Knowing that the sweet piglet would be destroyed? Only a sadist would buy both, yet clearly the narrator considered it. A clue.

Vasek works for the state-run banking system in Prague, yet he clearly has no head for numbers: he’s convinced that Edgar Allan Poe was an economist. Worse yet, the bank he works for makes stealing money even more difficult by the day. With the boring job comes an astonishing amount of time left over for theorizing and contemplating all sorts of conspiracies. At work, it appears that a financial meltdown is imminent, yet no one seems to care. One supervisor, an older man who is ignored by most, becomes a focus of Vasek’s daytime speculation.

The nighttime is when Vasek studies the guinea pigs instead, his fascination only increasing daily. Yet while he gets to know his gentle little pets, they somehow end up with mysterious injuries. He is obsessed, and the family branches out to get even more of them. While his children and wife revolve around the periphery of his life, the guinea pigs are his main focus. And strangely enough, the threat of the financial meltdown begins to parallel what is happening with the family pets.

Written by Ludvik Vaculik shortly after the Prague Spring in 1968 (only recently translated to English by Open Letter), the novel is full of symbolism. This is significant because Vaculik was ostracized by the Communist Party for his opinions. It was necessary to speak in riddles or symbols to avoid further persecution. Thus, The Guinea Pigs can be read in more than one way, depending on how you interpret the symbols. For example, even the concept of ‘guinea pig’ goes beyond a small animal, having an additional meaning as a ‘subject for experiment’. Vaculik often suggested that the Czech people were being experimented upon in terms of political power and financial schemes. Even the names given to the guinea pigs owned by Vasek could be considered symbolic (yes, one of them is named “Red”).

Monica Carter explains in her excellent blog, Salonica World Lit, why Vaculik may have chosen guinea pigs to demonstrate the political situation: “if you distill oppression down to its purest form between the oppressor and the oppressed, [it’s] not difficult to imagine an oppressor doling out praise and punishment like some tough but benevolent patriarchal scientist whose only goals are to control and manipulate in order to get the result he wants. Of course he wants them to feel small and vulnerable, dependent and gullible because that's how power works” (the link to her review is below).

At times the symbolism becomes overwhelming, giving the reader moments of both clarity and confusion. At times I thought, “What on earth does this mean? I am clueless!” and other times, “I so know what he means here, I’m so clever.” I found it helpful to refer to the book Prague Panoramas by Cynthia Paces (review coming soon!) to anchor myself in the appropriate time period to understand what was happening in Prague and to see the heavy influence of Russia against the new freedoms that Czech writers were enjoying.

Another way to look at the novel is explored in Lisa Hayden's review (link below), as she ties in the archetypes of Russian fairy tale motifs with parts of The Guinea Pigs. Her review citing Vladimir Propp's work is fascinating.

However, the many allusions to history and politics are lightened by the dark humor that pervades the story. I found myself laughing in surprise at some places and squirming with suspicion in others. It’s not necessary to do history homework to understand the book, it stands alone. But I was curious to understand the story behind the symbolism, and really could see how Vaculik could have been in great danger had he not used the subterfuge. I also enjoyed how it pointed me to other books, including one Poe collection, just to connect the references found in the book to the overall story ("A Descent Into the Maelstrom" to be exact). One of my favorite books so far this year!

Monica Carter’s review:

http://blog.salonicaworldlit.com/2011/05/19/the-guinea-pigs-by-ludvik-vaculik.aspx?ref=rss

Lisa Hayden's review (with references to Russian folktales):

http://lisasotherbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/experimenting-with-life-in-guinea-pigs.html

Prague Panoramas by Cynthia Paces is published by U of Pittsburgh Press.

Special thanks to Chad Post of Open Letter for the Advance Review Copy.

Hello Ukraine?!?!

2011-06-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Half my page hits are from the Ukraine? Is the Eastern European Reading Challenge that amazing or is my site somehow getting linked to another one? Weird. Not complaining! Just weird. Perhaps "Black Sheep Dances" means something else?

The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach

2011-06-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

Translated by Dirk and Ingrid Winterbach from the Afrikaans

The Book of Happenstance begins with loss, as a linguistic specialist’s home is robbed and defaced, with her precious sea shell collection stolen. While it may appear a minor crime, the shells and the concept of personal loss becomes an underlying theme that weaves the story along and helps address the issues of science, language, and relationships. Going beyond a crime novel, there are elements of social commentary in it that examine the causes and effects of cultural changes.

