Sea of Storms by Stuart B. Schwartz (Hurricanes in Caribbean)

A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina

Hurricanes have the power to fascinate us, as do earthquakes and tornadoes, in their total power and seeming randomness (and in a small way to an epically bad final episode of Dexter).  Every hurricane season takes a toll on some region of the US or elsewhere, and while the news reports can be disturbing and frightening, it’s in the handling of these natural disasters that political policy, social attitudes, and scientific ignorance is most seen and least commented upon.

Stuart B. Schwartz has created a history of Hurricanes in the region that seems them the most…the Caribbean.  Scores have occurred that usually stay above the midline of South America and further up the East Coast of the US, centering mainly on the Caribbean from Mexico to the Bahamas and other islands. When my parents lived in Belize, I heard stories of people tying themselves into palm trees to survive the occasional hurricane. I didn’t believe it, but apparently, it’s not a rare plan when you are faced with a mighty storm, flooding, and no shelter.

Schwartz begins with one of the earliest recorded hurricanes and the written histories available from it, and goes on to explore the scientific basis for the cause of them.  Sailors often could tell when something was awry, but how that knowledge was dispersed was unlikely to help many people.  Starting with this hurricane in Veracruz, he weaves together the human and scientific elements that inevitably alter our history.

The first storm described was one that hit Veracruz in 1552, one described by the author as a “sixteenth-century Katrina”. The aftermath led many to conclude it was God’s punishment that led to such devastation: “they were set in a social, political, and conceptual frame that made an understanding of this catastrophe a moment for reflection on human sin and moral failure as the cause of God’s anger” (3). Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, increasing in every century since, this opinion is still widely shared and proposed as the reason for modern day hurricanes and similar storms.

Since hurricanes were not well-known meteorological behavior in many climates, when information about them reached Europe and other Northern regions, many of the details were converted into object lessons regarding good and evil.  It took a great deal of time for research into changes in weather, ocean conditions, and even animal behavior to be undertaken to prevent such disasters.

One chapter discusses early European forays into the Caribbean, with a somewhat ironic tale of two enemies whose fate was determined by such weather.  Columbus’ enemy Francisco de Bobadilla was the investigator who chained up Columbus and returned him to Spain with a very unfavorable report.  Years later, they meet again in Santo Domingo, where Bobadilla is heading out with a fleet of gold.  One of those ships held gold that belonged to Columbus that was being carried to Seville. Columbus warned both him and the governor that a huge storm was coming, but neither wanted advice from him.  He was even refused entry into the port. So Columbus found a small port to shelter in temporarily, and held out during the storm, while the others headed out.

Unfortunately for them, the prophecy of Columbus, who used his experience with observation of weather changes and water behavior, came true. Only the ship carrying Columbus’ gold survived. The rest, some twenty six boats, went down in the storm.  Sadly, five hundred plus sailors and the remaining gold sank.  Columbus may have felt vindicated, but he then suffered rumors of being “in concert with the Devil and that he had actually called down the storm upon his enemy” (11).  I’m not a big fan of Columbus, but wow. Major burn.

When scientists set about trying to predict and prevent hurricanes, their ideas ranged from ridiculous to somewhat on target, but always at a cost.

Whatever the scientific value of such attempts at weather modification, these hurricane projects and those to increase or decrease rainfall were always politically controversial, since changing the course of a hurricane or changing areas of rainfall might save one area from injury, but place another in danger. Fidel Castro claimed the United States was carrying out environmental warfare by trying to divert rainfall from Cuba to ruin its agriculture (274).

Interestingly, it was Castro as a leader who was the one most interested in responding successfully to the next hurricane, Flora, where “all of the institutions of the regime were mobilized for the relief effort – militias, the army…the Red Cross and police “(288). He interacted with victims and played a visible role in the country by seeking out more information about the storms and relief available. This was in sharp contrast to the nearby regions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic,hit brutally and where the dictator Duvalier appeared to care not at all by the damage or his people’s losses.

Throughout the centuries since the hurricane in Veracruz, the responses are strangely the same.  Not all take advantage of warnings given (which are not always clear), and when the damage is done, blame is given to the people themselves for abandoning God or living a lifestyle deserving of such disaster. An example of this, outrageous as it is, is Hurricane Katrina.  The failures on so many levels is sobering and obscene.

First, despite Hurricane Andrew that hit Florida in 1992, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was gutted after the election of George W. Bush. Bush’s campaign manager called it “an oversized entitlement program” and its level of preparedness was diminished (entitlement being the code word for helping the poor).  After all, after 9/11 there were less funds allotted to it, and then it came under the direction of Homeland Security with a focus more on “anti-terrorist activities”.  Good intentions may have led to very poor decisions, but it appears there was a more sinister attitude in play.  One journalist, Eric Holderman, is quoted in the book as warning via the Washington Post that “hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, fires and flu were destined to be a national concern on a weekly or daily basis.  They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are, to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond to them” (318).

