Lisa's literary musings--labfs39 in 2011, pt. 3

Welcome to the continuing saga of my reading adventures! For previous discussions see Part 1 and Part 2.

Huffing and Puffing to the Finish Line

October

100. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey*
99. Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman*
98. We Are on Our Own: A Memoir by Miriam Katin*
97. Every Man in This Village is a Liar: An Education in War by Megan K. Stack
96. Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson
95. The Elephant's Journey by José Saramago*
94. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
93. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
92. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

*An asterisk means I would recommend this book above the others.

Around the Bend

September
86. The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal*
87. Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
88. How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel by Sarah Franklin
89. Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott
90. The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
91. Castles Burning: A Child's Life in War by Magda Denes

August
77. The Homecoming Party by Carmine Abate*
78. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid*
79. Boston Jane: Wilderness Days by Jennifer L. Holm*
80. Regeneration by Pat Barker*
81. The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad*
82. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque*
83. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
84. Boston Jane: The Claim by Jennifer L. Holm
85. The Good German by Joseph Kanon*

July
60. The Liberated Bride by A.B. Yehoshua
61. The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah*
62. Rascal by Sterling North* (audiobook)
63. Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson
64. The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
65. From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus*
66. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West*
67. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes*
68. Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
69. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
70. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie* (National Book Award)
71. The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick*
72. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
73. Boston Jane : an adventure by Jennifer L. Holm*
74. The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall* (audiobook)
75. The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
76. My Berlin Child by Anne Wiazemsky

Hitting my stride

June
51. Gulag: A History by Anne Appplebaum* (Pulitzer Prize)
52. Partitions by Amit Majmudar*
53. Brodeck by Philippe Claudel*
54. The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker
55. Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard (Booker Prize shortlist)
56. An Imperfect Lens by Anne Roiphe
57. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
58. The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari*
59. The Pathseeker by Imre Kertesz (Nobel Prize winning author)

May
43. Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka*
44. The Sound and the Fury by Willaim Faulkner*
45. Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
46. The Age of Orphans by Laleh Khadivi
47. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard*
48. Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt by David McCullough*
49. Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra by Peter Kurth*
50. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

April
34. Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury
35. White Masks by Elias Khoury
36. The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens (Booker Prize)
37. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi*
38. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
39. Your Republic is Calling You by Young-ha Kim
40. The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin*
41. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
42. My Forbidden Face: Growing up under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story by Latifa

Off the Starter's Block

January
1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak*
2. The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore* (longlisted for Orange Prize)
3. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
4. Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
5. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand*
6. The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger
7. City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris
8. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis* (Hugo Award winner)
9. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell* (Booker Prize shortlist)
10. Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques (audiobook)
11. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer* (longlisted for Orange Prize)
12. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis* (Hugo and Nebula winner)
13. Blackout by Connie Willis

February
14. The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer
15. The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S. by Arnošt Lustig
16. All Clear by Connie Willis
17. The Waitress was New by Dominique Fabre*
18. A Bed of Red Flowers by Nelofer Pazira
19. Joseph the Bellmaker by Brian Jacques (audiobook)
20. The Line by Olga Grushin*
21. Ali and Nino by Kurban Said
22. I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish*
23. Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels by Janet Soskice*
24. Spring Tides by Jacques Poulin*

March
25. Doc: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell*
26. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson*
27. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese*
28. Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Booker Prize)
29. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Pulitzer Prize)
30. Scribbling Women: True Tales from Astonishing Lives by Marthe Jocelyn
31. Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster
32. Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin
33. A Stone in My Hand by Cathryn Clinton

This is a completely subjective list, classifying books by the author's ethnicity, not by the country in which they are currently living. I'm creating it in an attempt to ensure that I am reading globally and not only from the US, Britain, and Australia.

Afghani:
A Bed of Red Flowers by Nelofer Pazira
My Forbidden Face by Latifa

Algerian
The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal

Azerbaijani:
Ali and Nino by Kurban Said

Canadian
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

Czech:
The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S. by Arnošt Lustig

Dutch
The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker

Ethiopian:
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

French:
The Waitress was New by Dominique Fabre
Spring Tides by Jacques Poulin
Brodeck by Philippe Claudel
My Berlin Child by Anne Wiazemsky

German
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Hungarian
The Pathseeker by Imre Kertesz
Castles Burning by Magda Denes
We Are on Our Own by Miriam Katin

Iranian:
The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Age of Orphans by Laleh Khadivi

Israeli:
The Liberated Bride by A.B. Yehoshua

Italian:
From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus
The Homecoming Party by Carmine Abate

Japanese:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Korean:
Your Republic is Calling You by Young-ha Kim

Lebanese:
Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury
White Masks by Elias Khoury

Mauritanian:
The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah

Pakistani:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad

Palestinian:
I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish

Portuguese
The Elephant's Journey by Jose Saramago

Russian:
The Line by Olga Grushin
The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin
Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman

Sierra Leonean:
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna

Sudanese:
The Translator by Daoud Hari

Ukrainian:
Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka

Current TIOLI Challenge

October:

Challenge #5: Read a book with a spooky cover
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Challenge #9: Read a book by an author whose first and/or last name begins and ends with a vowel
Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson

Challenge #11: Read a book by an author whose first and last names have the same number of letters
Every Man in this Village is a Liar: An Education in War by Megan Stack

Challenge #18: Read a book that has been mentioned in 150 conversations or less on the book's main page
The Elephant's Journey (63)
Everything Flows (15)

Challenge #21: Read a book set between 1910 and 1950
We Are on Our Own (1944-45)
The Snow Child (1920)

September: 2

August: 4

July: 8

June: 3

May: 4

April: 3

March: 4

Feb: 5

Jan: 12

I'm currently reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. It's my first book by this author, and the verdict is out. I'm 180 pages in and still not sure if there is a plot. So far it seems more like surreal meetings interspersed with a couple of horrific scenes.

I was taken by the writing, but then read an article comparing Murakami's two translators (Birnbaum and Rubin). It seems they each gave Murakami a different voice. Rubin's translation is very clear and concise, but I am not sure how that holds up against the original. Has anyone read a book translated by Birnbaum and one by Rubin? I would love to know what you think.

Lisa- Nice New Thread! I've only read just over 50 pages of Wind-Up, so way to early to comment.

66. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

In less than 100 pages, Rebecca West creates a microcosm of British society in 1916 and a love triangle centered around an upper class WWI soldier. In the novel there are many dichotomies of wealth, class, and physical beauty, but the most important is the moral dilemma at the heart of the story: is it better to preserve life and love or reality and truth?

The story begins with Kitty, the beautiful and cold wife of Chris Baldry, lamenting that she has not heard from her soldier husband for a fortnight. Attending her is Chris's cousin Jenny, who is the narrator of the story. Jenny is brushing Kitty's damp hair and remembering the days when Chris was home and so happy (he was happy right?), when a woman requests to see Kitty. Margaret Grey is dumpy, unfashionable, poor, and uncultured, barely respectable in the eyes of the two ladies, but she has important and delicate news to impart. Chris is coming home. The catch is that he has amnesia and remembers Margaret, with whom he was passionately in love fifteen years ago, but not his wife, Kitty. Thus the stage is set for the drama which unfolds in this small setting.

In my mind, the most interesting and complex character is Jenny, the story's narrator. As a cousin of Chris's, she is a member of the upper class, yet she is in some sort of dependent position within the household. She is also in love with her cousin. Unmarried, gentile, and sympathetic to the plight of the lower class Margaret, Jenny is reflective amid the stark contrasts surrounding her. She is the one who struggles most with the moral question of Chris's return. I wish I could pull her from the shadows and hear her story in full.

I enjoyed this quick read for the descriptions of British society in the midst of change; change which Rebecca West was personally eager to see come. I also wrestled a bit with the moral question she poses. But what made this a memorable read for me was the enigma of Jenny.

Nice review of The Return of the Soldier, Lisa. I'll read this sometime soon, based on your comments and those of several other LTers.

67. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

Karl Marlantes is a highly decorated Marine, graduate of Yale, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He first tried publishing his novel about the Vietnam War in 1977. For the next thirty years he rewrote, resubmitted, and waited for the public to be ready for the type of story he wanted to tell. Based upon his experiences as a white, college-educated, volunteer Marine, Matterhorn addresses issues far beyond the war itself: the Black Power movement as it swept through the military, the ambitions of young officers and the hubris of old ones, and the nature of evil itself.

He thought of the jungle, already regrowing around him to cover the scars they had created. He thought of the tiger, killing to eat. Was that evil? And ants? They killed. No, the jungle wasn't evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares.

It occurred to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself up to the pain of watching it get blown away. His killing that day would not have been evil if the dead soldiers hadn't been loved by mothers, sisters, friends, wives. Mellas understood that in destroying the fabric that linked those people, he had participated in evil, but this evil had hurt him as well. He also understood that his participation in evil, was a result of being human. Being human was the best he could do. Without man there would be no evil. But there was also no good, nothing moral built over the world of fact. Humans were responsible for it all. He laughed at the cosmic joke, but he felt heartsick.

In addition, Matterhorn is a retelling of the myth of Parzival and his epic spiritual quest for the Holy Grail. From the opening scenes, the myth is recreated as a reflection of young Lieutenant Mellas's passage to male adulthood. This literary analogy deepened my understanding of the story and explained a few unusual plot elements. I highly recommend a second look at Matterhorn through this lens, if you missed it the first time, as I did. Particularly helpful for me in making the connections is an article called "Wounded Masculinity: Parsifal and the Fisher King Wound" by Richard A. Sanderson, available online at http://howellgroup.org/parsifal.html.

Edited to correct typo.

If anyone would like to discuss the Parzival elements of Matterhorn, let me know. I have several pages of notes comparing characters and plots elements that I would love to discuss with someone!

Interesting review of Matterhorn Lisa, I am sure it will make people think again who have already read the book. I have not read it yet and so after your review I will start well prepared.

I am looking forward to reading Matterhorn when I finish my current subway read and appreciate your comments about the Parzifal legend, and will definitely plan on refreshing my limited memory of it before reading the book. Thanks for the link.

#8 Hi Mark, Wow, still not sure where The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is going. Just when I think I'm starting to get it-off he goes in another direction.

#10 Thanks, Darryl. Return of the Soldier is a quick but worthwhile read. It was one of those books I also felt as though I should have read.

#13-14 Hi Barry and Rebecca-From the buzz I had been hearing, I expected Matterhorn to be a good, but typical war novel. Then I read in an interview with Marlantes that he focused heavily on the Parzival myth, both in the novel and in his own recovery, and a lightbulb went off over my head. Several plot elements started to make more sense. Then I went a little nuts one night trying to figure out all the characters, etc. Matterhorn would have been a worthwhile read either way, but the literary angle added an extra layer of complexity and enjoyment for me.

Good reviews there Lisa, I had to go and google the Parzival myth so I could understand a bit better how Matterhorn is written. It sounds very interesting.

#16 Thanks. Do you plan to read Matterhorn? I am going to a book club discussion with the author Monday night. I will report back any interesting bits.

Well, I finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in a frenzied reading session last night. What a strange book! I'm hoping that more will be made clear on the LT group read threads. If you have read the book, we would love to have you share your wisdom with us (or at least I would). I'm lost.

Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson

And then quite suddenly she herself was back. I happened to be passing the window upstairs with a pair of binoculars when I caught sight of an unmistakable figure hanging out her laughably misnamed smalls on a washing line among the trees. The Iron Curtain's Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, although she was actually wearing her voluminous beige shift that for some reason put me in mind of a Bedouin traffic warden. I could barely contain myself for half an hour before drifting ever so casually across.

Cooking with Fernet Branca is about stereotypes of all sorts: gender, nationality, social class. With its unreliable narrators and wacky humor, it challenges our assumptions about how we perceive and reflect the world around us.

The novel begins with Gerald who has just moved into a mountaintop villa in Tuscany seeking solitude in which to ghost write the memoirs of pop culture figures. He loves to create wildly uneatable recipes and sings opera parodies. His only neighbor is Marta, a woman from an Eastern European country, who is also seeking solitude. She is hoping to create a life for herself composing the scores for films. As the narrative switches between the two characters, the reader becomes sucked into the stereotypes that each has about the other. Is either what they appear to be?

The first part of the book had some laugh out loud funny scenes, including one involving an old privy situated on a deck, that had me in stitches. Unfortunately, the humor became less funny for me as the stereotypes became more sharply defined. The ending regained some of the beginning's charm, but by then the author had lost me. If you like this type of satirical humor, Cooking with Fernet Branca is smart and has memorable characters. I just stopped finding it as funny.

Here's a quote from Cooking with Fernet that I enjoyed:

As a matter of fact, reading a book over a solitary evening meal in a foreign restaurant is normally one of my greatest pleasures, following the particular enjoyment of choosing a meal from a menu in a language I can't understand. Not knowing what I shall shortly be eating is just as exciting as not knowing what I shall be reading in half a chapter's time.

Lisa, I wanted to thank for alerting me to the Parsifal theme in Matterhorn. I read up on it first, and was rewarded immediately by discovering Parsifal allusions in the very first chapter. Thank you!

PS As I believe I mentioned, I couldn't finish Cooking with Fernet Branca but with reference to your quote in #19, once when I was in a restaurant in Italy and thought that the waiter and I were understanding each other since we were both speaking French, I ended up with something that I never would have ordered if I had known what it was but was too embarrassed to send it back, so I just ate the pasta!

#20 I completely missed the Parsifal allusions when I first read Matterhorn and was surprised and confused by that opening incident. I was thinking, really?.

I love your story. You were very gracious. At least it was pasta!

Well, I wasn't clear enough. I ate the pasta first course and rearranged the main course on my plate. And I did find that first episode a little graphic, but at least I had a context thanks to you.

Hi Lisa, I lost you! How did that happen?? So I caught up on the last thread and on this one too. And just in time too as I am planning on reading Matterhorn in August and will have to research Parzival myth before I do so. You have done so much great reading and and written some terrific reviews therefore, I have way too many titles to add to my teetering tower.

June and July have been sort of lost months for me and I never got to respond to your PM but I hope to get to that soon too.