Helena is a linguist assigned to help put together an Afrikaans dictionary before the language is completely lost. She and her boss painstakingly collect the words, the root meanings and usages, and document the often fascinating intersections of meaning that appear in disparate words. Despite her efforts, the Museum of Natural History where she is working is at the same time removing the Afrikaans books from their collection, only keeping the most popular titles on hand. The battle appears to be a losing one, as trying to preserve the language is costly and time-consuming. Yet the language is much like the shells: evidence of previous and historic life.

After the police appear uninterested in the loss of her shells, she tries to investigate the crime herself, while at the same time fending off the bizarre and rambling phone calls that she begins receiving from an old acquaintance that she can’t quite place, yet who seems to know her every move. The caller brings up old memories, and her life is thrown off balance by the sense of exposure she’s experienced. First her home has been violated, now her memories too are revealed and speculated upon. Helena is forced to examine what the sea shells meant to her, and why their loss is so devastating.

The novel is complex, and I really enjoyed what it had to say about language and the need to curate the past in order to understand it. I took a linguistics class last spring and was fascinated by how each ‘dead’ language still revealed something unique about its speakers. Similarities between completely different languages, and the ways that regional expressions expand or disappear make linguistics a fascinating study, and the examples of Afrikaans shown extensively in this text attest to that.

Yet Helena is, in many ways, an unlikable character. She has an edge that makes her less than sympathetic at times. For example, she schemes to seduce her married boss for no reason other than that she finds it amusing. Gossiping about her coworkers, again for amusement, makes her easy to dislike. As she analyzes her past, it’s clear she’s left a path of destruction that has many victims beyond her own wounds. Yet her behavior is easier to grasp as she continues reflecting on her childhood and the losses she experienced early.

The numerous coworkers at the Museum appeared to me as flat characters, serving only as blank outlines for Helena’s character to react to, instead of being fully developed on their own. This meant that in some scenes, the dialogue between them felt artificial and almost like a caricature of a typical office setting. I glazed over a few times as Helena questions one of her coworkers about the origin of life, which he rattles on about endlessly without much enthusiasm. His own boredom translated into extensive sections that weren’t that compelling and slowed down the narrative to a standstill.

Aside from that, there were some plot threads that seemed to end erratically, making me wonder why they were there in the first place. Some of these had foreshadowing that tricked me into expecting something else, yet instead of becoming a twist they just disappeared.

Special thanks to Chad Post of Open Letter for the Advance Review Copy.

This title was released June 14, 2011.

Double Giveaway from Algonquin and latest winner..

2011-06-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

First off, congrats to Anne R. who won the copy of The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach. Hopefully she'll report back what she thinks of it...my review is delayed as I've not yet finished it. Soon!

Now a new giveaway! Sorry to say, it's US only. I apologize for that...heavier packages to Canada and overseas packages are too costly for me to ship right now. But soon we'll do a gift card thing for Book Depository that will be worldwide.

So-thanks to Algonquin's generosity, the two books up for grabs are Something for Nothing by David Anthony (just released!) and the newly released paperback version of Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger by Lee Smith. I haven't read the Anthony title yet (in Mount TBR) but reviewed Mrs. Darcy last year.

To win, please leave a comment with contact information, and be a blog follower. Contest ends July 1, 2011 at 9:pm Pac Time. Again, US only. Thanks to Michael for the giveaway copies!

Yannis Ritsos Poems-translated by Manolis

2011-06-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

Selected Books

A careful hand is needed to translate the poems of Yannis Ritsos, and Manolis is the ideal poet to undertake such an enormous task. Born in Crete, Manolis’s youth was intermingled with the poetry of Ritsos. Once a young man moved by the Theodorakis version of Epitaphios, he’s now a successful poet in his own right who is still moved to tears hearing the refrains of those notes from half a century ago. His Greek heritage, with its knowledge of the terrain, people, history and cultural themes, makes his translation all the more true to what Ritsos intended. Having visited the very places of which Ritsos wrote, he knows how the light and sea shift, and how Ritsos imagined those changes as being a temperament and personality of the Greece itself.

The parallels in their lives are uncanny: when Ritsos was imprisoned, Manolis’ father also was imprisoned on false charges. Both men dealt with the forces of dictators and censorship, and experienced the cruel and unreasoning forces of those times. In fact, they even lived for a time in the same neighborhood. In his foreword to Poems, Manolis relates that he viewed him as a comrade, one whose “work resonated with our intense passion for our motherland and also in our veracity and strong-willed quest to find justice for all Greeks.”