He makes a valid point.  Reducing protection across the board in case of a natural disaster weakens the US as a whole, as a terrorist act garners more of a reaction. And never can this been seen more than in Hurricane Katrina.  When it occurred, I was on a rafting trip in Northern California.  Away from news, even radio, for a week, made coming home to the disaster seem as if Armageddon had arrived in New Orleans.  For many, it might as well have been.

New Orleans reeling from a hurricane is no surprise. First, the location. Dangerous levees, a low ground point in comparison to Lake Ponchartrain, and the levels of the Mississippi all contribute to a region surrounded by water (so much so that graves are raised on concrete platforms in the city cemeteries rather than in the ground).  In addition, about a quarter of the city lived below the poverty line, and was 67% African American. This demographic was not considered politically valuable and thus efforts to help Louisiana were largely pushed aside, despite credible warnings.

We can all picture the Superdome and its intense overcrowding, but less known is the more insidious wrongs that took place:

Doctors were turned away from aiding victims because they did not have state licenses; buses were not mobilized [for evacuation] because they lacked air-conditioning or toilets; bus drivers were not allowed to serve until they had the required sexual harassment training; the governor’s request for national aid was delayed for five days because it had not been made in writing (324).

It’s hard not to quote this entire chapter as it is so shocking.  I had no idea that FEMA tried to suppress photos of the dead or of those trapped on roofs or hanging on to flimsy floating boards.  Were they worried about bad PR? Food was not provided to Superdome evacuees.  While 80% of the city had been evacuated, those that remained were blamed in the press for not leaving in a timely way, despite that many of these were the poor and elderly that did not have the means to escape (remember the lack of buses?).  The fact that not ALL could escape was already predicted by expert projection made no difference:  no plan was implemented to change that, so this television visibility “drove home a message of social and racial inequalities”. 

Now, all of this is tragic, and yet many people still feel that the situation was impossible to prevent and thus impossible to prepare for. Yet, attitudes of leaders and TV buffoons illuminate a further, racially biased attitude that had to contribute to the disaster, either in beliefs about it or towards its victims.  While you may have the TV pundits say dumb things, like Bill O’Reilly, who “suggested that those who had not evacuated were drug addicts unwilling to leave their suppliers”, it’s more troubling when the political leadership in the US and especially that region (people in a position to change and improve policy) also speak ignorantly of the disaster.  Robert Baker, a Baton Rouge congressman, stated “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”  Rick Santorum (fun to google him), a Republican candidate for President, felt that those who didn’t evacuate should be penalized.  As if they weren’t already by the sub-human conditions.

Additionally, many TV outlets emphasized and exaggerated the occurrences of crime and looting. In fact, many of the looters were taking only food, milk, toilet paper and bread. 

And of course, there were the interpreters, such as many ministers who suggested, just like in Veracruz centuries before, that an angry God was in punishment mode. Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, “said in his reelection campaign that God had punished New Orleans for the war in Iraq”.  Such blame was attributed widely in many circles, namely Republican and Fundamental.

As Schwartz states so elegantly near the end of the book, “Providentialism was, as it has usually been, employed to support existing political convictions rather than as a catalyst for new interpretations or changes of heart (335)”.

The book concludes with an overview of Hurricane Sandy and the political clout that was banked upon in the aftermath, as well as the unnecessary damage and suffering to New Jersey residents.

There is no sense of this being a complete downer, but more an example of how attitudes (religious, secular, and political) often ignore the scientific basis for how things occur, and even avoid learning more about what science can tell us about hurricanes and other natural disasters.  Much of the science behind hurricanes is discussed in the book, and knowledge of such is possible, not so much to prevent but to prepare.

Hurricane season starts June 1, 2015.

Review copy provided by Princeton University Press.

Half in Shade, Judith Kitchen, Coffee House Press

originally published in "The Quivering Pen" 11/7/2012 with link
http://davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com/2012/11/our-discarded-kodak-moments-half-in.html


Half in Shade: Family, Photography, and Fate 
By Judith Kitchen 
Coffee House Press 
Reviewed by Amy Henry 

I became aware of a kind of triangulation: me, the photograph, and its subject(s). From temporal advantage, I found I could supply what my subjects would never know—the future. I found myself in a kind of time warp in which I knew more than my subject, but less about my subject.  My interest was not in uncovering a hidden narrative, or in enhancing a known story, or in revealing a specific character.  I wanted to ponder how each individual life was/is framed by circumstance, how we are sometimes called to act, and sometimes to merely reflect.

Judith Kitchen is going to convince you to dump your digital camera in the nearest garbage bin and head to the attic in search of boxes of old photos.  Because while technology now permits us to take better photos and delete the unflattering ones, it has stripped us of a heritage found only in the outtakes, the unflattering depictions, and the failed photographs that never make it into the family album.  Her collection of essays, Half In Shade: Family, Photography, and Fate, takes an intensive look at the intent behind 20th-century photography in general, with specific reflections on what any photo can tell us.  Hint: it’s usually more than we can “see.”  It makes us ask, before we click the shutter, what are we trying to preserve? 