#22 Ah, so you did have to suffer through mystery meal. I still have no idea what I ate in Macedonia back in the 80s, even the coffee was hard to identify as you had to strain it through your teeth as you drank. Turkish coffee takes some getting used to!

#23 Monday I'm going to a book talk with Karl Marlantes, along with a couple of other LTers. I'm excited. Not as excited as I was by the talk with MDR about Doc, but still. I'm try and summarize his points here on my thread. As for a PM, I couldn't even remember what it was about. I checked, and it was more of a comment than a question, so please don't give it a second thought. You have lots else on your plate right now!

Still trying to decipher The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Don't expect a review anytime soon as I think I will wait to see the conversations that develop on the Group Read thread first. Maybe I'll understand more then!

Waiting to cleanse my palate, so to speak, I started The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian last night. It's a wonderful young adult book about being different, in part because of being smart. It won the National Book Award. The author is local to the Northwest and grew up on the same reservation as the boy in the story. I wonder how much is autobiographical?

24: A lot, apparently: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/06/09/why-the-best-kids-books-are-written-in....

#25 Thanks, qebo, for the link. It was an interesting essay. I especially like what Alexie had to say about people who want to censor YA literature:

When some cultural critics fret about the “ever-more-appalling” YA books, they aren’t trying to protect African-American teens forced to walk through metal detectors on their way into school. Or Mexican-American teens enduring the culturally schizophrenic life of being American citizens and the children of illegal immigrants. Or Native American teens growing up on Third World reservations. Or poor white kids trying to survive the meth-hazed trailer parks. They aren’t trying to protect the poor from poverty. Or victims from rapists.

No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children. Or the seemingly privileged.

Lisa, I've just started following your thread and have been especially interested in the things you've had to say about Matterhorn. I finished it about a month and a half ago and it was a 5 star read for me. Until you mentioned it, I had never heard of the Myth of Parsifal much less it's relationship to Matterhorn. I've been reading some of the things I've found by doing a Google search as well as the link you posted up above. It's great to have that extra piece of the puzzle about what Marlantes was trying to say. I'm looking forward to hearing about the talk you're going to with Marlantes.

#27 Thank you, Pat, for stopping by. I was fortunate to find the quote from Marlantes about using the Parzival myth; it explained a lot. Please feel free to share any insights about the connection. I'm still working through some of it, such as who is Gawain? Vancouver? Would Hawk be Gurnemaz and China Feirefiz? I thought Anne played the role of Parzival's mother, and the woman on the ship, whose name escapes me, would be Kundry. At least he gave us an easy one with Fisher!

For being diligent with my PT this week, I rewarded myself with a trip to a used bookstore today. I picked up the following:

Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, a Canadian novel about which I have heard many good things

The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick, also includes the sequel short story, "Rosa"

The Homecoming Party by Carmine Abate, translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar, Europa Edition

Sonata for Miriam by Linda Olsson, the author is Swedish, but now lives in New Zealand where this post-Holocaust novel is set

#28, I haven't gotten far enough to figure out who anyone is (except, of course, Fisher) but I did feel in the first chapter that his mother played the role of Parzival's mother because of the emphasis on Mellas's wearing the t-shirt that she had dyed green for him, and the fact that P's mother made clothes for him.

#30 Ahh, I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking of Anne weeping and asking him not to go. It makes sense that your connection is why Mellas mentions the dyed clothes several times.

Lisa, the main thing I've read about the Parsifal myth is the article you linked to above on "Wounded Masculinity" by Richard Sanderson. He states that he only looks at the myth as it relates to "healing man's masculinity" and I didn't see any references to Gawain and Gurnemaz so I can't comment on those connections.

But I'd agree with both you and Rebecca about the clothes from his mother and Anne asking him not to go as being references to Parsifal's mother. In one of the interviews I read with Marlantes, he specifically said the dyed undershirt was a reference to the myth.

The woman on the ship was named Karen and I think you're right about her being like Kundry, especially because of the connection with the sword. One thing I've been thinking about is whether the tin cup that Hawke is always offering everyone is a reference to the chalice since it's always in connection with something nurturing and therefore more of a feminine aspect?

This would make such a great book for a group read or a book club especially with this added connection to the myth. Thanks so much for bringing it to my attention.

ETA: I also agree that China has similarities to Parsifal's half brother.

Hi Lisa. We talked about Fernet Branca on your last thread, so I won't spend any time on it except to say that I'm sorry the book didn't completely work for you, though glad you found at least some laughter in it.

The Rebecca West—I loved that book. I have a weakness for short novels/novellas and that one just captured me. I agree that Jenny was the best part. If you like that particular theme and general time period, you might take a look at James Hilton's Random Harvest. I read it a few years ago and it ended up being one of my favorite books for the year.

Speaking of favorite books...I will be quite interested to hear what you think of Three Day Road, a book that definitely made my Final Four list for 2009.

#32 I agree, Pat, this would make an excellent book club read. In the back of my edition of Matterhorn, there is an interview with the author; here is the part dealing with the myth:

"The whole book is Parzival," Marlantes laughs. "It's about a young man coming to learn compassion and growing up. That's the Parzival myth. It's the myth of malehood."

Written as a poem by the German knight Wolfram von Eschenbach in the thirteenth century, Parzival was drawn from the earlier Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chretien de Troyes and tells the story of the Arthurian knight-Percival in English-and his quest to find the Holy Grail.

Aficionados of the tale, an essential read for any man in war who wishes to explore conflict's spiritual dimension, will have little trouble in spotting Eschenbach's original cast regrouped from Wales to the jungles of 'Nam, including the virginal Parzival, Gawain, the Fisher King, Cundrie, Condwiramurs, et al. Matterhorn's narrative is essentially the same too as Lieutenant Mellas-Parzival-travels the war road to manhood, where according to Eschenbach "Heaven and Hell have equal part of him," not knowing the right question to ask until he finally transcends the strictures of knightly code with the understanding and practice of compassion.

No mere literary convenience or contrived writer's device accounts for the Parzival myth providing Matterhorn's backbone. As well as being an emblematic tale of warrior's passage and endeavor, the myth has inspired study by numerous psychologists including the Jungian analyst Robert Johnson, author of the Parzival deconstruction He: Understanding Male Psychology, which Marlantes has read. Having been in therapy for fifteen years, half as long as the book took to be published, after suffering the cataclysmic symptoms of acute post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the author was always likely to be familiar with the troubled knight as a basis for his own recovery.

#33 Hi Tad, welcome back. Thanks for the recommendation; I've added it to my wishlist. I'm looking forward to Three Day Road, in part because it took so long for me to get a copy. Everyone I've talked to has loved it. I'm saving it as a treat for an uninterrupted stretch of reading time.

70. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (National Book Award winner)

Sherman Alexie lives here in the Northwest, so I have felt remiss in not having read any of his books. I'm so glad I rectified that omission. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an absolute delight. Although it is technically a young adult book, it won the National Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book for 2007. And with good reason. Based in large part on Alexie's own experiences, this coming-of-age story is incredibly touching and uplifting, as well as edifying for those of us not familiar with modern life on an Indian reservation.

Junior was born with encephalitis and other medical problems which make him a target for the other kids on the reservation who regularly bully him. Fortunately, he has a best friend, Rowdy, who looks out for him, and parents who, although alcoholics like most of the adult population of the reservation, are loving and supportive. Creative and smart, Junior pursues his dream of a better life by transferring from the reservation school to Reardon, the larger high school in an all-white farming community 22 miles away. Instantly he becomes an outcast on the reservation for "going white", while simultaneously struggling to gain acceptance from his white school peers. As Junior overcomes school difficulties and home tragedies, he slowly begins to realize that his identity is much larger than either Indian or white.

I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms.
And the tribe of cartoonists.
And the tribe of chronic masturbators.
And the tribe of teenage boys.
And the tribe of small-town kids.
And the tribe of Pacific Northwesterners.
And the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers.
And the tribe of poverty.
And the tribe of funeral-goers.
And the tribe of beloved sons.
And the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends.
It was a huge realization.
And that's when I knew I was going to be okay.
But it also reminded me of the people who were not going to be okay.

I liked this book for its unflinching look at a difficult life and for its spunky hero who refuses to lose hope despite terrible obstructions. The illustrations are brilliant. Ellen Forney collaborated with Alexie to create cartoons of the sort that Junior would have drawn, and they add both context and emotional impact. Since the author grew up on the Spokane Reservation and attended Reardon High, there is an authenticity to the story that is truly effecting. Highly recommended.

Lisa, thanks for posting that part of the interview with Marlantes. I read the hardcover version which didn't have any additional material.

There are times when I read books that I don't get some of the references so I was so happy that I knew about the Parsifal myth when reading When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson the other night. The main character, Jackson Brodie, has been injured and someone who comes to visit him in the hospital makes an observation on how vulnerable he looks (like "The Fisher King, sick and emasculated, the land wasting around him.")

Which reminds me of another aspect of the myth in Matterhorn--the destruction of the jungle.

I just got back from the book discussion with Karl Marlantes. It was interesting, and I will try and write up a synopsis of the discussion tomorrow for those of you who are interested. Two quick things tonight:

Regarding mythology:
Hawk is Gawain
China is Parcival's brother, Feirefiz
Pat the dog is from Welch mythology; he is Cŵn Annwn, the hound of hell (Annwn). According to Wikipedia: "Some supernatural dogs, such as the Welsh Cŵn Annwn, were actually believed to be benign. However, encountering them was still considered to be a sign of imminent death." And Karl Marlantes said that whomever Pat touched would die.
He also mentioned the Kalevala being the source of Mellas's first name, Waino. (Aino in Finnish). The last name is from the Greek works for "honey" and "other" (I believe).

This is clearly a guy who graduated from Yale and was a Rhodes scholar. No fudging the bio on this one.

Regarding the absence of an indigenous population in Matterhorn:
This is Marlantes's directly from his own experience. He never encountered a village or South Vietnamese while he was in the bush. He was dropped into what he describes as a beautiful area, like a National Park, only the rangers were shooting at you. He says he is very glad that he never had to deal with the moral issues of seeing a boy with a basket and having to wonder if it contained an apple or a grenade.

Oh, and the leech scene with Fisher was not created just to fit the myth. It did happen to guys. Ewh!

Interesting stuff about Karl Marlantes, soon you will be getting everyone to read Parzival (including me). Great review of The Absolutely true diary of a Part-time Indian

I loved your review of The Absolutely true diary of a Part-time Indian, Lisa. I'll look for it at Borders today or tomorrow.

Lisa, the book discussion with Marlantes sounds fascinating. Thanks for the info. I remember reading that first chapter with Fisher and wondering if he made it up or not. After hearing about the myth with Parsifal I relaxed a bit because I figured it was made up but now that I know it was real I'm grossed out all over again. Can't wait to hear more. I'm so glad you were able to go.

Lisa - i've been lurking, just popping in to say great review in #36, and fascinating stuff on Marlantes and Parzival.

71. The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick

My copy of this title is the Vintage International edition, which contains both the short story, The Shawl, and the related novella, Rosa. In The Shawl we meet Rosa and Stella, two women walking under guard to a Nazi concentration camp. Wrapped in a shawl and hidden within its folds is Rosa's infant daughter, Magda. Once in the camp, Rosa works to keep Magda hidden from the guards and protect her from Stella's jealousy. The shawl, symbolizing hope, is the magic that allows Magda to live. When the shawl is taken, tragedy inevitably follows.

The novella, Rosa, takes place thirty years later. We learn that Rosa has wrecked her successful shop in New York, and Stella has exiled her to a hotel in Miami to live. Rosa lives as a recluse, despite the overtures of an elderly Jewish man named Persky.

"My niece Stella," Rosa slowly gave out, "says that in America cats have nine lives, but we-we're less than cats, so we got three. The life before, the life during, the life after." She saw that Persky did not follow. She said, "The life after is now. The life before is our real life, at home, where we were born."

"And during?"

"This was Hitler."

"Poor Lublin," Persky said.

"You wasn't there. From the movies you know it." She recognized that she had shamed him; she had long ago discovered this power to shame. "After, after, that's all Stella cares. For me there's one time only; there's no after."

Persky speculated. "You want everything the way it was before."

"No, no, no," Rosa said. "It can't be. I don't believe in Stella's cats. Before is a dream. After is a joke. Only during stays. And to call it a life is a lie."

Rosa is unable to move forward, unable to forget, and dependent on the shawl as a device for bringing her beloved Magda to life. This is a sad story on many levels: Rosa's psychological damage incurred during the Holocaust, her continued tortured relationship with Stella, the meager life she leads, and her prejudices as a formerly wealthy, assimilated Polish Jew against the Yiddish speaking Jews of Eastern Europe. This story reminds us that although the concentration camps of the Holocaust were liberated, not everyone was able to leave them.

#39 Hi Barry. If you would like to read an English translation of Parzival, it is available online from the Internet Archive. It's not very well formatted, however. I am considering reading it and then rereading Matterhorn. I'm finding it that intriguing. I'll have to wait until my better half is done with the book though. :-)

#40 Thanks, Darryl, I hope you find The Absolutely True Diary as gripping as I did.

#41 I'll try to write up my notes on the book talk later today. Unfortunately (from my perspective), it was a "discussion", i.e. Q and A, so there were questions about things other than his book. There were some interesting parts though that I'll share.

#42 Thanks for stopping by, Dan!

According to one of the booksellers at my local Indie bookstore, only 3% of books in America are translations. I was shocked. In an effort to verify this statistic, I read an article in the New York Review of Books called "America First?". It clarifies that only 3-5% of books published in the US are translations. To me, that statistic is horrifying. How little we know about the world if we only read English-speaking authors!

There is another interesting article about American reading habits by Harris Interactive called "Over One-Third of Americans Read More Than Ten Books in Typical Year: But, One in Five Americans Purchased No Books Last Year".

# 45 - That is quite, well, ... shocking. I used to think it was a disadvantage to speak a language only a minority in the world speaks (6 mio. Flemish + 15 mio. Dutch), but since joining LT, I discovered that it forces us to translate books because there are far too little authors in Belgium and the Netherlands to keep us satisfied. I don't know about the translation-policy that is upheld by publishers over here, but I get the impression we get a rather well-sorted book-choice, with books by authors from all over the world. And of course, we're supposed to (...) be able to read in French and English as well which offers us an even wider choice.
However, 3 to 5 % might still be a huge amount of books to read ...