In Poems, Manolis chose to honor Ritsos first by not just picking and choosing a few titles to translate, although that might have been far easier. Instead, he undertook the complex task of translating fifteen entire books of Ritsos work-an endeavor that took years of meticulous research and patience. It should be noted that along with the translation, edited by Apryl Leaf, that he also includes a significant Introduction that gives a reader unfamiliar with Ritsos an excellent background on the poet from his own perspective.

Dated according to when Ritsos composed them, it’s fascinating to see how some days were especially productive for him. These small details are helpful in understanding the context and meaning. For example, in Notes on the Margins of Time, written from 1938-1941, Ritsos explores the forces of war that are trickling into even the smallest villages. Without direct commentary, he alludes to trains, blood, and the sea that takes soldiers away, seldom to return. Playing an active role in these violent times, the moon observes all, and even appears as a thief ready to steal life from whom it is still new. From “In the Barracks”:

The moon entered the barracks
It rummaged in the soldiers’ blankets
Touched an undressed arm Sleep
Someone talks in his sleep Someone snores
A shadow gesture on the long wall
The last trolley bus went by Quietness

Can all these be dead tomorrow?
Can they be dead from right now?

A soldier wakes up
He looks around with glassy eyes
A thread of blood hangs from the moon’s lips

In Romiosini, the postwar years are a focus (1945-1947), and they have not been kind. The seven parts to this piece each reflect a soldier’s journey home.

These trees don’t take comfort in less sky
These rocks don’t take comfort under foreigners’
Footsteps
These faces don’t take comfort but only
In the sun

These hearts don’t take comfort except in justice.

The return to his country is marked by bullet-ridden walls, burnt-out homes, decay, and the predominantly female populace, one that still hears the bombs falling and the screams of the dead as they dully gaze about, looking for fathers, husbands, and sons. The traveler’s journey is marked by introspection and grim memories reflected on to the surfaces of places and things he thought he knew.

And now is the time when the moon kisses him sorrowfully
Close to his ear
The seaweed the flowerpot the stool and the stone ladder
Say good evening to him
And the mountains the seas and cities and the sky
Say good evening to him
And then finally shaking the ash off his cigarette
Over the iron railing
He may cry because of his assurance
He may cry because of the assurance of the trees and
The stars and his brothers

An entirely different feeling is found in Parentheses, composed 1946-1947. In it, healing is observed and a generosity of spirit exerts itself among those whose hearts had been previously crushed. In “Understanding”:

A woman said good morning to someone –so simple and natural
Good morning…
Neither division nor subtraction To be able to look outside
Yourself-warmth and serenity Not to be
‘just yourself’ but ‘you too’ A small addition
A small act of practical arithmetic easily understood…

On the surface, it may appear simple, a return to familiarity that may have been difficulty in times of war. Yet on another level, he appears to be referring to the unity among the Greek people-the ‘practical arithmetic’ that kept them united though their political state was volatile. Essentially timeless, his counsel goes far beyond nationalism.

Moonlight Sonata, written in 1956, is an impossibly romantic and poignant lyric poem that feels more like a short story. In it, a middle-aged woman talks to a young man in her rustic home. As he prepares to leave, she asks to walk with him a bit in the moonlight. “The moon is good –it doesn’t show my gray hair. The moon will turn my hair gold again. You won’t see the difference. Let me come with you”

Her refrain is repeated over and over as they walk, with him silent and her practically begging him to take her away from the house and its memories:

I know that everyone marches to love alone
Alone to glory and to death
I know it I tried it It’s of no use
Let me come with you

The poem reveals her memories as well as his awkward silence, yet at the end of their journey, she doesn’t leave. Ritsos leaves the ending open: was it a dream? If not, why did she not go? What hold did the house have over her? Was it just the moonlight or a song on the radio that emboldened her?

In 1971, Ritsos wrote The Caretaker’s Desk in Athens, where he was under surveillance but essentially free. At this time he seems to be translating himself-that of how he was processing his own personal history. Already acclaimed for his work, perhaps he was uncertain of his own identity.