Kitchen has researched scores of family photos and the notes attached to them, piecing together ideas both actual and fanciful about those depicted.  At times using a magnifying glass and at times using only her imagination, she studies the details of the photos that usually get lost, even if they are of someone we care deeply about. She notes that just the way someone folds their hands, or how their clothing is adjusted can be revealing about their character and life story. The placement of individuals within a group shot also can reveal friendships and feuds, and she seems to find the most telling of details in pictures that are considered the least important. 

Fortunately, she also shows us the photos that she dissects.  In one, “Double Exposure,” she studies a forgettable photograph of an old shop.  She goes beyond simply detailing the tin ceiling and phone booths in the back that a casual glance would miss. Instead, she notices the posture (one man had a bum leg), the status implied by a gold watch chain, and the contents of the cases.  Is it an apothecary?  Sure enough, it’s a drug store in Chicago in 1912.  Explaining what she knows about the characters in the picture, she then proceeds to play with the imagination…where is that man going, the one outside the door reflected in the glass, as he strides by on that sunny day?  Will he be in the War soon to commence? Kitchen can’t say, we can never know, and she leaves him to “disappear below the surface of the page.” 

The photographs and their notes, along with family diaries, are linked together by time as well.  Placing each person within their community and family, she also looks to place them in their geographical location in concert with the time period they were living.  This is most poignant in “Where They Came From, Where They Went,” leading us to contemplate her distant kin in Bavaria. A 1937 photograph shows a boy with his parents sitting formally at a table, fully facing the camera with frozen smiles. With the knowledge of what would soon come to pass in that region, Kitchen’s perspective on the photograph becomes a study of personalities more so than faces.  She notices details in what is on the table, how they are dressed, and what these tell us, before she then asks the reader the big question implied:

What will happen to them all?...it’s hard to decide if cousin Karl’s son is called Friedrich or Wilhelm. And what will it matter in a few short years when he will be called nothing at all, when there will be no one to call him? If he comes back, he will come back to a diminished thing…If he comes back, he will come with all he has seen clouding his eyes, carrying that lockstep method he’s learned to look away. If the camera catches him, it will catch the phantom of the man he might have been, staring emptily into a garden gone to seed.

Of course, it’s all conjecture…we have no idea what really happens.  But it leads us to ask, as she does, “What were their real lives? All the maybes hurl themselves at me.”  The “maybes” are investigated in this collection in a journalistic fashion, with as much research as to factual evidence as possible before Kitchen inserts her own speculation.  The overlapping of names and relations, expanding westward across the United States and back again, tells a story of both a family and a nation. 

Rather surprisingly, it can leave even the least nostalgic of readers wishing they had paid more attention.  The downside of film in the early years was that it was only for special occasions, so few photographs existed.  Then, when film photography became a household medium, everyone took gads of photos.  It often took many shots to ensure one would turn out, and many of the excess were left in boxes to deteriorate or get shuffled through family members (ironically, most people find them difficult to throw away, perhaps sensing value).  Kitchen believes that after an amount of time has passed, it’s these uncelebrated shots that are most telling. 

However, with today’s technology, digital photography seems more efficient, as it eliminates waste and offers editing options.  If desired, only the “ideal” shots are printed out.  Yet, ultimately, this editing capability can deprive us of the secret and flawed stories that may tell the most about the past we are intending to document.

The Guinea Pigs by Ludvik Vaculik (translated fiction)

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.

The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach

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.



Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonsky

Travels in Russian History

Rachel Polonsky is a British journalist who enjoys a dream trip to Russia to explore Moscow and the city, and even stay in a historic apartment building.  She's there to research another topic, but is intrigued by how much history actually lived in the building she temporarily resides in.  Most notably, one floor was home to Soviet bad guy and Stalin pal Vyacheslav Molotov (and yes, sadly, every time I say his name I think of that Don Henley song: "Molotov cocktail, the local drink, and all she wants to do is dance").  The opulence of the street in the past, as well in the present, speaks to the contrast between impoverished Russia and luxurious excess.

As she settles into the apartment, she begins sleuthing around to discover that other important Soviet residents had lived in the building or nearby.  Trotsky, who fell from favor in his later years, lived in No.3.  As he was to be exiled, she notes the events surrounding his departure.  The apartment life, while plush, was tense.

"...'prominent Soviet workers' would learn to keep the doors closed, not to look out when they heard the heavy tread of boots on the common staircase at night, the commotion of arrest in a neighboring apartment" (63).

Polonsky's travels spread into the streets and outside the city.  I most enjoyed the chapter "Staraya Russa" that described a spa town that promised restorative health benefits, and that was eventually a summer home to Dostoevsky where he wrote extensively.  Tracing the history of the town through other writings, and visiting significant locations, she reveals a place where the wealthy went with great hope, enthusiastically applying the mud deemed curative for a wide variety of ailments.