#46 That's an interesting question, Monica, about how publishers chose which books to translate. I wonder if Darryl (kidzdoc) has an idea since he knows which prize nominated books get translated first.

3-5% certainly provides more translated books than I could ever read, but it worries me that Americans in general read so little foreign literature. To me literature is a way for me to learn about the world and to better understand history, conflicts, cultures, religions, etc. from multiple perspectives. I have learned so much about people from reading. Like Karl Marlantes said last night and Barbara Kingsolver said in a Guardian interview I heard recently, literature is a way to build empathy between peoples, to minimize the sense of Other. If people don't read that literature, how are their opinions and prejudices shaped? From the media? Scary thought.

This is one facet of anti-intellectualism in America, and I find it all extremely disturbing.

Lucky you with your little country overflowing with languages and ideas!

Lisa, thanks for the information on the Parzival I will get to it soon. An amazing statistic that over one third of Americans read more than ten books in a typical year. That's very impressive

You have inspired me to order a copy of Parzifal! So far, I've nearly missed my subway stop twice while reading Matterhorn.

Lisa- I also loved your review of Part-Time Indian. I need to get that on my list. It's a short read, right? Thanks for sharing all the fascinating info on Marlantes & Parzifal, which I've never even heard of. You are always interesting, my friend.

BTW- I finished Wind-Up Bird and like you, a bit dissatisfied, which pains me to say.

Lisa, thanks for the interesting info on Marlantes and Parzival myth. I've got Matterhorn coming up probably next week and will refer to your notes.



for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian which is going straight to my teetering tower.

Notes from a book club discussion with Karl Marlantes on his novel Matterhorn on July 25th

Karl is coming out with a new book which will be released August 30th called What It Is Like to Go to War. It is nonfiction and will be part memoir, part personal philosophy.

Annapolis is now using Matterhorn in both their leadership and military history classes

"Literature is a tool for creating empathy."

Karl wrote Matterhorn in 1977 and has been trying to get it published ever since. When it was finally picked up, and he was given an editor, the editor told him to "cut it back and speed it up" or only 6-8 thousand highly literate people will read it. Karl ended up cutting out 23% of the book (he kept a spreadsheet being a "geek"). Mainly it was a tradeoff of color and dialogue for speed.

What was the Marines' attitudes toward the North Vietnamese army? --professional respect

Why was Vietnam so defining for an entire generation or two of Americans? --Because there was no clear objective, the goal devolved into body count, which is "an immoral way to wage war". Also it was the first war with tv media coverage. There was a confusion between the roles of warrior and police. If they are to be police, what is the body of laws which they are enforcing? "Nineteen year olds make the best warriors, but the worst police." No life experience or perspective.

Why did you portray senior officers so negatively? --"Novels need villains." But he did try to be balanced in his portrayal with Mulvaney and some of the younger officers. Blake and Simpson were bad, but with human flaws (ambition and alcoholism). The problem was that they were unconscious of their flaws.

Which parts of the novel are autobiographical? --Karl says he is not like Mellas, he has no political sense; however, what Mellas sees either Karl or a close friend saw, including the tiger and the leech. Vancouver is the character most based on a real person, his friend "Canada". The others are either completely fictional or amalgams of others.

Race relations --Karl says he was uncomfortable trying to get into the heads of Blacks and write from their perspective. He grew up in Seaside, OR where there were no African Americans at the time. But he got to know some of his Black platoon members very well, he was the kind of officer people could talk to. They were pissed off because in the US they couldn't even use the same toilets as whites, yet they did their jobs and did them well. The whole country was on the verge of civil war with the Black Panthers, and Malcolm X saying that the races had to be separated, they could not live together. Out in the bush, the divisions started to break down, but once they were out of the bush, soldiers immediately divided into groups by race. There were 200 fraggings (murdering an unpopular officer by throwing a grenade in their living quarters) in the war and most were racially motivated.

Fisher --The epigraph of the book is from Parzival and sets the stage. The novel's entire substructure is that myth. He explained about the Fisher King and the spear through the testicles symbolizing the lack of male fecundity. The leech was a way to achieve the same effect. The soldiers lived in great fear of leeches getting into places they shouldn't. The episode with Fisher happened numerous times according to a Marine doctor.

How have veterans received the book --Overwhelmingly positively. One vet told him that he bought copies of Matterhorn for his wife and kids because he "couldn't get it out" and the book did the talking for him. Vets say he got it right, like running out of food.

Would Karl like to return to Vietnam now, postwar? --No. (As I mentioned in an earlier post), He never encountered a village or South Vietnamese while he was in the bush. He was dropped into what he describes as a beautiful area, like a National Park, only the rangers were shooting at you. He says he is very glad that he never had to deal with the moral issues of seeing a boy with a basket and having to wonder if it contained an apple or a grenade. It was like he fought a completely different war. He has no memories of places or people that might draw him back.

Woman protestor found common ground with Karl when he talked about how they hated the inflated body counts and manipulation, and the soldiers distrust of government intentions (objectives?). Karl replied that on the one hand you can't be against a war but for the troops. If you say the war is stupid, it hurts the kids whose buddies are dying and whose own lives are on the line. On the other hand, he sometimes felt like Go, protesters! because then he could go home. Much of it had to do with class issues.

Any Greek mythology in the novel? --No, focused entirely on Parzival. Although all mythologies used for healing are good. Soldiers are put in the position of being taught "thou shall not kill" and then being put in positions where they hold godlike power over others' lives. Healing the soul. After all, if a soldier liked what he was doing, he would be a sociopath.

Did we learn lessons from Vietnam that we are applying in Iraq and Afghanistan? --No. Can you tell which of the following statements are about which war: Enemy can cross borders to escape, but we can't follow. We stick out like sore thumbs. A civil war is going on. We are supporting a corrupt government. We have rules of engagement, they don't.

Draft --The republic is in great danger because only a small portion of its citizens are defending it. The Military L (down through Midwest and east through the South) is where the soldiers are coming from. He met a 23 year old who was leaving for his seventh tour of duty. Yes, he volunteered, but that isn't fair. His young family will not succeed. When Hannibal fought the Romans, a large percentage (I didn't catch the actual number) of Senators were killed in the fighting and the rest lost family members, etc. We are isolating our military. There is a disconnect between the average person, who doesn't even know what a platoon or division is, and the soldiers. Our country has the ability to wage war without input from citizens. President can commit troops without Congressional approval, and then what politician is going to say no to requests for money. Can't abandon our guys. Nobody cares.

#48 Parzival or at least Perceval should fit in with your reading outline, shouldn't it? And do I detect some sarcasm there?

#49 That's so funny, Rebecca, about missing train stops. What a great way to gauge your engagement! I so wish I had read Parzival before Matterhorn. Ah, well, there is always a reread.

#50 Thanks, Mark, it is a short read, and I think you will appreciate the drawings, which give the book a graphic novel feel. Sorry you were disappointed with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I'm serious when I say I don't understand what happened. I hope someone will explain it on the thread, because all I have are questions. :-?

#51 Thanks, Bonnie! I think you will like both Matterhorn and Absolutely True Diary. The latter is a very fast read so you might be able to slip it in as a quickie.

# 47 - Lucky you with your little country overflowing with languages and ideas!

Thanks very much, Lisa, for posting those notes on the interview with Marlantes. Specifically about his last point, although the draft was a real hot-button issue when my friends were draft age during the Vietnam war, I have long thought it was a mistake for this country to give it up. Even with all the exemptions, it was much fairer in terms of affecting all segments of the population. The "volunteer" army really attracts people who, for educational or class reasons, have no other viable economic options (as well as some people who feel it's something that's interesting or important to them). And it has been reported that the army, at least, has been "relaxing" its standards for who it will take. This is politically acceptable but in my opinion neither morally nor practically acceptable. OK, off of soapbox and back to books.

#53 It is funny, Lisa, because as a lifelong New Yorker, I generally have an instinctive sense of when my stop is coming up, even if I've got my head in a book. Of course, it's probably that instinctive sense that made me look up at the last minute and rush from the train!

Thanks for the notes from the meeting with Karl Marlantes, interesting stuff.

52: Thanks -- very interesting interview. I don't know that I'll read Matterhorn, but I definitely want to read What It Is Like to Go to War, which already has two reviews on LT, both very positive.

Excellent review of The Shawl, Lisa. I think it's a bit too grim for me, but I'll at least give it a look.

That statistic you quoted about the percentage of translated books in the US is spot on. The University of Rochester's resource for international literature is named Three Percent, for that very reason:

The motivating force behind the website is the view that reading literature from other countries is vital to maintaining a vibrant book culture and to increasing the exchange of ideas among cultures. In this age of globalization, one of the best ways to preserve the uniqueness of cultures is through the translation and appreciation of international literary works. To remain among the world’s best educated readers, English speakers must have access to the world’s great literatures. It is a historical truism and will always remain the case that some of the best books ever written were written in a language other than English.

Unfortunately, only about 3% of all books published in the United States are works in translation. That is why we have chosen the name Three Percent for this site. And that 3% figure includes all books in translation—in terms of literary fiction and poetry, the number is actually closer to 0.7%. While that figure obviously represents more books than any one person could read in a year, it’s hardly an impressive number.

An even greater shame is that only a fraction of the titles that do make their way into English are covered by the mainstream media. So despite the quality of these books, most translations go virtually unnoticed and never find their audience.

Despite those dismal percentages, I suspect that there are more translated books available to US readers than there were 20-25 years ago, thanks to the efforts of indie publishers such as Archipelago Books, Europa Editions, New York Review Books, and Open Letter Books (which is affiliated with the University of Rochester and the Three Percent web site). However, as the above excerpt mentions, the mainstream media, particularly the increasingly disappointing and irrelevant New York Times, pay little attention to international literature, unless it's by an author with a major reputation in this country.

Monica's very interesting comment makes sense to me. In the US we are overwhelmed by the number of books published by mediocre though popular American authors, and many Americans seem to have little interest in learning about different cultures and countries or reading books set outside of the US, which makes it that much tougher for translated books, or even books set in other English speaking countries, to have a significant impact here.

That's an interesting question, Monica, about how publishers chose which books to translate. I wonder if Darryl (kidzdoc) has an idea since he knows which prize nominated books get translated first.

I have no idea how publishers choose which books to translate. I would imagine that there are many factors involved in this decision, and that the marketability of the particular book and its author is one of the leading factors.

Despite those dismal percentages, I suspect that there are more translated books available to US readers than there were 20-25 years ago

Would be interesting to see the statistic over time, especially as a percentage...

#54 When I traveled fairly broadly in Europe in the late 80s/early 90s, I was always struck by the quality of literature tht Europeans, especially East Europeans, would read on the tram or train. Being one of those people who can't help but spy on what others are reading, I would revel at the sight of a babushka reading Tolstoy while balancing her grocery bag at her feet. I so rarely see Americans doing the same (with the exception of college towns and students). I have no statistics to back this up; it's strictly my impression.

#55 The question about the draft was asked by a man who had been drafted in Vietnam. He had strong feelings about those who were able to "buy" their way out of service by going to college. I think Marlantes is able to reach vets on both sides because he volunteered despite being at Yale and a Rhodes Scholar. He could have stayed home.

Although I missed the Vietnam war (although one of my first memories is of the song "Green Berets"--I still remember some of the words), the big issue on campus in my time was whether to reinstate the ROTC program, which my college did. It triggered controversy at the time, but the program has remained in place since then.

#56 Thanks, Barry. I realize the same information could be gleaned from online interviews, but I find it helpful to include my notes in my thread as a self-reminder, as well as for anyone who might be interested.

#57 I'm curious, qebo, why you are planning to read What It Is Like to Go to War, but not Matterhorn. No judgment, simply wondering.

#58 Hi Darryl. The Shawl was grim, but an interesting look at insanity as a method of dealing with horrific trauma. It's interesting how one book with often dovetail in some way with the next book you read. I'm currently reading The Memory of Love and was struck by the following:

'I was doorman here,' he adds. 'Before.' He says it as others do, in a way that conveys a sense of timelessness. Before. There was before. And there is now. And in between a dreamless void.

This is so similar to what I quoted from the short story Rosa in The Shawl. The partitioning of time seems to be a common way of coping with such stress.

Thanks you for bringing Three Percent to my attention. I have bookmarked it as another source for books, and I'm going to try out the podcast.

I wonder if Darryl (kidzdoc) has an idea since he knows which prize nominated books get translated first. was a poorly worded way of asking about prize-winning books from other countries. I know you follow many of the prize lists, and I was wondering if you have a sense of which books get published here before being nominated, which are published only after nomination, and if there are some that just never get published here. The alchemy of publishing and marketing is incomprehensible to me in general.

#59 I agree, Dan. Maybe I can try to do a little research later on. I'm wondering what impact Facebook/Twitter, etc is having on reading.

# 60 - I would revel at the sight of a babushka reading Tolstoy while balancing her grocery bag at her feet. I so rarely see Americans doing the same (with the exception of college towns and students).
Well, Tolstoj is their own cultural heritage, so I guess it's not that strange to them. And I also think that older people were better read because they weren't distracted by television and internet. I remember my grand-father was like a walking library. Maybe it's a historical issue too, that people read less than some they used to? But on the other hand, education then was not as widely spread as today. So, fewer people read more? Aarh, I don't know, it's becoming a subject for sociological, historical and anthropological research.

Archipelago Books and Open Letter Books are good sources of translated literature in English. Both have subscription options to which I have succumbed. New York Review Books, aka NYRB, also publishes a lot of translations.

Edited to fix links.

I hope you're loving The Memory of Love Lisa; it may be my book of the year.

And there's Dalkey. I did a quick check though and noticed that the books from Belgium date from decades ago. Of course that doesn't say anything about the quality of the work, but it does say something about the supply that is available.
... Maybe we could start a thread or a challenge somewhere with only non-American / English fiction or the 3%-books? If it doesn't already exist?
I am a member of the Reading Globally-group which many of us participate in but even then, the group doesn't specifically focus on the non-American fiction. However, I think it's doing a wonderful job, especially since installing the regional threads.