From “The Unknown”,

He knew what his successive disguises stood for
(even with them often out of time and always vague)
A fencer a herald a priest a ropewalker
A hero a victim a dead Iphigenia He didn’t know
The one he disguised himself as His colorful costumes
Pile on the floor covering the hole of the floor
And on top of the pile the carved golden mask
And in the cavity of the mask the unfired pistol

If he is indeed discussing his identity, it’s with incredible honesty as to both his public persona and his private character. After all, he’d been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968 (and eight more times) and he was likely weighing, in his later years, all that he’d endured.

The beauty of this particular translation is that, while subjects and emotions change over time, they still feel united by the underlying character of Ritsos. Some translators leave their own imprint or influence, yet this feels free of such adjustment. It’s as if Ritsos’ voice itself has been translated, with the pauses, humor, and pace that identify the subtle characteristics of an individual.

Special thanks to Libros Libertad of Surrey, British Columbia for the Review Copy.

M C Escher, Still Life and Street

2011-06-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Impossible perspective....look twice!

Leeches by David Albahari (Serbian fiction)

2011-06-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

Is anything truly meaningless?

In David Albahair's newest novel, Leeches, his protagonist battles with the concept of what is trivial and what is significant in his life. A common enough problem for anyone, but for someone having gone through the political and ethnic war in the Balkans, it's more complex. The novel begins with him witnessing a random act of violence: a woman is slapped by a man. The shock of it sears him, yet it seems tame compared to the violence perpetrated throughout the region during the conflict. Now obsessed, he tries to find out who the woman is and why the incident took place.

As he takes on his search, he finds himself looking for clues everywhere. Suddenly everything has a broader meaning, and he feels enlightened to recognize signs that others ignore. Graffiti, scraps of paper on the ground, the angle of a door opening; all appear to him as related to his search. His closest friend Marko tries to get him back to reality, cautiously but clearly pointing out the flaws in his thinking. Is he suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder or is he simply paranoid? Or could it be as they say, that even a paranoid person is right sometimes?

The novel proceeds rapidly with him consulting a mathematical expert, Dragan Misovic ("you must get over your fear of math"), and Kabbalah mystics in order to piece together what he can accept as a reality. The Belgrade setting is perfect for the labyrinth of the story, as he seeks answers through old and new portions of the city, amid ruins and new construction.

In one portion of the novel, I came across what is possibly the best explanation for why people become racist, and why ethnic hatred is so prevalent. It's a lengthy excerpt but worth the insight:

"Hatred of other ethnic groups is in effect hatred of oneself...It is not the other we fear, we fear ourselves, we fear the changes the presence of others may impose. When I say that I dislike Jews, or Roma, or Croats-the list is endless-I am expressing the fear that under their influence, or under the influence of what they genuinely or symbolically represent, I will be forced to give up some of the convictions that matter to me. Their uprooting of my convictions, no matter how irrational, represents uprooting of my personality. And so...if I am not to change, they must be branded, isolated, expelled, and, if necessary, utterly destroyed."

Given that the main character is Serbian in such a significant time frame (1998), it's surprising he doesn't discuss political issues more. Or does he? Maybe it's paranoia on my part, but one character's name 'Dragan Misovic' sounds an awful lot like Milosevic. Could he be saying that he is, in fact, Slobodan Milosevic, acting like a paranoid and irrational dragon? If that may be, it would given an imagined perspective on what the war criminal may have been thinking? Albahari creates two incredibly complicated characters no matter what, who can be wildly irrational and impeccably knowledgeable at the same time.

At times, the book seemed to sink into repetitiveness, especially in the early portions when he's seeking insight from the disingenuous Kabbalah teachers. At other points, the heavy-duty mathematical theories made my eyes cross. Yet about midway, the novel is propelled forward and feels much more lean. What I took from the book was that someone who is completely lost, whether idealogically or emotionally, will cling to whatever may comfort them or give them a sense of purpose, even if it may be destructive, shallow, or illogical.

Special thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the Review Copy.

Opera Bufa by Manolis, poetry

2011-06-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

Opera Bufa is the latest collection of poetry from the Greek poet Manolis. A departure from his more serious poetry of the past, this collection toys with the ideas of Albert Camus and his concept of absurdism. The result is at times comic, poignant, and often striking in the truth revealed in illusions.

“In Camus’ works…his emphasis had been on the presentation of the absurd as a crisis for the self’s yearning for lucidity and meaning in a world that is opaque and unresponsive.” And yet he further explains that “the sensibility of the absurd is not born out of any dark, morbid sense of nihilism, but is the result of a certain love and longing for life” (Thoyakkat 3).