Later in the book she explores modern Russia under the realm of Putin.  One tidbit: "the latest fashion in chic Moscow eating places is to order numerous elegant dishes and leave them on the table hardly touched.  Almost everything on the menu costs a week's pension" (366).  She notes that the Russian upper-class is heavily focused on appearances and status, something she connects as a common thread throughout the previous two centuries.  "Putin's courtiers are more interested in their jackets, their watches and their coiffures than in any God-bearing mission of the Russian people, whatever they may say to 'the people' each night on the TV" (367).

Covering a vast amount of subject matter such as contained in the book makes it overwhelming.  Even with a better-than-average (but by no means scholarly) grasp of Russian history, the vast amount of names and places and events are hard to put into the context she gives.  For example, to look at a random paragraph and see a dozen or more personal names, street names, neighborhood names and previous nicknames of the same place confuse the story she's attempting to tell.  It's as if there is simply too much information given, with little distinction between a significant detail and a minor one, as both are given equal weight.  The effect is jarring, in that it's difficult to fall into the spell of the events without feeling like you need to Google a few dozen names to make sense of it all.

I think her extensive knowledge of Russian history gets in the way of clearly enjoying the book.  When she's making an important point about bourgeois attitudes, she gets sidetracked into a tangent that meanders awhile and sometimes doesn't seem to reconnect with the original point.  When I put down the book and later returned to it, I often felt as if nothing was familiar, and that I needed to go back several pages to recapture the narrative.  A devoted Russophile would likely be delighted with her experiences as relayed in this book, but for most of us, it's simply too much "who, what, and where" without enough 'how' and 'why'.

Special thanks to Katie Freeman of Farrar, Straus & Giroux  for the Review Copy.

No money for airfare: Exploring Australia through books

Can't afford a trip?  Sick of your own town?   I've put together my favorite Aussie titles to get to know the region via fiction and nonfiction books.  Aussie readers, feel free to comment, but no mocking my Tim Winton choices!  You hear me Bernadette? 

Nonfiction:  The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes:  history of Australia, heavy on details, but you can always skim over parts. 

Historical Fiction:  The Long Green Shore by John Hepworth:  older novel that covers little-known details of Australia's participation in WWII.  Supposedly a future film with Russell Crowe. Hard to find in U.S.

Travel:  In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryon:  English/American's observations from travelling through the region, analyzes stereotypes and ignorance by American tourists. 

Fiction:  Cloudstreet by Tim Winton:  epic story of two families and three generations.

Fiction:  Dirt Music by Tim Winton:  heavy on details of landscape and fauna of Western Australia, in production for 2011 movie with Rachel Weiss and Russell Crowe.

Fiction:  Eucalyptus by Murray Bail:  sweet story about a storyteller and an obsessive tree planter, restful and amusing.

Children's book:  Edward the Emu by Sheila Knowles:  a silly picture book but well-loved at our house.

Coffee-table/photography:  Australian Colors by Bill Bachman:  not the usual style of photography, instead photos examine textures of tree bark, stone formations, and soil.  And cattle dogs. (?). 

So, I'll probably never get to go, but I can travel vicariously on paper.  It's going to have to do for now!  Ireland is next!

Unbound, by Dean King (nonfiction history)

A True Story of War, Love, and Survival

Detachable reference bookmark. Three little words that mean a great deal in this non-fiction text about the Long March in China that started in 1934, and this bookmark, as simple as it sounds, provides the key to author Dean King’s research. He reveals the story of thirty amazing women in an easy to understand way, despite the mountains of facts and details he uncovers. The bookmark itself is a shortened “cheat sheet” in order to keep track of fifteen of the more notable women. Just by providing it, it shows that the text is going to be accessible and personal. More interestingly is that this book really has nothing to do with politics…it’s the story of the desire to escape and finding the power to do so.

First, what was the Long March? Mao’s Communist army in China was being threatened by Nationalist forces, and needed to make a quick departure to an area that had Communist allies, some 4,000 miles away from their base of operations. They undertook this migration, one of the most significant in history, in secrecy, putting 86,000 men on a journey in stages that led to the death of most of them. Besides moving the officials and main soldiers, the march also carried valuable documents, funds, printing devices, and a medical core. Thirty women with them carried most of the duties of the convalescent care. Most of the journey was taken at night, in smaller regiments, and it took three weeks before Nationalists realized they were on the move. At times, it seemed that many of the soldiers were disposable, as the treacherous night-time journeys were anything but safe.

Why these thirty women? These women had served the Communist Party as recruiters, and were considered strong soldiers themselves. They were attracted to Mao’s Red Party because it freed them from the traditional Chinese way of life, which for women was one full of despair and pain. For example, foot binding, that horrific yet traditional ritual, broke the bones of a girl child’s foot, folded the toes under to the heel, then bound them with ribbon. The goal being “lovely” three-inch feet, a sign of nobility and yet sheer mutilation. Women in their traditional Chinese roles were either drowned at birth, sold for money, or used as unpaid and brutalized servants. Therefore, Mao’s promises of equality, respect, and the end of peasant traditions appealed to these women, the youngest two being just 10 and 11 years old when they joined the Long March.