57: It's fiction vs non-fiction. I read fiction for escape, and maybe the creative portrayal of a world, but historical / cultural fiction makes me uneasily uncertain about what is real and what is drama (recognizing that non-fiction isn't necessarily Truth, and different perspectives and interpretations exist, along with unknowns). I am especially alarmed by the interview question and answer: "Why did you portray senior officers so negatively? --'Novels need villains.'"

#64 Maybe we could start a thread or a challenge somewhere with only non-American / English fiction or the 3%-books? If it doesn't already exist?
I am a member of the Reading Globally-group which many of us participate in but even then, the group doesn't specifically focus on the non-American fiction.

I realize that for the Reading Globally theme reads, people sometimes read novels set in other countries but written by Americans, but I'm a little curious about what you mean by the group not focusing on non-American fiction. The reason I participate in it is to learn about non-US, non-UK fiction, and I've learned about a lot of books by non-US writers that I hadn't heard about anywhere else on LT. What do you think a new thread or group would add? I would definitely be happy to learn about more books and writers, maybe through a thread or group on translated literature.

Also, another great resource for international literature (although not always translated, i.e, some is written in English) is Belletrista, an online magazine created by LT member Lois/avaland "celebrating women writers from around the world."

# 66 - You're right. I might have sounded a bit too harsh, as if I wanted to ban American fiction (which is definitely not what I meant). All I actually wanted to say is that in the Reading Globally-group, readers focus on the content of the book rather than the nationality of the writer. But then, when thinking about it more than 3 seconds, I realize content is more important. Well, I'd certainly prefer a well-written book by an American author than e.g. a 2nd rate-book by a non-American. So forget what I said and for those who are interested, do join the Reading Globally-group. It is a great place to dwell. And thanks for reminding me of Belletrista, Rebecca.

#67, I realized that when I read Reading Globally, I almost entirely follow the theme reads and the regional threads, and not the individual reading threads that people have created. Maybe that gives me a different view of RG, because, other than in the Where Are You Now? thread, I find mostly the books are by people from the other countries, not by Americans writing about other countries, which is of less interest to me.

ETA Sorry for hijacking your thread, Lisa!

#61 Perhaps, but I saw people reading novels everywhere in Eastern Europe and not the latest romance or thriller. This was twenty years ago, so times may have changed. I just remembered how suprised I was by the quality and quanity of literature, the small number of obese people, and the large number of smokers compared to here.

#62 Thanks, Rebecca. Archipelago and NYRB were on my radar, but Open Letter books was a new one to me. I have bookmarked their site. I've thought about subscribing to Archipelago, but I like buying them from my local Indie store too. And I've started picking up Europa Editions as well.

#63 Actually, I found the beginning of The Memory of Love to be langorously slow as she set the scene and established her small cast of characters. Perhaps my fault as I've had lots of distractions beginning this past weekend. About page 150, things began to pick up, however, and now I'm more engaged and trying to find an uninterrupted stretch of time for reading so that I can really get into the flow.

#64 I've bookmarked Dalkey Archives now too. I had heard of it once before on Darryl's thread when there was a sale. I should become active in Reading Globally. I actually joined this year, but have not been over there much. It's so easy to spend more time on LT than on reading!

#69, I like to buy from my local store(s) too, but I haven't seen Open Letter in them. I do buy NYRBs from them, but they have fewer Archipelagos. As it happens, I received my second book in my Open Letter subscription today, Guadalajara, a collection of short stories by Catalan author Quim Monzó.

Finished Matterhorn, and still deciding what to write about it, but again I'm grateful for the info about the Parzifal connection.

One of my favorite sources for literature in translation is Twisted Spoon Press (http://www.twistedspoon.com/). It is a Czech publisher specializing in English translations of current and 20th century works from eastern and central Europe. I've enjoyed several of their volumes, discovering authors I would never have heard of otherwise. They sell directly from their website and via Amazon.

#65 I understand your hesitancy, qebo. I have had the historical fiction debate with myself and on my thread more than once. In particular, there was a good debate after I read another Vietnam novel The Things They Carried. If you are interested, you can look at some of the discussion on my previous thread. I linked to my review and you can read on from there, although if you scroll up the discussion started a bit earlier with some remarks made while I was still reading the book.

As for the "novels need villains" comment, it was said rather tongue in cheek as he followed it by saying he had read that in a book somewhere. My impression was that he felt that in his own experience were senior officers who truly cared and others who were more concerned with advancement, etc. He did not flinch away from examples of poor leadership, and I don't think they were completely fictional, but he also included examples of self-less heroism and caring leadership. I don't think they would be using the book in leadership classes at Annapolis if they felt his portrayal of officers was for literary purposes and not true to life.

It's interesting. After reading the Things They Carried, I felt like I would have rather read a nonfiction account. But I don't feel that way about Matterhorn. I'm not sure why. I'll have to think about it.

Rebecca, Monica, Steven: What if we started a thread where people could list all the wonderful sources for translated literature that you have been sharing with me? That might be a helpful resource. So far we've got:

Belletrista
Archipelago Press
Europa Editions
NYRB
Open Letter Press
Twisted Spoon Press
Dalkey Archives
Three Percent
Words Without Borders (thank you, Lois)
Award Winning Translated Children's Literature

I'm sure we could come up with lots. Would that be worthwhile and different enough from the other threads?

# 73 - I like the idea. It would give me an impression of what is translated in English and I could compare that to what's available in my language. I doubt if I'll ever use the book-buying option (if available) because for me it would be rather ridiculous to read an English version of a non-English book that is available in my language.

#70 Finished Matterhorn, and still deciding what to write about it, but again I'm grateful for the info about the Parzifal connection.

I'm curious, did you like the book? For me, I liked it, but it won't make my top five of the year. Mostly I'm just fascinated with using a myth to tell a Vietnam war story.

I agree! Sounds like a great idea that will wreak havoc on my wallet! Do you think we should do it here in Club Read, or over in Reading Globally, or both? I also remembered that there is an an In Translation group here on LT, of which I'm a member, but it is not a very active group and I think think this thread would work better on a more active one like CR or RG.

>73 labfs39: Excellent idea, Lisa! Count me in.

Other sources of translated literature:

Verba Mundi, a series from David R. Godine, Publisher
Seven Stories Press
Serpent's Tail
Kodansha, for Japanese literature, which unfortunately has closed operations; however, the web site indicates that backlisted titles will be kept in circulation for the time being
Columbia University Press, particularly for ancient and modern Asian literature

#75 I thought it was terrific. Over the years I've read a lot of war novels, but this was the first one that made me feel I was really experiencing what the actual soldiers (in this case, marines) really face throughout the whole novel. I can never narrow my reading down to only a top five, but as of now it would be in my top group for the year. I thought it was interesting how he used the Parzifal myth, and it explained some things, but I also think it was just a structure for telling the growing-into-manhood aspect of the story.

72 (labfs39): It boils down to personal preference and limited time. Sooooo many books, and I tend to pick up books when my immediate reaction is "oh! I want to know about this!", not because I want to get immersed in a story. So, one author, two books about the same general theme, non-fiction vs fiction, non-fiction includes both personal perspective and historical overview, non-fiction wins. It may also be a matter of context -- I deal much better with details when I have a structure to plop them into. I read the exchange in your previous thread. ffortsa commented "The value of fiction, historical or otherwise, is that it allows us to live lives that are not our own, in situations we would never encounter, in order to learn how to be better, wiser people. Your non-fiction reader circumscribes his world to the reach of his own senses - surely there is something to learn from 'what if'" I agree with this value, but I disagree vehemently that this value is exclusive to fiction. I think such value comes in part from what one is seeking, and in part from the skill and integrity of the author. kiwiflowa commented "The study of history is practically fiction anyway. (ok strongly worded I know)" Yes, provocatively worded, and this is why integrity of both novelists and historians is crucial. A novelist may research extensively and constrain the story accordingly, or may use an historical setting as an exotic backdrop. An historian may cautiously address the ambiguous nuances of remote events, or may choose selectively to support a political argument. Re your "question of authenticity", yes, this is important. It is difficult enough to accurately assess and portray one's own self, much less someone else, and the difficulty increases with temporal, cultural, and social distance. Recall my reaction to The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I was troubled by the section about the cult in an ostensibly historical novel about Japan, but several other people said this was the highlight of the story. I would be more forgiving if the novel were, for example, science fiction.

>5 labfs39: You could round that out nicely with choices from China and Latin America:-)

>11 labfs39: I read rebeccanyc's review before yours, but taken together they are quite a recommendation!

>73 labfs39: I would be happy to add to your translated lit source list, but it could go on forever. While I think Archipelago, Dalkey & 3 percent publish some excellent translated fiction they tend to be very light on works by women (though they are working a bit harder these last couple of years to add some), thus I cast my personal and professional net a bit wider. For Belletrista, I comb through catalogs of 200-300 publishers/imprints, just to give you an idea (and the list keeps growing!). It also should be noted that some publishers like to publish certain kinds of books, Dalkey is into modernist fiction, as is Twisted Spoon, I believe. Some of these can be a bit stylistically challenging, and probably not for everyone. Another good source for someone starting out would be the magazine, World Literature Today.

Monica (JustJoey) convinced me to become active in Reading Globally, so I just got back from posting a few "seed" reviews in the region sections. I decided to add my global books for June and July (8 books). Interestingly, all 8 were in different regions. Now, how to keep track of the posts on all these!

I'm enjoying reading your reviews in Reading Globally!

# Star them, it'll look great, all bright and shiny :-).
Great to see you posting there, Lisa. I think reading your reviews in a different context gives a whole new dimension to them and adds new relationships between books which I find is always very exciting.

#74 In trying to answer your question, Monica, I came across a Google book called Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (published in 1998). Although I can only access a few pages without purchasing. I did find statistics for the number of translated books published in some countries. Data is for 1991.

Britain: 3% (1689 of 67,628)
Germany: 14% (9557 of 67,890)
Portugal: 44% (2809 of 6430)
Italy: 26% (of 40,487)
Spain: 24% (of 43,896)
France: 18% (of 39, 525)

Only a fraction of these would be literature and poetry.

Another website, Worldometer gives totals of the number of books published per country.

#79 You raise some interesting points, qebo. I wish you had been part of the conversation back then. I too just read The Thousand Autumns, and it seems like we shared a similar distaste for part 2 and an appreciation for the historical aspects. Thanks for the links you include in your review. Interesting stuff.

#80 You are right, Lois, I am missing some important countries and all of South America! Must remedy that...

It's interesting that Marlantes mentioned in his talk that not only is a significant proportion of Matterhorn's readership female, but that the book would never have been published if it weren't for four women. After trying to get his book published for thirty years, a woman at El León Literary Arts, a small Berkeley publishing house, picked it up and a small run was published. Then another woman got the book to a key female buyer at Barnes and Noble, who in turn brought it to a female buyer at Grove/Atlantic. Grove struck a deal with El León, and it was mass produced. Thanks to four women who fought for a Vietnam War novel.

#82, 83 Thanks! I'll try to at least keep up with the region threads, even if I don't make it to the individual ones. What did you mean by "star them", Monica?

#76, 77, 80 Well, here's my first stab at the World Literature in English Translation thread. Please let me know what you think of the format, etc. Do you think we should add a wiki with just a list? Would that be easier to search? Should we copy to a thread in RG or just market it on the regional threads, etc.?

Rebecca, you speed demon, I like your "From Their Website" instead of "About". It's more clear. I'll change mine.

What did you mean by "star them", Monica?
Well, simply that you could click "star this topic" on top of each thread... It works for me although I have a lot of starred threads to visit regularly.
Thanks for the stats on translations. I'm still looking for some local information which is not so easy, apparently.
And good luck with your World Literature in English Translation-thread. It already looks impressive!
I'm curious. Are the translated books available in regular book-shops in the US and are they placed in between the other books or do they have their own corner?

85: Alas, there are too many conversations occurring to keep track of, and even when I am paying attention, I'm not necessarily quick enough to participate. Next year I'll know whose threads to star at the beginning. You'd segued out of my scope into Club Read when I was still barely able to cope with the 75ers. A bunch of 75ers are cross-posting, and I'm seeing different conversations in the different groups. I want to focus on the Non-Fiction Challenge, my "circumscribed world" (though it seems I venture out more than others venture in), but may try more cross-posting in the future.

180. I like the way you did it, Lisa, and please no wiki. I would have no idea how to do anything with a wiki!

I posted a link to the thread on the Reading Globally message board here. I think it would be a lot of work to copy the whole thread over there, but I could ask Lois/avaland who is the RG administrator to post a link to it high up on the group page if you think that would be a good idea.

72. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns

If Jane Austen had had a morbid sense of humor, she might have written something like Who was Changed and Who was Dead. Although I have only read this single work by Comyns, she seems to share Austen's ability to create both sympathetic characters and absurd ones with homely details of dress, action, and gossip. Both authors are extremely aware of social class and mores, but are willing to challenge them with unexpected romances. And each focuses on a very small setting, an English village, and more particularly, a single family. But there the similarities end, and one might better compare Comyns work with Gogol's fantastic realism.

Grandmother Willoweed is a tyrant. She rules her middle-aged son, the household, and, when possible, the village, with an iron hand. Hard of hearing, her ear trumpet serves as a symbol of her character: loud and forceful, yet unable or unwilling to understand what others are saying. Her son, Ebin, is a sorry character lacking the backbone to stand up to his mother and financially dependent upon her ever since he lost his job as a gossip columnist due to a libel suit. Ebin has three children: Emma, the handsome, hardworking heroine; Dennis, his sensitive son; and Hattie, the child who is proof that he was cuckolded at least once. Added to the family cast of characters is Old Ives the gardener and two maids, both looking for love, but in very different places.

The story begins with a flood that has swept through the town killing many of the animals and livestock. In a series of farcical scenes, we see how each of the characters reacts to the damage caused by the flood. Shortly after the flood recedes, a mysterious illness plagues the village, and Grandmother is in a tizzy to know who has died. The deceased all seem to have gone mad before succumbing, and Ebin smells a story. Taking advantage of his neighbors' distress, he begins to write news stories about the disasters and tries to regain some sense of independence. Meanwhile, love beckons to Emma and the maids.

Ranging from macabre to hilarious, when first published in 1954, the book was banned in Ireland for its indecent unpleasantness. I enjoyed the book for its eccentric characters and bizarre comedy. Recommended for those seeking a more unusual read.