Camus contrasted, with his Myth of Sisyphus, how poorly the purposed, meaningful life fits in a world of chance and unpredictable outcomes. Essentially, how can one find meaning if no meaning is to be had-do they continue to persevere or give up? Camus acknowledged that some find purpose with a belief in a higher-power God figure, while others live for the moment, intending to enjoy the here-and-now rather than live for a distant and possibly nonexistent future.

In a different avenue of entertainment, in the 18th century, the ‘theatre of the absurd’ found its way into popular culture, when operas were designed to appeal to the common, working man and to the topics particular to such. These “Opera Buffas” were a place for an ordinary man to laugh at the inconsistencies of his existence and featured a comic take on life’s painful travails.

Pablo Neruda followed along this style with his “La United Fruit Co.” poem, which examined the good and evil forces in the same comedic fashion while tackling the serious subject of the US and the ‘Banana Republics’ of Latin America (Fernandez 109).

Manolis takes this idea further in his Opera Bufa, which is decidedly more humorous, and creates altering poems of Hour and Canto in a 24 hour day that tweaks the concept of absurdism. He contrasts two types of individual: one that seeks to improve their lot in life, and the other that responds to complexities with a “who cares” attitude. In each Hour, an ironic personage dismisses the attempts at meaning with an aggrieved “who cares,” while by contrast, in each altering Canto, the other reaction, to virtually the same experience, is to diligently respond “we can do better.” Both sides expose their own sort of absurdism in relationship to how they view the world.

To illustrate: in the Fourth Hour, God appears and intervenes:

“He elects

To throw punches at

Old philosophically-hardened

Death who laughs His guts

Out sending up a pair of

Devils disguised with velvet

Veils to reduce the game

To a parody of errors while

Despicable people persist at

Loving and sharing things

Like nothing happened

An absurdity of seriousness”

While in Fourth Canto, the viewpoint is different; devils and veils appear yet again, but this time

“turn ever-prosperous

Fears to maverick months without

Songs eluding to the graveness of this

Absurdity and soil negates its

Passive resolve to non-involvement

With opera music and spirited

Fervor of lovemaking shredding even

The stiffest veil of darkness…”

Their ascent to earth, despite their cynicism and mocking of the pathetic humans and their rites of love, leaves these veiled devils touched with jealousy of the human condition, no matter how absurd it may have seemed to them. Similarly, in the Fifth Hour and Fifth Canto, the dichotomy of “great with minor” and “light and dark” still inspires its observers to yearn “we can do better” despite the Fifth Hour’s inability to resolve the awe of colors and light and could only respond with “who cares”.

Using his poems, Manolis dissects the problem of evil that Camus so articulately defined, even quoting portions of Camus’ theories. To Camus, the problem was the two disparate options: “…either we are not free, and God…is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible but God is not all-powerful.” The two opinions plague both the angelic and demonic forces who jostle for the more relevant position. Manolis seems intent on showing how frustrated the human creature is to discern his place and his purpose when even supernatural powers are confused.

In the Twenty-First Hour, Death appears again as a dubious savior when physical disease has worn down the human:

“nothing remains but need

For a colder heart and

Death to re-emerge as savior at

A moment of need with His foul

Breath and missing teeth although

He filters the hopeless gap

Between ordinary and absurd

Choice and picks who

To take who to leave behind for

The next round of emotional

Excitement…”

But a far more peaceful picture of imminent death appears in Twenty-First Canto:

“My voice softly caressing your earlobes

And your new path searches for another

Day declaring that scattered

Songs and lullabies

Bring up your memory until all that

Was past is present….”

All these contrasts, along with the unexpected juxtapositions of ordinary themes make this collection one that is difficult to both predict and put behind. The concepts succeed in seriously challenging attitudes while comically illustrating the often illogical beliefs that we cling to.

Works Cited:

Fernandez, Carlos. “Opera Buffa and the Debunking of US Hegemony in Neruda’s “La United Fruit Co.” Romance Notes. U of North Carolina: 2009. Vol 49, Issue 2. Literary Reference Center. Web. Jan 21 2010.

Thoyakkat, Sreedharan. “The World is What Was Given, The World is What We Make.” IUP Journal of English Studies. Sept 2009. Vol. 4, Issue 3/4. Literary Reference Center. Web. Jan 15 2010.

Special thanks to Libros Libertad of British Columbia for the Review Copy.