Some of the women had been raised in wealth and schooled outside of China. Others were the same peasants described above. Yet they joined as comrades, and the most astonishing fact of the whole book is that all thirty survived, despite the death of the vast majority of the men. Their close ties made them fight long and hard, not just for Mao’s goals, but for what they perceived as the benefit of Chinese women in the future. Additionally, they were not used as prostitutes for the Army, but rather as equal soldiers, carrying their own weight in assignments and in battle.

One American observer stated that “their strength lay not in a rigid military hierarchy-although they tended to revere their leaders-but in a democratic structure that made the troops feel responsible for their own and their comrades’ actions.” Many of the women suffered health problems and difficulties in maintaining their strong tradition of modesty in such conditions. Some women gave birth on the march and left their newborns with villagers to rear. Unimaginable, it seems, yet they were convinced they were contributing to a ‘greater good’.

When it was all over, Mao claimed that the Long March was almost 8,000 miles. He inflated the figures for a distinct purpose. He felt that the completion of the march proved the power of Communism. He attempted to set standards for his soldiers, and provided rules requiring civilized behavior of the marchers towards local peasants they may run across. But as the march continued, it became a reign of terror at times, where any Chinese that they found who had any form of wealth were immediately assumed to be guilty of Nationalistic tendencies, thus their possessions were confiscated. Any kind of disagreement or insubordination among marchers ended with death, and so Mao’s ideal wasn’t always realistic.

One especially clever woman in Mao’s Army was Cai Chang. She and others would question peasants to find out who the wealthy were among them, in order to collect supplies and foodstuffs. Most peasants learned to lie, so she found a craftier means. On some kind of elevated location, she’d overlook the village and look for newer homes. She’d look for especially well-kept cattle pens and signs of status. Then they’d go into the homes and if they found signs of wealth, they would pack these as provisions, feeling completely justified because of the assumed guilt of the householder.

Did any good come out of the Long March, given the future crises to come in China? One example is that “the Communists revolutionized the legal standing of women and children in the Marriage Law of 1950, which banned arranged marriage, child betrothal, concubinage, and infanticide….The law mandated …the protection of the interests of women, widows, and children. This was a key step in institutionalizing the change in the role of women in China from passive domestics…”

This is a heavily detailed book, and really my only complaint (a minor one really) is that it is so full of names, dates, and facts that at times it gets a bit overwhelming. So it’s not simply an easy beach read. Yet King writes in a personable way that draws out the unique characters that make each woman stand out with their personalities and traits. The bookmark helps!

Originally I wanted to read this because of an interview with King, where he describes undertaking the research as the father of young women, and trying to imagine the parallels for women then and today. A link to this interview is provided below.

Special thanks to Kelly Leonard of Little, Brown for the Review Copy.

Interview:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/littlebrown/2010/04/15/interview-w-dean-king-author-of-unbound
Pictures and info about King's travels to the region for research: http://www.deanhking.com/

Parrot & Olivier in America, Peter Carey

Don’t read the book reviews….


A strange way to start a book review, yes? In regards to this title, however, and all the buzz that has surrounded it since its release, I think it’s necessary to offset some of the descriptions of this book.

Many, if not all, of the reviews of Parrot & Olivier in America refer to Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, pretty much the standard for history in the early US. They connect the character of Olivier with that of de Tocqueville himself, and suddenly the idea of reading this book sounds like a snooze. It’s not that way at all, and I think while the similarity exists and may be intentional by the author (who quotes de Tocqueville), it’s not a very good way to introduce this book.

Parrot & Olivier is an insightful yet amusing narrative of the lives of two wildly different characters, as well as the time they lived in. First, Olivier…the son of French aristocrats who needs an escape plan that doesn’t necessarily look like an escape. He needs to get out of France for his protection after the French Revolution, so after some thought it’s decided to send him to America to research the penal system in the colonies. It’s a useful out, as whatever he may learn is politically valuable in France, plus it gets him out of the country in a perilous time. Parrot is an older man, a survivor of many political battles and social conflicts, and his ability to survive in desperate conditions makes him the perfect chaperone for Olivier. Parrot, of course, hates the thought of babysitting the privileged son, and has to be coerced into leaving. It should be noted that before the departure ever takes place, Carey tells the story of both of these men separately, relating their character as well as significant details about the Revolution and how they had to use their wiles to survive.

Once they leave France, the story picks up even more, and the pace is fast as they both journey into both a new land and new situations. They end up bickering, fighting, separating, and finally bumping into each other again. The scene that finds them reunited is a street fight, where Parrot thinks he’s saving Olivier, only to be unexpectedly saved by the well-armed boy. It’s a funny moment, one of many, but it points to the difficulties of survival in this new place without some sort of backing.

For his part, Olivier has no interest in the study of the prisons, and yet his actions lead Parrot to have to experience them firsthand. The interaction between the two and the period details, especially in New York, make this a fun, lighthearted read. One thing that Alexis de Tocqueville said, however, in his book, does apply beautifully to the theme of Parrot & Olivier:

“The growth of nations presents something analogous to this; they all bear some marks of their origin. The circumstances that accompanied their birth and contributed to their development affected the whole term of their being.”