Edited to remove ridiculous last sentence. Thanks, Barry!

73. Boston Jane : an adventure by Jennifer L. Holm

I am always on the lookout for stronge female characters in books for my daughter. I was delighted to find out that the author of the Newbery Honor winning book, Our Only May Amelia, had written a whole series also set in the Pacific Northwest. Well-researched, using notebooks from early settlers and her own grandmother's diary, Holm's books feature feisty girls who refuse to be held back because of their gender or social class.

Jane Peck, the heroine of this series, is a wild child growing up in Philadelphia under the loving but unconventional eye of her doctor father. It is only when a young intern, William Baldt, boards with them to study with her father, that Jane begins to see the differences between herself and other young ladies of the town. With William's urging, Jane enrolls in Miss Hepplewhite's Young Ladies Academy and continues her studies when he leaves to make his fortune in the Pacific Northwest. Soon after Jane succeeds in being accepted by the Philadelphia elite, William proposes. Much to her father's dismay, Jane boards a ship for the journey around Cape Horn and months later lands in Shoalwater Bay, Washington Territory. Much to her dismay, William is nowhere to be found.

Thus begins Jane's adventure with the pioneers, Chinook Indians, and traders of Shoalwater Bay. I read this book aloud to my daughter, and we both loved it. We laughed as Jane tries to maintain her standing as a lady while facing very practical challenges. And I must admit that I even teared up at one point. It's a pleasure to have found a series with enough adventure, history, and hutzpah to keep both my daughter and me entertained. On to the second book in the series!

#72 I am not sure about a refreshing whiff from the underarm of society but a great review of who was changed and who was dead

I am glad you enjoyed Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead; I think I liked it better than you did, because it started me reading a lot of Comyns, although it still remains my favorite, perhaps because it was my first. Some of her other books that I've read are quite different, although in all of them her ability to portray characters insightfully with a minimum of words shines through.

#87 Oh, those stars! Sorry, I missed that. As for translations, I shop almost exclusively at a local Indie store which does carry a fair number of translated books. But I think it is dependent on the local demographic. As for the big box stores, I'm not sure. I don't shop there normally, but I would guess that the numbers of translations would be fewer, simply because they carry so many bestsellers and popular fiction. The history section in the local Barnes and Noble is about half the size of their sci-fi section for instance, as I remember.

#88 No worries, qebo! I can't even keep up with my own thread at times. I'm just sorry that we missed out on your input. I've been following you on 75 Books, should I star your Non-Fiction thread instead? I just popped over to check it out.

#89 Thanks for taking care of the advertising on RG, Rebecca. As a newbie there, I wasn't sure what was kosher.

#92 Okay, Barry, so that's a little much, it's true. Call it the fault of multitasking and a slap dash rush. ;-)

#93 Actually I did like Who Was Changed quite a bit and would read more of her works. I loved the character depictions. I just don't know that I could handle the bloated carcasses, suicides, and horrible mob attacks all the time. The scene with Old Toby is still giving me the creeps.

94: Just to create more cross-posting confusion? :-) Nah, my non-fiction posts are essentially identical in both places, unless a conversation occurs, and the 75 thread also has fiction and occasional mutterings about plans or lapses.
91: Boston Jane would've appealed to me as a kid. Maybe it'd appeal now too. Wonderful that you're reading aloud to your daughter.

#95 I'm a firm believer in reading aloud to kids. She's eight, but still loves it. Either my husband or I reads every night: he's reading the second in the Black Stallion series to her. They tend to read different titles than I choose, although I read them all as a kid too: Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Phantom Tollbooth. I tend to read Pinky Pye and all the other Estes books, The Borrowers, and all the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. I think it's great that we both have books going with her and that they are different. She gets exposed to a broader range of books, and she knows that her dad loves books too. And there are benefits for me too. I've gotten to revisit lots of old classics and discover new ones, and I've gotten much better at doing voices. :-) Do you have kids?

Totally agree with you there, I used to love the bedtime reading ritual as much as my daughters. It's a nice way to finish a day and have some special bonding time with your kids. Of course mine are too old for that now but I always ask them what they're reading as we still have a love of books in common and it's nice to find out what they recommend.

74. The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall (read by Susan Denaker)

I simply love the Penderwicks! Smart, brave, and loyal, the Penderwick sisters' adventures are captivating and charming. It can be difficult to find children's books that are sufficiently compelling for both adults and children to read together, and which don't contain violence or teen issues. This series fits the bill perfectly.

In this, the most recent book about the Penderwick family, Skye, Jane, Batty, and Aunt Claire join the girls' friend Jeffrey in Maine for two weeks. Since Rosalind is going on vacation with a friend, this is the first time that Skye will be the OAP (Oldest Available Penderwick). She spends her time worrying about all her responsibilities (what had Rosalind said about Batty and blowing up?) and reading about black holes. Jane is doing research on love for her next Sabrina Star book, and, with Jeffrey's help, Batty discovers a hidden talent. When Aunt Claire's ankle is severly twisted, the kids get help from their neighbor, Alec. Moose, golf balls, fire gods, jazz, and, of course, their dog Hound, all play a role in making this the most satisfying Penderwick book yet.

My daughter and I agree: five stars.

75. The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, The Memory of Love is the story of two love triangles. One is set in the chaotic post-colonial days of Sierra Leone, and the second takes place in the aftermath of the country's civil war. The story switches back and forth between the two time periods, and between the perspectives of three men. As each love triangle unfolds, and then the two become connected, we see the web of ways in which our choices impact the people we love.

The story opens with Elias Cole relating the story of his life to a British counselor, Adrian, who is in Sierra Leone as a volunteer. Elias, we learn, was a young professor in love with a colleague's wife during the turbulent early 1960s. He tells a story of obsession, unrequited love, and betrayal, yet withholds something, even now, after all these years. As Adrian listens and tries to help Elias bring to light his true role in the events surrounding Julius and Saffia Kamara, Adrian's own life is in turmoil. Why is he here? What does he want to accomplish? As Elias's story unfolds, Adrian unwittingly plays out the same complex love triangle: he becomes obsessed with a woman who loves another and in the process betrays a friend.

The third voice heard in the novel is that of a young surgeon, Kai. A victim of nightmares and insomnia, he immerses himself in his work and wonders if it is time to join his best friend in America, leaving behind the trauma of his country. Through Kai we learn of some of the brutal acts perpetrated throughout the war and the untenable position people are in now, with over 90% of the people suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. The decisions and actions of Elias, Adrian, and Kai represent groups of people: those forced to choose between personal suffering and collusion, those forced to live with horrible memories and the absence of hope, and those Westerners who come in behind the war wanting to help and leaving again as soon as their rotation is up. But the experiences of these three men are also very personal stories of loss, love, and memory.

I found The Memory of Love powerful in the descriptions of how civilians and rebels are now living side by side with what Adrian calls "the fragmentation of the conscience". By focusing on the present and suppressing their memories, millions of people are trying to get by in modern Sierra Leone. But can people (and a country) heal if they remain internally fragmented? I also found of interest how the author treats the subject of Western aid workers. In the book, they are seen as people who come to pad their resume or ease their conscience, but without being asked to help and without understanding the people's needs or desires. These short-timers are ignored or despised, sometimes giving foreigners the impression that Sierra Leoneans are not trying to help themselves or improve the situation in their country.

I wish the book had contained more history. Perhaps simply because of my own proclivities, I found that I had to read an online history of the war in order to fully understand and appreciate the novel. Dates, place names, and forces are alluded to, but much is left for the reader to either know or to skip, reading the novel more as a Everyman's experience of war and its aftermath. I also wish that the author had chosen to write from the perspective of some of the women in the book. There are some very strong female characters, but they are always described from the perspective of the men around them. I found that dissatisfying. It's a good book, but left me wanting more. I'm looking forward to discovering additional authors from the country.

"Through Kai we learn of some of the brutal acts perpetrated throughout the war and the untenable position people are in now, with over 90% of the people suffering from post traumatic stress disorder."

90% !

99: I wish the book had contained more history. Perhaps simply because of my own proclivities, I found that I had to read an online history of the war in order to fully understand and appreciate the novel. When I read novels set in other times and places, I do exactly the same, and it's a primary reason to read them -- the characters get me interested in surrounding events, and/or my mental sketch of events is fleshed out by the characters.

I also love books that spur me on to read more about the history but I think it can be frustrating if not enough context is given in the book for a clear understanding. Even though I'm chomping at the bit to go off and google some detail, I always try to wait until I've actually finished the book for fear of 'spoilers'. I know that sounds silly given that it is all based in fact but there is a lot of history I don't know and I enjoy immersing myself in the pace of the novel. Actually reading a book about Joan of Arc at the moment and the urge to google is so tempting but I shall wait.

#100 Although it is never clarified in the book the exact demographic group this number applies to, according to a Doctors Without Borders report, 99% of the people in Freetown suffer from PSTD. They also remark that the scale is based on Western European experiences, so the cap was too low. However, the country as a whole would not be so high.

#101-102 What I found a bit frustrating was that the author never used the words Freetown or the names of rebel groups, leaders, the year, etc. Everything was vague. It took me a while to figure out where in the country the characters were and when things were happening. As KiwiNyx says it can be frustrating if not enough context is given in the book for a clear understanding. Normally I love books that inspire me to read more, this felt more like necessity.

103: Oh, yeah, that is frustrating. I like when each chapter or section has a heading with place and date; it doesn't intrude on the story, but helps with orientation.

Getting a bit behind in reviews and everyone's threads, but that is because I have been busy... planning a trip to Europe! My husband has been working on a project for 3 1/2 years and the last six months have been h***. He hasn't taken a day off in at least two months. But the FAA signed off on the last flight tests Monday, and Bill came home saying "Let's go to Europe, I've taken off the last two weeks of August". Ahhh!!!

That night was exactly 14 days from when we will be leaving, so we had to immediately book a flight. Frankfurt is rather central, and with France closing for the summer, we decided to fly in and out of there. I've been a wreck since then planning an itinerary, booking rooms, car rentals, trains, etc. When I'm not completely stressed out, I'm very excited. It's been 14 years since my last trip to Europe, although I had been four times before that, twice on study abroad programs. My husband has never been. I tried to plan a trip that hit a few biggies, but that includes time in places where I've never been too.

Basically it is a big loop. Frankfurt to the Black Forest, then to Wengen in the Berner Oberland, then driving across Switzerland to a tiny town on the Austrian/German border between Reutte and Fussen. Finally Salzburg for the end of the Mozart music festival and train back to Frankfurt. We have three nights at most places, which will be nice, and a nice balance between trains and driving. My big worry is such long flights with my hip, and I already know I won't be able to do as much walking, or any hiking, as I would like. But a vacation! My husband hasn't taken two consecutive weeks off since our daughter was born eight years ago, or maybe even since our wedding.

I immediately began downloading audiobooks, and ran to the library with my daughter to check out a biography of the Brothers Grimm and a whole bunch of their fairytales. First things first!

Leaving the 16th, so I will try to get in a couple of reviews before then because I have read two Europa edition books that I want to be sure not to miss.

Wow, Lisa, that sounds great!!

Sounds like a awsome trip Lisa. Good luck with all the planning.

Really exciting!

Lisa- That's wonderful news! Sounds like a great trip. I was stationed in Germany for 2 years. It's an amazing country. You'll have a terrific time.

Fun! Enjoy your trip :)

105: Oh, cool!

Sounds like an amazing trip!

Hi Lisa, what great news. I always think of the amazing castles when I think of Germany, so picturesque. And the Mozart festival in Salzburg sounds fantastic as well. Happy planning!

Catching up -- and loving -- the conversation here about nonfiction vs fiction. *off to locate qebo's thread* Also appreciate everyone's suggestions and the thread on sources for translated works -- it led me to wishlist several, first up is Secret Letters from 0 to 10.

Your vacation sounds wonderful!!

Books on the Nightstand recently had a podcast where they discussed epigraphs and whether anyone read them. Neither Michael nor Anne, the hosts of the podcast do. I was quite astonished, because I not only read the epigraph but the dedication, the translation notes, and the CIP page (but not blurbers because of spoilers). When I finish a book, I often type in the epigraph in Common Knowledge. Obviously I didn't pay close enough attention to the epigraph in Matterhorn, as it clearly links the novel to Parzival, which I missed until later.

Shame and honor clash where the courage of a steadfast man is motley like the magpie. But such a man may yet make merry, for Heaven and Hell have equal part in him.
- Wolfram von Eschenbach "Parzifal"

I was wondering what you all do? Are you epigraph readers, and why or why not? Do you have any favorite epigraphs?

I'm just catching up with you Lisa and how exciting that you'll be off to Europe very shortly. Have a wonderful time!

It's funny and serendipitous that you quoted the the epigraph from Matterhorn which I'm just finishing up (another twenty pages to go) because I was thinking that's where you started with the Parzifal myth. I actually came here to review your Parzival info.

Anyway, I always read the epigraph and I find it unbelievable that the professionals on Books on the Nightstand don't. The epigraph is an eyeball into the soul of the author. It so often reveals the theme of the book and the author's purpose for writing it, his ideas on the subject or his politics. After I'm well into the book, I often go back to the epigraph and see what connections I can make. I'm flabbergasted that they don't read it. In my opinion, that would be tantamount to skipping the first chapter of the book.

Ditto, always.

In fact, I was gobsmacked just yesterday by the epigraph in The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell, an ARC from Early Reviewers -- short stories about people who come into contact with Robert F. Kennedy's funeral train from NY to DC:

"Is everybody all right?"
--Senator Robert F. Kennedy, moments after being shot, in the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel, June 5, 1968

How has that not become a well-known quote?!

#116 I think your reaction was just the reaction that BOTNS got from their readers in feedback emails and calls: shock, horror, dismay. :-) Anne and Michael even spent part of a later episode sharing people's responses. One was from an author who related how much time she spent coming up with an epigraph and how disappointed she would be if her readers didn't read it.

#117 Thank you for sharing. That's a very poignant reflection of the man.

I wonder if epigraphs are common in all countries? My impression is that it depends more on the author than on the country of origin, but I'm not sure. I wonder if publishers encourage authors to include them or not?

Hi Lisa- I had the same reaction to Ann & Michael's admission. Like you, I always read epigraphs, even if I don't remember most of them. Actually, I've never considered not reading them. Heck, I even read the acknowledgements. Geeky, I know.

Bonnie- "The epigraph is an eyeball into the soul of the author." Spot on, my friend!

117: Huh. A few months ago I was on the train, must've been NY/Philadelphia/DC, listening to a man behind me talking to his neighbor, apparently a stranger, about a book he'd written, a fictional take on RFK's funeral train, inspired by 100s of photographs taken along the route at the time. I recall that he mentioned discussions with the photographer about a companion book, or joint appearances on tour, or some such. I never caught his name, and I never turned around to look, but this sure sounds like the book he was describing.

>120 qebo: too funny, I'm sure that's the author I'm reading! I learned he was inspired by Paul Fusco's photographs in RFK Funeral Train (now out of print) so I borrowed a library copy of the newer edition, Paul Fusco: RFK to read alongside.

To follow up with my epigraph comment, here are two fun links of the "100 best" first and last lines. It seems to me as thought they picked some famous books and plucked out the lines. Not sure how much thought went into the selection process, but it's fun anyway.

The best 100 opening lines from books

The best 100 closing lines from books

Do you have a favorite first or last line?

Looking forward to reading those lists, Lisa, but I'll take this opportunity to say that there's one book I know both the opening and closing lines of -- and I haven't read it in more than 40 years! It' A Tale of Two Cities. I'll have to think about favorites.

You're right, Rebecca, I think ToTC is the only book where I know both the opening and closing lines.

76. My Berlin Child by Anne Wiazemsky

The daughter of François Mauriac, Claire is a privileged young woman looking for purpose in WWII Paris. Her life during the turbulent years of the war and post-war Berlin are told in this memoir written by her daughter.

underwhelming 3 stars

For my review, check out next month's issue of Belletrista.

I'm currently reading Regeneration, a novel based on the experiences of Siegfried Sassoon during WWI. Matterhorn is still looming large in my consciousness, so I was particularly interested to read a passage in this book in which soldiers are treated for what would be known as Post Traumatic Stress with the myth of Antaeus and Hercules. Karl Marlantes has referenced how integral Parzival was to his recovery from PTSD, and so I was intrigued to read how Dr. Brock used the myth of Antaeus to describe how soldiers were ungrounded by the war. Whereas Antaeus lost his power and strength when his feet lost touch with the ground, the soldiers become disconnected by the trauma of war. The therapy then was to reestablish connects between soldiers and the earth, by which was meant both nature and society. Ergotherapy was the name for this treatment, and Wilfred Owen, at least, felt that it worked.

All this is leading me to wonder about the connections of early myths to something fundamentally old about war. The primal forces that are brought to the fore by war/terror/aggression being better described by the symbolic but fundamental nature of myths. Sort of like the enduring link between children and fairy tales.

Anyway, I'm enjoying Regeneration and am going to scurry off to bed to read some more tonight.

I missed your post about your upcoming trip to Europe, which sounds great. I'll be there from late August to mid-September, mainly in London, Cambridge and Paris. Have a great time!

Thanks, everyone, for the good wishes for the trip. We are very excited! The only drawback is that we will miss Cushla. She is going to Munich and Salzburg, and we will probably pass them as they head back to Basel. :-(

#119 Where in Germany were you stationed, Mark?

#127 You too, Darryl! I would have liked to have gone to Paris for a week and a week in southern France, but France in August is dead. Your timing is much better. Unfortunately, Katie has to go back to school the first week of September.

I was stationed in Nuremberg. It's a lovely city. I'd like to go back one of these days.

#129 If we do get to Nuremberg on the way back to Frankfurt, what would you recommend as must sees?

77. The Homecoming Party by Carmine Abate

I love stories that take me out of myself and teach me things about the world that I never knew. This novel does both. To my fascination, I learned that in southern Italy, there remain villages of Arbëresh-speaking people, descendants of the Albanians who first fled to the region when the Ottoman Turks invaded Albanian lands in the 15th century. I also became more intimately aware of the horrible plight of poor southern Italians who must spend eleven months of the year working in France, sometimes under horrible conditions, in order to provide for their families and be able to send their children to college. But primarily, this novel is an uplifting celebration of family, and I was carried away by the power and poetry of the story.

Marco is a boy on the verge of manhood. As the book opens, he and his father, Tullio, are sitting on the steps of the village church watching the Christmas bonfire: "... my father said there'd never been such a fire, a perfect bonfire to toss all our worst memories into, he said, and set fire to them in a flash, and for all time." As they sit watching the fire long into the night, Marco remembers key moments in his childhood, times when his father was home for a brief visit and times when his father's absence was especially painful. Tullio is also in a reflective mood and shares stories of his life in France and the woman whom he loved there, the mother of Marco's older sister, Elisa.

As the story moves back and forth in time, we learn that each of them is holding back a secret, something that involves the older man with whom Elisa has had an affair. As the night progresses, we move closer and closer to understanding that secret and to understanding the maturing relationship between father and son. The dénouement of the story is tender and joyous, and I closed the book slowly, wanting to remain with the family and their village.

Once again, Europa Editions has published an astonishing novel that deserves to be read by an international audience. Sprinkled with Arbëresh words, the novel's setting is distinctly foreign, but the familial relationships, Marco's love for his dog, and the childish pranks are all familiar. I heartily recommend The Homecoming Party, and I look forward to reading another of Abate's novels that has been published by Europa Editions, Between Two Seas.

Excellent review of The Homecoming Party Lisa. i certainly did not know of Arberesh-speaking people in S Italy, but I do know how poor some of the people are who live in that part of Europe.

Very nice review of The Homecoming Party, Lisa. I passed this up at my local Borders' going out of business sale, but I'll get it later this week.

Lisa - I'm curious about Sassoon and Owen, so intrigued by your comments on Regeneration. Great review of The Homecoming Party.

Have a great trip! (And no pressure... but travel photos are always a welcome sight.)

>71 StevenTX:. The Shawl and Rosa sound absolutely horrifying and a must read. The excerpt you included convinced me to order a copy. Thanks for the review!

#132 Thanks, Barry. I had to do some additional research on the Arbëresh-speaking Italians; it's fascinating when a language can survive in an isolated pocket. Did you read My Father's Paradise? It revolved around a Kurdish Iraqi Jew who grew up speaking Aramaic, which had been thought a dead language. He goes on to write a dictionary and teach, etc.

#133 I hope you like The Homecoming Party, Darryl. I found it quite charming.

#134 Regeneration is good historical fiction. Sassoon and Owen were both real people, and Sassoon's experiences, at least, are continued in two more books. I have the last, but am trying to get my hands on the second. I'm ignorant when it comes to myths, but I found it serendipitous that I read two books within weeks of each other that talk about using myths to help soldiers cope with trauma.

#135 Thanks, qebo! I am in a dither trying to get everything ready. To make my life even more stressful, the windshield that I just had replaced on Thursday cracked again! Darn rock chip! Anyway, I am taking deep breaths and hoping that once I get on the plane, I'll be able to settle in with a book and relax.

#136 I'm glad you stopped by, Margaret. I did a double take at first, because I have an Aunt Marge and thought maybe she had joined LT. :-) The Shawl was tough, but I found Rosa to be intriguing. She is an unusual character and well-drawn for such a short work. You'll have to let me know what you think after you read it.

137: Adding My Father's Paradise to the wishlist...

137 (and 134) - Lisa, regrding myths and war and Vietnam, have you read Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien? It's a Vietnam war book that parallels (in its own way) the Odyssey.

Have wifi for the moment so I thought I would say hi. Been in the Black Forest for two days. Lovely! Finished The Wandering Falcon, which was culturally fascinating. Started Austerlitz, but not far enough in to say whether I'll like it. Not much time to read because we are driving rather than taking the train. Get to see more quaint off-the-beaten path sites, but less reading time. Ciao!

Lisa- Thanks for checking in! Have a fantastic trip! It's such a beautiful country!

Safe travels! Enjoy.

I'm guessing you don't have wifi - hope you're having a fantastic time. we'll have to compare notes on what we saw once you're home! Our little blast of heat (36 on Monday...high 90s) is finally over and I hope it hasn't been too hot in Austria this week for you.

I have about 60 messages to catch up on here too. Did you finish Regeneration?

Lisa, I hope you're having a wonderful time! I've added Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead to my WL -- great review!

So glad the Penderwicks third book is as wonderful as the first two:) It was a very rare hardback purchase for me, but well worth it.

Hello everyone! We got back yesterday, and I am suffering from 9 hours of jet lag, so it's 3am and I'm up. We had a great trip, although I did not get in as much reading as anticipated, as it ended up being a car tour rather than train trip. I did read:

The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad (an ER book, Darryl has a good review posted)
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (how have I missed this classic for so long!)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (a nice break from all the war books)
Boston Jane: The Claim (the last in a trilogy I was reading to my daughter)
The Good German by Joseph Kanon (raises moral questions about justice, reparations, and the will to survive--set in post war Berlin. Also happens to be a murder mystery)

Still owe reviews on The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Regeneration.

Received The German Mujahid while gone. Looking forward to reading that one.

Will try to catch up on all your threads soon!

Glad you had a great trip, Lisa! Of course, bits about your trip could be just as interesting as book reviews...

>145 labfs39:: Hi Lisa. I, also, have never read All Quiet on the Western Front, despite having it on my To Do list for years now. I was going to start in in 2008 and got sidetracked into reading The Guns of August instead and never got back. This year, I'm determined!!

I just passed my copy of I Capture the Castle along to someone who just finished reading Austen and wanted something like that. For some reason, the plot of the Smith seems very Austen-like to me (though not necessarily ending as happily), so I told them to give it a try.

Hope you enjoy The German Mujahid; I liked it.

78. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a fascinating piece of creative writing. Structured as a monologue, it begins as a bearded Pakistani approaches an American seated at a cafe table in Lahore. He introduces himself as Changez, a significant name for a man whose changing identity and allegiances are the philosophical underpinnings of the novel.

Changez spends the evening dining with the American and telling him his life story: the decline of his Pakistani family's wealth and status, his decision to leave and seek an education in the US, and the Americanization he undergoes in college and as a rising star at a prestigious valuation firm. Changez seems to have achieved the American dream of success, wealth, and the love of a beautiful and well-connected woman. But success comes at the price of internalizing the mantra of his firm, to stick to fundamentals, and by assigning value to things without emotional attachment. This becomes impossible for Changez after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. His emotional world is now the focus of his energies, and as he begins to value things in his life differently, his outer world changes as well.

Intermittently throughout Changez's recital, the author brings us back to the present where Changez is dining with the unknown American. Clues divulged during the course of the dinner, such as that the American is packing a gun in an underarm holster, build tension. who is the American? Why is Changez telling him his story? And what will happen when Changez's story is told and dinner is over. Like Scheherazade, we wonder how the tale will be received and answered.

I found The Reluctant Fundamentalist to be a fast and well-written book, and one whose ambiguities in interpretation lends itself will to discussion, such as in a book club, and to further thought. As an American, I was particularly struck by how 9/11 was perceived by a character who appeared to be completely assimilated. At dinner with the owner of a company that Changez is valuing for a potential takeover, the owner says:

"Have you heard of the janissaries?" "No, " I said. "They were Christian boys," he explained, "captured by the Ottomans and trained to be soldiers in the Muslim army, at that time the greatest army in the world. They were ferocious and utterly loyal: they had fought to erase their own civilizations, so they had nothing else to turn to.

He tipped the ash of his cigarette onto a plate. "How old were you when you went to America?" he asked. "I went for college, " I said. "I was eighteen." "Ah, much older," he said. "The janissaries were always taken in childhood. It would have been far more difficult to devote themselves to their adopted empire, you see, if they had memories they could not forget." He smiled and speculated no further on the subject.

The comparison of America to the avaricious Ottoman Empire was one that caused pause. To what extent are policies to bring the world's best and brightest here to study and work a tactic to spread our belief system through assimilation and indoctrination? Hamid poses many interesting questions in his novel, and I am still pondering answers.

Thoughtful review of The reluctant fundamentalist Lisa. I have it high up on my TBR pile. I'll keep your thoughts in mind when I read it.

Terrific review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist Lisa. I found the novel to be very unsettling and difficult to set down. It stayed in my mind for a long time after I finished reading it.

I must read The Reluctant Fundamentalist, it's been on the tbr list for a long while.
So pleased that you had a great trip. I read The Good German a couple of years ago and found that post-war period of Germany really interesting. I watched the movie too (Cate Blanchett & George Clooney) but wouldn't recommend it at all.
I'm probably due for a reread of All quiet on the western front, I got a nice edition of it last year for my shelves.

Lisa, thank you for your thoughtful review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It looks like a fascinating and thought-provoking book. Welcome back!

Superb review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Lisa! I also found it to be unsettling after I read it, and after reading about the eerily similar life story of the man who unsuccessfully attempted to set off a car bomb at Times Square a couple of years ago.

Great review!

#146 Thanks, Lois! It was a great trip, low key for the most part (my daughter did get attacked by a rooster). Here's a picture of us in front of the Eiger:



And the "Faust house", i.e. the house where Goethe lived and died:

#147 Hi Tad! All Quiet on the Western Front is one of those books that truly deserves the title of classic. It made an interesting seque from Pat Barker's Regeneration, also about WWI. Both decry the war, but All Quiet does it from the front, and the author fought in the war; whereas Pat Barker writes about the effects of shell shock, and the front is only discussed vaguely. She has the benefit of being able to research the papers and books of treatment methods at the time, but lacks the first hand perspective. Both were very good.

There is actually at least one reference to the Bennet sisters in I Capture the Castle:

“Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says ‘Netherfield Park is let at last.’ And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.”

“Mr. Bennet didn’t owe him any rent,” I said.

“Father wouldn’t go anyway. How I wished I lived in a Jane Austen novel!”

I said I’d rather be Charlotte Bronte.

So your choice of books for your friends is spot on, I would say.

I'm enjoying The German Mujahid very much, and once again I seem to have paired two similar reads, for I'm reading this right after The Good German. Both books deal with the aftermath of the war and the concepts of justice, guilt, and vengeance. I need to get caught up on my reviews!