Carey uses this novel to actually study how these two men developed from their vastly disparate births, with a conclusion that leaves you pondering the entire concept of class, friendship, and the sense of belonging.

Special thanks to Lauren Helman of Knopf for the Advanced Review Copy.

Last week this book was also nominated for the 2010 Booker Prize....

Afghanistan-- A Cultural and Political History, Thomas Barfield

Ever since The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Three Cups of Tea, I’ve found Afghanistan to be a strangely compelling region. In those books, there was a different sense of the humanity of the people compared to what is seen on the nightly news, and it was difficult to align the two in my mind. Mention Afghanistan to someone and all they usually come up with is the notorious Taliban or the crumbling ruins that appear on the news. How accurate is that image?


When I first received Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, I hoped to find that answer and at the same time, that the book wouldn’t be too dry or heavy on political rhetoric. I was pleased to find that it’s an incredibly readable history book that makes the subject understandable and reveals the complicated lives of the people of Afghanistan. The author manages to compile the history without a political agenda or motive.

First off is recognizing that culturally, Afghanistan is made up of both tribal and nontribal ethnic groups. These groups mean everything to the people, and unlike some cultures, “tribal and ethnic groups take primacy over the individual.” In other words, “individuals support decisions made by their group even when such support has negative consequences for themselves.” This is a somewhat unique trait, and contributes to the devotion many have for their leaders. They also have an intense oral history that is repeated through the ages that also creates a sense of cohesiveness between past and present. These people live in a land crisscrossed by history, from Genghis Khan to Alexander the Great (see the photo of his castle above right). It was conflict between tribal regions, a civil war, that made the ordinary Afghan people eager to have the US come in to intervene with the Taliban, as “a drowning person is not too picky about who throws him a line….Afghanistan had either been ignored or abused by the outside world as it descended into chaos.”

The Taliban, known for their desire to spread extremely conservative Islam, had riddled the nation with violence towards women and other religions. They’ve managed to alienate even those countries that were providing needed humanitarian aid. They do not have the support of the ‘ordinary’ citizen, as at times the Taliban members have numbered below 150 members. A good portion of the book deals with how and why the Taliban gained such power. Another portion discusses the occupation by Britain and Soviet Russia prior to more recent actions with the US.

The historical details are interesting, but it was the smaller things that were more revealing. For example, why is it that on the news you usually see only children or old people? Their hardscrabble lives, tending outdoors to agriculture and focused on manual labor, shows up on their faces and they appear prematurely aged. Are the devastated streets of broken concrete typical? Actually no, as the majority of citizens live in small villages far from urban areas such as Kabul. Is it just a land of dust and opium poppies? No again, as stone fruit, grapes, nuts, citrus fruits, melons, and rice are grown in different parts of the country, depending on what areas are irrigated. The famous mountainous region, known to have been a hiding place for bin Laden, is in the center of Afghanistan. Its steepness creates dynamic changes in climate in just a few hours of travel, and creates a diverse variety of crops.

The current situation in Afghanistan is covered in the sixth chapter, where Barfield addresses the complicated social concerns that continually plague the country. The resurgence of the Taliban and their religious ideology reverses social progress, while modern policies want to focus on reducing the religious power of clerics. Additional goals include establishing rights for women, tolerance of non-Muslim faiths, implementing educational policies, and modernizing archaic laws to better represent the desires of the majority.

Special thanks to Katherine “Casey” LaVela of the Princeton University Press for the Review Copy.

New World of Indigenous Resistance, Noam Chomsky

When is multiculturalism a bad thing? Could the answer have anything to do with literature? The new book, New World of Indigenous Resistance, examines this concept in a way that not only fascinates but educates.

The book focuses on South America’s regions, and has a series of essays discussing issues that face an area largely unknown by those in the U.S. Usually we only hear of earthquakes or small regional clashes that mean nothing to us, but there’s far more to explore. Author and historian Noam Chomsky discusses the essays featured as well as including his own thoughts on the complexities of the region. The South American continent is not simply a mass of Latino culture, but a huge collection of tribes and peoples. What happens there ultimately affects the rest of the world, and outside influences have been hugely detrimental to both the people and the land.

The primary problem faced is one of global corporations and governments arriving to extract resources, reestablish political boundaries, and ultimately combine the people into one more manageable mass. One essay, “Resistance and Cultural Work in Times of War,” by Elsie Rockwell in Mexico discusses the nature of multiculturalism and how it doesn’t benefit the native people at all. For example, international funding promotes a “intercultural” education that lumps all indigenous people into one category, then attempts to teach them in one, streamlined manner. This ignores their personal heritage and virtually eliminates it from the curriculum. Then, in an effort to offer variety under the guise of multiculturalism, they split the students into gifted, ‘special ed’ and ‘migrant’ groups. It is odd that the ‘migrant’ students are actually lifetime residents of the same community where the school is located. Where exactly have they migrated from? Rockwell’s primary assertion against this method is “the current economic order globalizes barbarism: it fabricates poverty, destroys nature, and militarizes other regions.” The one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t respect the distinct differences between the indigenous people, and thus their voice in art, music, and literature is also lost.