Thanks everyone for the nice comments on my Reluctant Fundamentalist review. I wrote it in pencil while lounging on a guesthouse bed while my better half took the munchkin on a hike up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Salzburg. I saved my hip a lot of stairs and got a review written, which seemed a good tradeoff.

#151 Hi Kerry. I would love to know if The Good German led you to other good books on the topic of post war Germany. I reviewed My Berlin Child for Belletrista (due out this coming week) and was disappointed. The German Mujahid, on the other hand, is a fascinating study of the effects of being the son of an SS officer, with the added twist of being Arabic.

Hmm, not a huge George Clooney fan, so I'll take your advice and skip the movie.

Lucky to have a nice copy of All Quiet on the Western Front. I just have a cheapie mass paperback. It deserves to be a nicer copy.

#153 ...after reading about the eerily similar life story of the man who unsuccessfully attempted to set off a car bomb at Times Square a couple of years ago. Do you remember the name of the book, Darryl? Would you recommend it?

Now that I have read Darryl's comment about the similarity to the fortunately inept would-be Times Square bomber, as well as your review, I'm going to have to move The German Mujahadin up on the TBR. Welcome back, Lisa. Glad your trip was fun.

Hi Rebecca, I think you meant you would move the Reluctant Fundamentalist up your TBR list ;-), but I hope you read The German Mujahid too, if you haven't already. It's very good.

You're right, Lisa, although I don't have that. The perils of reading/writing on a tiny iPhone screen.

I've nearly given up trying to post on the iPhone. Brackets are especially annoying. I read posts on it occasionally, and try and remember whose posts I wanted to respond to or mark, but it's hit or miss. Also, I can't seem to add books on my iPhone. Am I missing something?

80. Regeneration by Pat Barker

Normally a cure implies that the patient will no longer engage in behaviour that is clearly self-destructive. But in present circumstances, recovery meant the resumption of activities that were not merely self-destructive but positively suicidal.

Such are the conclusions of Dr. Rivers, a psychiatrist working with shell-shocked soldiers in 1917 England. His most recent patient is Siegfried Sassoon, a poet and decorated soldier, who has written a declaration calling the war a senseless slaughter without a clear objective. This is enough to land Sassoon in Craiglockhart War Hospital as a patient until he can be cured and returned to the front. Dr. Rivers is treating many patients: a man so traumatized by a gruesome accident that he will never recover, a doctor now unable to stand the sight of blood, a young man unable to remember what happened that caused his breakdown. But there is something about Sassoon and his articulate condemnation of the war that causes a crisis of conscience for Dr. Rivers.

Bits. The scold's bridle used to silence recalcitrant women in the Middle Ages. More recently, on American slaves. And yet on the ward, listening to the list of Callan's battles, he'd felt that nothing Callan could say could have been more powerful than his silence. Later, {after treatment by Dr. Yealland forces Callan to begin speaking again}, Rivers had felt that he was witnessing the silencing of a human being. Indeed, Yealland had come very close to saying just that. 'You must speak, but I shall not listen to anything you have to say.'

...Just as Yealland silenced the unconscious protest of his patients by removing the paralysis, the deafness, the blindness, the muteness that stood between them and the war, so, in an infinitely more gentle way, he silenced his patients; for the stammerings, the nightmares, the tremors, the memory lapses, of officers were just as much unwitting protest as the grosser maladies of the men.

This novel fascinated me on so many levels. There is the philosophical, but very real arguments about the morality of the war; the psychiatric effects of war trauma on soldiers; the medical ethics of experimenting on oneself or using brutal methods; the use of mythology in the treatment of trauma; and the social effects as homosexuality begins to be acknowledged in British society.

He distrusted the implication that nurturing, even when done by a man, remains female, as if the ability were in some way borrowed, or even stolen, from women-a sort of moral equivalent of couvade. If that were true, then there was really very little hope.

...Rivers had been touched by the way in which young men, some of them not yet twenty, spoke about feeling like fathers to their men. Though when you looked at what they did. Worrying about socks, boots, blisters, food, hot drinks. And that perpetually harried expression of theirs... It was the look of people who are totally responsible for lives they have no power to save.

But what really struck me about this novel is that it is based on actual people, declarations, and treatments. In a brief Author's Note at the end of the book, which I found helpful to read first, the reader is told which characters were real people and cites the sources for the various methods of treatment which Drs. Rivers and Yealland used. On the spectrum between fact and fiction, the author skews to the actual, and I was amazed at how deftly she brought the historical to life. Regeneration is the first in a trilogy that I look forward to continuing. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the psychology of war.

Great review of Regeneration Lisa. I read it some time ago and have the two other books in the trilogy on my shelves to read. Must get to them

A great review, I read this a couple of years ago and still haven't read the rest of the trilogy too.
Regarding books on postwar Germany, I haven't read that many, there is the more recent nonfiction Stasiland, the thriller The Runner and I'm about to read Efraim's Book which is set in postwar Berlin. Also a children's book by German writer Peter Hartling, Crutches is very good.
I can recommend two excellent German movies - The Miracle of Berne & The Lives of Others.

eta: I have had The German Mujahid on my tbr list since Tad reviewed it last year.

#161 Lisa, you are so right about the iphone. I actually thought I put brackets in when I posted 158, but clearly they didn't show up. I haven't even tried adding books from the phone, and probably never will because I'm pretty fussy about how I enter books. It's still a relatively new toy for me, but I love being able to catch up on threads, which is about all I usually do with it.

Morning Lisa- Great review of Regeneration. I read this one many years ago and desperately need to do a re-read and catch up on the other 2 books.

BTW- I love the Eiger photo!

Fabulous review of Regeneration, Lisa. I hadn't heard much about it, but I'll definitely read it now.

Lisa, wonderful review of Regeneration. I've had my eye on that series for awhile, and picked up that one at the library sale last spring.

I've found the brackets on my iphone, but I don't like using it for posting. I normally just read the threads on my phone, then post when I'm actually on my computer, hoping I'll remember where I wanted to comment, and that the moment hasn't passed...

#148 & 162 - Terrific reviews. Someday I might just get around to exploring Sassoon and the other WWI poets. I'll keep Regeneration in mind

#163 Thanks, Barry. I wonder why you didn't continue reading the series at the time? I hope the others are as good. The Ghost Road won the Booker Prize, but I've heard rumors that it was really a late tribute to Regeneration.

#164 Hmmm, I'm starting to see a pattern here. :-) Thanks for the list of books and movies. I will check them out. One book about post-war Berlin that I read earlier, My Berlin Child, was a bit of a dud for me. You can read my review in the latest issue of Belletrista. I too first heard about The German Mujahid. It was fabulous. It's worth the effort to find a copy.

#165 I'm new to the smartphone world in general. I find it handy for some things and just too small for others. Of course, my reading glasses always put things in perspective!

#166 Thanks, Mark! I had climbed to the first glacier of the Eiger from the valley floor in 1995. This time we took a gondola, walked as much as my hips would allow, and then took a little train. When we got there I was so disappointed. The glacier is practically gone! No more walking out onto it and making snowballs; it's a matter of even seeing it. I was shocked. Closer to home, the glaciers on Mt. Rainier have been receding steadily too, but there was something about seeing it hapen to the Eiger. I think of the mountain almost mythically, and it is so changed.

#167 I think you will especially enjoy Regeneration, Darryl. The medical and psychological aspects were very interesting. I wish I had access to the Drs. original works, but only a medical library might have them, I suspect.

#168 For me, the hard part is remembering on which threads I had something coherent to say. The memory sure isn't what it used to be...

#169 Thanks, Dan. They include some of Sassoon's and Owen's poetry, but not enough for me to really get a good sense of it. I'm intrigued though.

#169 The manuscript of the poem written by Owen but with handwritten changes by Sassoon (discussed in the book) can be found at the First World War Poetry Digital Archive.

Here is the text:

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH by WILFRED OWEN

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
---Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,---
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Sadly, Owen died on the battlefield in France at the age of 25 in Nov. 1918, exactly one week before the signing of the armistice.

Lisa, that poem speaks volumes and is amazing. Thanks for sharing.

Lisa, so enjoyed catching up on your threads. I swear it was as good as reading a book--though I had to stick my fingers in my ears while you were discussing The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but I'll come back to that. I wish we had gotten together to discuss The Matterhorn. I find it so hard to write about books about which I have a lot of strong feelings. I would have to read the whole book again to talk to you about it, but the discussion here was so interesting that I'm almost tempted.

Also would love to hear more about your trip to Germany. I've never been to Europe and that's the first place I want to go. One copy of your itinerary please!

#72 Glad you enjoyed it.

#73 Welcome back, Bonnie! Karl Marlantes newest book is available at Third Place now, but I can't afford the hardcover. He's going back there to speak in October. Maybe we can have a mini-Matterhorn meetup with Deborah.

How has this happened? I am now seven books behind in reviewing (not counting a YA or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Ack! I have to stop reading until I get through this log jam. Yeah, right. *sigh* I've read some great books lately, and I want to share them with you before my thoughts get stale. Someone kick me in the tush!

>174 labfs39:. I would kick you in the tush; however, I am also behind in reviewing/commenting. I caught up a bit this week, but still have 3 or 4 to go, I think. I told myself I was only going to write paragraphs so I could keep up, but they always manage to be a bit longer...

Hi Lisa, another book with a great deal of WWI poetry in it is Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. I really enjoyed the Barker Trilogy but, for me, Regeneration was the best.

Hi Lisa--I'm finally catching up on your thread. You write such enticing reviews, and I really enjoyed your notes on the Marlantes talk--wish I had been able to make it.

Your trip to Europe sounds wonderful. You seem to be an experienced European traveler--what did your daughter and husband think?

#175 Phew! I'm not the only one. I have read such good books lately that I want to do them justice in my reviews. Finding the time is the problem. School started for my daughter this week, which is always a time of adjustment for the whole family. She also learned to ride her bike without training wheels (at long last), which was a frustrating, but ultimately successful endeavor. I'm proud of her perseverance. Now if I can persevere in my writing...

#176 Hi Bonnie, I've heard that a lot, that Regeneration is the best. But it was so good, I have to read the others. Some have even suggested that the Booker Prize awarded The Ghost Road was really a belated tribute to Regeneration.

#177 Thanks for stopping by, Deborah. Karl Marlantes will be back at TPB on October 29th to talk about his new book, What It Is Like to Go to War. I checked out the table of contents and am more intrigued by it now than I was. After enjoying Matterhorn so much, I wasn't sure how I would like his non-fiction essays, but it looks interesting.

This was my fifth trip to Europe, but I hadn't been since 1995, so lots has changed. No border guards, almost single currency. My husband loved the scenery, and my daughter's eyes were opened to so many new things: Catholic art and cathedrals, the incredible architecture of fortresses and castles, and that in some places you have to pay for ketchup and potties, two indignities she is still talking about. Most importantly, she made friends with three little girls, one from Britain, one from Switzerland, and one from Germany, and has already written letters to them. I was also impressed that she was able to follow through on keeping a journal for the first 12 of the 14 days of our trip. It's a wonderful account of our trip, and she'll get a kick out of reading it when she is older.

81. The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad

The remote corner of the world where Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan meet has played a role in world affairs since the time of the British Empire, and yet it remains a mysterious place, a land of tribal loyalties and customs that are seemingly contradictory, aggressive, and disloyal. Current news reports struggle to give motivations to the tribal leaders whose actions sometimes help and sometimes hinder the Taliban and terrorists. In The Wandering Falcon, Jamil Ahmad gives us a window into this inaccessible land and its complicated history, tribal relationships, and belief systems.

Ahmad knows this region well, having worked and lived in the area for decades. He attempts to distill his impressions in a series of vignettes, each depicting a particular tribe and/or social issue. Connecting the stories is a character known as Tor Baz, who is orphaned in the first chapter and moves amongst the tribes throughout the book. He is not, as I first thought, the protagonist of the novel. Rather he, as the perpetual outsider, is the means through which we are allowed access to the tribes.

The role of the chief, or Sardar, is explored in several stories: how they are chosen, the relationship they have with their tribesmen, and the various ways in which the Pakistani government has tried, over the years, to work with or abolish them. At times there is a disconnect between the government and the tribes, at other times there is an almost ritualized arrangement of actions and counteractions that are expected and performed as a means of maintaining the status quo. For some tribes, simply the existence of a nation state is enough to end their nomadic way of life forever. But most heart-wrenching of all is the treatment of women. From the first story to the last, the majority of women suffer. Simple survival is hard, requiring enormous effort in order to sustain a family, often while their husbands are away for years at a time. And harder still is the subjugation of women to the word of their fathers and husbands. Daughters can be sold for a pound of opium, unattached women are prey for slavers, and adultery, under any circumstances, is unforgivable. Yet there is also love and sacrifice, making even the treatment of women in the tribes a contradictory story.

A first-time novelist at the age of eighty, Jamil Ahmad has been trying to get this book published for years. Finally, its time has come, and how fortunate for us. His writing is clean and direct, and his characters seem to me to be the archetypes of people he may have actually known. He has the experience to write authentic fiction, and the distance needed to avoid prejudice. Without preaching or falling back on tired Western assumptions, Ahmad lets us see the complexity of the geopolitical area and its tribal relationships. I sincerely hope that Mr. Ahmad continues to write and be published, and that his present book achieves the readership it deserves.

Note: I read an uncorrected proof, and reviewers were asked to refrain from quoting from this copy; otherwise I would have littered my review with some of my favorite passages. Buy a copy and enjoy finding them for yourself!

I was also an Early Reviewer of The Wandering Falcon and second everything you have said about it. It's both absorbing and enlightening. It will be released in the US about a month from now. I hope it gets a wide audience.

Wow. That sounds really fascinating. Thanks for telling me about it!

Lisa, Excellent review of The Wandering Falcon. It is already on my to buy list following Darryl's review.

Great review of The Wandering Falcon, Lisa! I'm glad that you enjoyed it, too.

I agree. It sounds fascinating.

Thanks everyone.