Another essay, “Beyond Education”, by Gustavo Esteva in Mexico, examines the attitude of tolerance and its hidden agenda. He discusses how the US prides itself on being a melting pot of cultures, but this melting pot mentality actually just attempts to “to dissolve, each one of the multiple immigrant cultures.” He asserts that the term “salad bowl” would be a more accurate and positive term, one that respects the individual heritage and culture behind native people and promotes such diversity. Thus, the literature and poetry of other places can continue to thrive instead of dying out. As the US gets involved in South America for mining and energy projects, they often use their influence and funds to promote a similar mentality. The problem is, this homogenization of culture also makes it far easier to exploit and manipulate the people within, and the authors of the essays are addressing such concerns.

Chomsky discusses this further in his interview, featured at the end of the book, where he explains that “the demeaning of others translates into subordination internal to the community. So war is the extreme case. You demean and demonize the enemy to the point where you want to destroy him, but you also accept that you are totally controlled at home. You subordinate yourself to your own state to try and destroy the enemy state, while they are subordinating themselves to their state.” This attitude gives great power to a few large nations and the smaller die out. He applies this to literature when he states that “the main themes of the great antiwar novels after the First World War was the idiocy of essentially the same people in the trenches on both sides slaughtering each other, each committed to a power system that was oppressing them.” Thus he concludes that rather than embracing oneness, a healthy respect for the individuals of other places, along with their culture and history, is good for everyone and provides a wealth of experience that enriches what we see and read. 

Special thanks to Stacey of City Lights Books for the Review Copy.

Fado by Andrzej Stasiuk

Translated by Bill Johnston.

Winner of the Vilenica International Literary Prize

My final impression, closing this book, was that Andrzej Stasiuk loves people. His essay collection, Fado, demonstrates this as he examines the peoples of the former Yugoslavia and the other regions that form Central Europe. In all, he writes with obvious affection for the human condition surviving in a complicated place and time. He quietly observes people and their activities: from children playing games, the routines of the working man, the women washing their steps, and the teenagers pining for escape to the West. This is not a travel journal, told by a curious visitor. Stasiuk resides there and his impressions are that much more knowledgeable and profound.


It begins with a road trip: a car driving at night in the rain, and a suggestion of mystery.  He reflects on the dark houses he passes, and how no matter what ethnic heritage a person has, they are all the same when asleep in their beds. A map is essential to reading this, as he goes to a variety of cities and recounts what he sees as well as historical details and anecdotal stories from each individual place.

Much of his writing discusses the changes from Communism to newer political states, some still in their infancy (Slovakia). The past is complicated in Central Europe, and progress is equally difficult. Of Montenegro, he writes:

“Everything that was, becomes rejected in the name of a modernity that assumes the nature of a fiction, an illusion, a devilish apparition. To a greater or lesser extent this applies to all postcommunist countries. But it’s only in Montenegro that it can all be observed within the space of ten miles.”

This battle between old traditions and new identities is a continual subject, but it remains fascinating because each town he visits handles the conflict differently. He talks about the emptiness that is felt in places, where modernization has left many without a purpose. Yet he uses almost poetic words to describe these impressions:

Of Pogradec, “Pool has taken over the town. That noble game, combining geometrical abstraction with kinetics, allows a person to forget the everyday. The men circled the tables like they were hypnotized. They moved back, moved forward, judged distances, stepped on tiptoe and held their breath as if afraid that the moving spheres would change direction and the cosmic harmony of the game would be disturbed.” It’s not difficult to see the underlying correlation with the region in finding their place in history after the divisions of Russia and Yugoslavia.

In Levoka, he observes the local police, who group together in anticipation of a rebellion by Gypsy residents. The violence never occurs, but the image of the bored policemen, playing with their police dog and throwing snowballs, reveals a truism of the place: “Brute force, tedium, and play were combined in perfect proportions, but instinct told you that any one of these three elements could take over at any moment, and for no particular reason.”

In another essay he writes about the changing of the face of paper currency throughout Russia and the Slavic states. In earlier years, the images featured working men and women in simple settings. The implied meaning being hard work garnered money. Then as years passed, the illustrations became more abstract and conceptual, until they evolved into paper faces of famous heroes. There was a political meaning behind each image, and Stasiuk shows how the meaning of money changed too.  Change occurred yet again, during difficult economic times, to another theme: “the patrons of this inflationary series were of course artists and writers. In my part of the world, when times are uncertain we usually turn to culture, since it’s a domain whose failures are not so glaring…”

Stasiuk’s ability to combine history with contemporary issues is amazing because it’s so readable, never dry or boring. He doesn’t get off track trying to make a political statement or place blame, and at times it’s difficult to even guess his position in the controversial matters he discusses. He never judges the people or even presumes to suggest a solution.  An especially fascinating scene was played out at the end of the day in Rasinari, when the cows, oxen, and goats returned from grazing loose into the village, all on their own.

“This daily parade was like a holiday. The whole village came out of its homes onto the road and watched the passage of the livestock. Children, old women in headscarves, men in small groups smoking cigarettes-everyone watched as the animals unerringly found their way to their own farms and stood by the gate waiting to be let in. This ritual had been repeated for centuries and everything in it was self-evident, complete, and in its own way perfect.”

Special thanks to Martin Riker of Dalkey Archive Press for this Review Copy.

Winter Garden, a collection by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda has some pretty big achievements:  Chile's ambassador to France, a Nobel Prize for Literature, and this particular title receiving Bloomsbury's Book of the Year.  His life could never be described as dull...he's certainly not your stereotypical poet, pale and anguished, hidden away and perfecting his verse.  Neruda was out and active in life.  A Chilean Senator, various worldwide diplomatic assignments, plus a commentator on the activities in Chilean politics....he was never still. 

This beautiful collection, translated by William O'Daly, was written shortly before his death.  In fact, several manuscripts were found on his desk after he died of cancer in 1973.  The translator notes in the introduction that Chile was always his beloved home, one that he thought of in any other location he found himself.  This fits with what Neruda says in "Many Thanks":  "Why do I live exiled from the shine of the oranges?"

He knew he was dying but never does he descend into self-pity or maudlin reveries.  He acknowledges the big life he led, and in his final days he wants to simply meditate, focus on the simpler things (like a bird that approaches him as he sits outside alone), and retrieve the fondest of his memories.

In "Modestly", he uses a play on the words 'see' and 'sea': 
Without doubt I praise the wild excellence,
the old-fashioned reverence, the natural see,
the economy of sublime truths that cling
to rock upon rock in succeeding generations,
like certain mollusks who conquered the sea.

He shows some humor in "For All to Know", when he acknowledges that he's sometimes asked why he didn't write about some significant events. His response:
"I didn't have enough time or ink for everyone....I didn't decipher it, I couldn't grasp each and every meaning:  I ask forgiveness from anyone not here."

The most poignant poem of all is "In Memory of Manuel and Benjamin", two close friends of his, who unimaginably die on the same day by accidents.  Neruda is genuinely perplexed at the loss:  both were friends but they couldn't have been more different and while words were his voice, he finds it difficult to compose anything to make sense of it:

I loved my two contrary friends
who, with their silence, left me speechless
without knowing what to think or say.
So much searching under the skin
and so much walking among souls and roots
hour by hour so much pecking at paper. 

Even if they didn't have the time to grow tired,
now quiet and finally solemn,
they enter, pressed together, the vast silence
that will slowly grind down their frames.

Tears were never invented for those men.

Given his impending death, late in life, it's easy to see how pained Neruda was.  This collection features many personal thoughts, among them his eager wish not to be praised or to receive accolades in his late days.  He wants to watch water through windows and see the sunrise.  He's gracious and brave.

This book is part of a series by Copper Canyon Press of Neruda's works, translated by O'Daly from the Spanish (which is still featured in the left facing pages).

My thanks to Janet Jones of Copper Canyon Press for the Review Copy.

The Man from Beijing, Henning Mankell

Can hate be hereditary? Does our DNA include code for revenge? Reading The Man from Beijing is likely to make you ponder these very questions. Mankell’s novel is a first rate thriller that goes beyond mystery into incredible historical narratives. It spans three continents (Europe, Asia and North America) and several generations, travelling from remote villages in China to the U.S. and the building of the rail lines of the West.

The novel starts with the grisly discovery of 19 dead bodies in a remote village in Sweden. The eerie crime introduces us to a three unique female characters: a detective working the case, a federal judge from Skane and a Communist Party member from Beijing. All three are linked in the complicated puzzle of the crime, one that originates more than 100 years before the murders.

The pace is brisk, the writing lean and the plot complex. At times I needed to pause and mentally regroup, just to get my bearings. This isn’t a quick or easy read because the author digs far deeper into historical details than most novels. Much of the story relates to experiences of men who have a little authority and who use it to demean and debase others. Additionally, there is no place for CSI style details in this, as the details of police work lie in the background behind the incredible story.

I really appreciated Mankell’s writing style because it didn’t get tied up in unnecessary details. He focuses on the narrative but also on the complex relationships between marriage mates and the inevitable changes that occur in friendships over time. The three prominent women are all powerful characters and do not show the typical neediness or passive aggressive tendencies that are sometimes portrayed alongside a strong will.

The only hesitation I felt in reading this was from a baffling string of terribly unlikely events that led to finding evidence and to solving elements of the crime. A few of these stretched any sense of realism away and left me disoriented, especially considering how well thought out the plot is. All in all, it’s a worthy read but requires a commitment and time to absorb the details of the various time periods presented.

Special thanks to Lauren Helman of Knopf for this Advanced Readers Copy.