I was listening to an interview with the author on NPR (I think Darryl was the first to post the link), and I was struck by something Mr. Ahmad said. I've always felt that's the basic building block of human civilization, the tribe. Certainly from a paleo-ethnic perspective this is true, and, as Mr. Ahmad shows, it remains so in parts of the world today. But does it hold true for today's modern Westerner? My first thought jumped to the family as the basic unit of civilization, but in a world of fragmented, single-generational families, is that true? Interestingly my daughter has started using the word "peeps" , as in "my peeps are wearing skirts this year". Are our people or peeps our society now? We have parenting communities, online communities, co-workers, and of course LT. What do you think? What is the basic unit of civilization today?

Amazing review Lisa, looks like a book to watch our for. Interesting question, but super hard to answer as civilization can be used to refer to many different aspects of life such as culture, technological, economic or agriculatural advances, society and community.. My first thought was the family unit as well but as you say, this is not true for every one. I need to think more on this.

Terrific review Lisa and another Afghanistan book to add to my recent look at that region (both Fiction and nf). The basic unit of civilization today? Hmmm. What I know for sure is that when my siblings and I were growing up my parents made a concerted effort to make our world about faith and family. My mother's seven siblings and their families all lived w/in ten minutes of our house (by car) and every Sunday we would go to church, eat dinner and go to my grandmother's house where we would meet up with a slew of cousins. It was not something I could offer my children. No large family. Many of our family have scattered across the country now including my own son so it's very different and that simple, close-knit family experience that I had is impossible to recreate now. I think that basic unit of civilization is going to be different for everyone.

Hi Lisa, My first thoughts on the basic building blocks of civilization is the individual. I certainly do not belong to any tribe. I resist all thoughts of Nationality and the family unit means precious little to me.

I sure as hell would not follow anyone anywhere. This much I have learnt. Nationality, Tribalism, Religious Communities have all played their part in screwing up many people.

Lisa- Excellent review of The Wandering Falcon. Another one for the List!

185: I don't think there's a basic unit, but there are multiple overlapping... networks?... of rules / interests / loyalties. I don't at the moment have time to dredge up references, but it's something like 300-350 people that we can keep track of on a day-to-day level. And a study of Facebook (? or similar) "friends" found that regardless of the number so designated, whether in the 10s or the 1000s, only some low number, maybe 5ish, are really serious friends at a level beyond public pleasantries. So maybe we're stuck with family / tribal brain wiring, but with more variety in the connections.

#186 It's true, we would need to define civilization first. I guess what struck me by the quote was how I immediately thought of the family as the core unit and Ahmad illustrates very clearly in his book that tribe is the basis for this societal group. That fundamental difference of outlook/values/core identity probably lies at the root of many of our misunderstandings.

#187 There has been so much written about the effects of families no longer living in multi-generational units and being fragmented and mobile. I regret that my daughter is growing up three thousand miles from her nearest relative. Visiting once a year is not the same as being immersed in family. Although she does treasure every minute with her cousins, my sisters, etc., whereas I felt a little claustrophobic growing up in my tight knit community. I guess I still think of family as the building block of civilization, even if the definition of family is changing. But as you say, people experience their role in society in very different ways.

#188 Barry, the lone wolf!

#189 Thanks, Mark, I hope you enjoy it. It's not a plot driven novel in the usual sense, but there are fascinating characters and the perspective was certainly eye-opening for me.

#190 "So maybe we're stuck with family / tribal brain wiring, but with more variety in the connections." This is an interesting idea, qebo. Genetic predisposition for communal life, but now with infinitely more varied connections. I like thinking of LT as a post-modern tribe. :-)

I have started two or three different books in the last few days, and just can't seem to find one that grips me. Perhaps I'm just tired, but So Vast the Prison is turning out to be so vast a disappointment. The flap copy claims the author is "North Africa's most important voice", but I'm just not seeing it. I'm only on page 45 so maybe it gets better. The cover image is very arresting though:

My apologies for abandoning my own thread. Real life intervened in the form of a back-to-school whirlwind from which I am just emerging. Today my husband and daughter are off to the fair, an activity hard for me to do now, and I am enjoying the thought of reading and writing. Here is my first product:



82. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

I don't feel as though there is anything I can add to Bonnie's (brenzi) wonderful review, so I won't try. Instead, I want to look at one theme in the book and relate it to the other books I've been reading.

The protagonist in All Quiet is Paul, a voice not only for his generation, but for the author himself, who served in combat during WWI and was wounded five times. For me, one of the most powerful themes in the novel is Paul's sense of his entire generation being duped and abandoned by the authorities and that it will never recover from this betrayal.

Regarding a former schoolteacher, Kantorek, who hounded, and shamed, his students into joining the war:

...There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best--in a way that cost them nothing.

And that is why they let us down so badly.

For lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress--to the future. We often made fun of them and played jobs on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.

While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and dying. while they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger... We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.

Paul feels that even if he and his fellow soldiers were to survive the war, they would be unable to return to their previous lives. They are cut off from their past and cannot envision a future.

Their stillness is the reason why these memories of former times do not awaken desire so much as sorrow--a vast, inapprehensible melancholy. Once we had such desires--but they return not. They are past, they belong to another world that is gone from us...

...We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial--I believe we are lost.

And:

Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything."

The author portrays the feelings of abandonment and hopelessness in a very personal way, yet also creates a psychological study of his generation's emotional state, setting the stage for the national mood that would allow Hitler to come into power. The years following the infamous Treaty of Versailles only intensify the feelings the author describes. Reparations cut the Germans off from normal relations with the rest of the world, and economic depression fuels their despair. This lost generation responds to an authoritarian figure, because it is what they know, and it is what cuts through their fog of worthlessness. For me, it is one thing to know this as an historical interpretation, and another thing to feel it in such an emotionally visceral way through Paul's experience.

On a personal level, one of the things that struck me was how throughout my reading of All Quiet, I would forget that the protagonist was German. The book is undoubtedly universal, but emotionally I empathized with Paul and mentally placed him on "our" side and thought of him as British. I find this disturbing in that subconsciously I am still an Ally.

My reading of All Quiet on the Western Front came shortly after that of Regeneration by Pat Barker, hence, perhaps, my focusing on the psychological aspects. Both books portray the soldiers as extremely matter-of-fact about shell shock and emotional trauma and are antagonistic to those who don't share their experiences. When he returns home on leave, Paul is unable to reconnect with his family and friends, and remains emotionally remote. He cannot even envision a world where he will be at home again. In Regeneration, this inability to integrate the soldier's two selves is illustrated through memory loss, nightmares, and an inability to speak in the post-war world.

The next war book that I read was The Good German by Joseph Kanon. Interestingly, I read both of these books while on vacation in Germany. From the psychology of a WWI soldier, I moved to the psychology of WWII German survivors. What machinations can the mind perform in order to survive and to live with one's actions? Again the theme of alienation and the emotional tactic of dividing one's life into before and after are explored. Hopefully I will be able to write a review for that one!

Lisa, literary musings indeed. Great thoughts on All Quiet on the Western Front which you express so well and with some excellent quotes.

The idea of a lost generation only too willing to embrace the Nazis is a chilling thought. Great stuff.

I enjoyed your thoughts about All Quiet on the Western Front. I haven't read it since high school, so it's on my long list of books to re-read.

A few months ago I read a WWI German soldier's memoir, Storm of Steel, by Ernst Junger. It is frightening in ways that contrast completely with All Quiet. The author and his comrades become so completely comfortable with war as a calling that their only fear is peace.

Bravo Lisa! Terrific analysis of All Quiet and comparison to Regeneration. I was really struck by your saying that that as you read you kept thinking Paul was on our side because that's exactly how I felt as I was reading. I think, for me anyway, this book sealed the idea that there are no winners in war, it's hellish no matter which side you're on.

Great review of All Quiet on the Western Front, really explains so much about the book. I like the point you made about the book being quite universal and that you can almost forget where the protaganist is from.

I really need to get and read All Quiet on the Western Front. Thanks.

I've gotten interested in the WWI era lately (reading A Farewell to Arms now) and your fine comments put All Quiet on my radar.

Hi Lisa, I've added All's quiet on the Western Front to my wishlist.
I wouldn't worry about: On a personal level, one of the things that struck me was how throughout my reading of All Quiet, I would forget that the protagonist was German. The book is undoubtedly universal, but emotionally I empathized with Paul and mentally placed him on "our" side and thought of him as British. I find this disturbing in that subconsciously I am still an Ally." I think it proves that you feel that people are not exclusively evil because they were on this side or the other. It's probably much easier to think in extremes: good vs bad, black vs white, right vs left, ... but reality is often far less straightforward. As a historian I sometimes tend to do the "if-history-exercise". How would someone have reacted IF he had been a soldier on the other side. Maybe that's how we should interpret the moral values of someone, because most of us have no impact on the place where we were born (no one does), grow up and live. We do not choose (all) the people we live with. So how can we morally condemn a person who belongs to this group, merely based on the fact that he's born somewhere and is morally forced to behave in a way they would not have done without some sort of pressure. It's a whole different story if a person openly commits himself to an wrong cause out of his own free will. So maybe books like Remarque's are good eye-openers to us people who tend to think in good-evil-schemes because it simpifies this complex world.
Now I really have to get to reading this book. Thanks for pointing it out to me.
In that respect, I'm also planning to read Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada. Have you read that one already?

Lisa, I haven't visited in awhile -- you've been doing some terrific reading. I loved your review of The Wandering Falcon, and your thoughts on All Quiet on the Western Front. Thank you.

Hi Lisa, just saying Hi and hoping all is okay with you.

I finally feel as though I have my head above water, and this week I hope to be back to reading threads and reviewing the mound of books that have accumulated. Although I may be coming down with bronchitis, so...

#193 Thanks, Barry!

#194 Something similar happened to a character in Three Day Road. I wonder what it is in people that make war attractive. Is it something that would have lain nascent without going to war, or would the person have become a violent offender without going to war? I've noted Storm of Steel. I don't know if I mentioned it above, but the author of All's Quiet is a WWI vet as well.

#195 I agree, Bonnie. War is hell for the soldier, whichever side he or she is on. It was just so startling to realize I was having Paul visit his family in England, not Germany. How entrenched the sense of being on the winning side--or the losing. No wonder WWI vets flocked to the Fuhrer's banner.

#196 Thanks, KiwiNyx!

#197 I hope you do read it, Rebecca. It is a true classic.

#198 Me too, MJ. I've read so much about WWII, but not much about WWI until this year. I'm finding it fascinating. Such completely different wars and yet so interconnected.

#199 Hi Monica, thanks for your interesting comments. I was feeling that I was making Paul British because he was an empathetic character and therefore should be on the "good" side. I felt ashamed for doing so. You put a different spin on it. Yes, I did read Every Man Dies Alone. Many people thought it was excellent. I had some reservations. I'll look forward to your review and opinion.

#200 Thanks, Anne, for stopping by. Sorry I haven't been more active lately.

#201 You're sweet to check in on me, KiwiNyx! I'm okay, just extremely busy. Fall always seems like the busy time of year for me.

83. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Since I read this book over a month ago, my comments will be brief. I Capture the Castle is a coming of age story both implicitly and explicitly modeled on Pride and Prejudice. In this case, there are two sister and a boy who live with their father and his young, new wife in an old castle in relative solitude. Then two young men move into a nearby mansion, from whom the father leases the castle, and all sorts of romantic entanglements ensue. The second oldest daughter, Cassandra, is precocious, extremely naive, yet having the most common sense in her family. The oldest daughter, Rose, is somewhat flighty and motivated by money.

The charms of this book lie in the format, which is a diary kept by Cassandra, and the depiction of the members of the family, who are by turns charming, funny, and laughable, but never boring. The two young men next door are less fully drawn and not as interesting. I enjoyed this book as a break from reading about war, and it was a delightful change. Fans of Austen and anyone looking for a light read will enjoy seeing the the world from Cassandra's eyes.

84. Boston Jane: The Claim by Jennifer L. Holm

This is the final book in a trilogy about Jane, a young woman who moves to Washington Territory from Philadelphia and finds life very different from what she expected. In this book, Jane's nemesis, Sally Biddle, moves into the young town with her family. Why are they here? Will Sally succeed in destroying Jane's life once again?

What I like about this series is how well researched they are. Jennifer Holm reads primary sources, upon which she builds a story to depict class differences, Indian relations, and the difficulties of life in the Pacific Northwest. Of the three books, this was my least favorite, in part because it felt more like chick lit than the others. Aimed at a tween audience, the trilogy is a good choice for bedtime reading, as both adults and girls will enjoy the spunky heroine and the historic detail.

The Wandering Falcon sounds wonderful! Thanks so much for bringing our attention to it (and it to our attention).

A friend highly recommended I Capture the Castle to me decades ago, and yet I have never read it. Thanks to your review, I may now try to find it on my shelves.

#203 I have not read I Capture the Castle, indeed, I did not even know it was a book! I did view the movie from 2003, which is very well done and I highly recommend it. It is available through Netflix streaming if you have it.

Thanks to visiting your thread, I can now go look for this book. The visuals offered in the movie are gorgeous, so I am anxious to compare to the descriptions in the novel. Well done and thanks!

Good reviews, I just recently read the Dodie Smith book for the first time and loved it but you've got me hooked with the Boston Jane series.

#205 I highly recommend the Wandering Falcon. I hope this first time author continues to publish. Do you know he is 78?

#206 Thanks, Rebecca, I enjoyed the read but I wouldn't sprain an ankle running to the shelves, if you know what I mean.

#207 And I didn't know there was a movie tie-in. Thanks!

#208 Are you really reading Boston Jane? I can't wait to hear your perspective. I think part of it's attraction for me was the local history. I wonder if it has broad appeal.

No, not reading.. yet, but bumped to near the top of the list. I just love historical fiction and had never heard of this series before.

Hi Lisa, I've been too long absent from your thread - looks like you've been doing some interesting reading and reviewing. My library has Wandering Falcon on order, so now I do too.

#210-211 I'm glad I helped bump books up the list!

Just when I thought I was going to get back to LT and write some reviews, I got bronchitis. I'm still at the hacking and short of breath stage, so, once again, LT has slid away. Breathing always comes first. Although, I have read some books that were so good, I did hold my breath in the good parts. ;-)

Get well soon Lisa

212: Glad you've got your priorities straight. Indeed, breathing should come first.

95. The Elephant's Journey by José Saramago

While dining with a colleague in Salzburg, Saramago noticed several small wooden sculptures lined up in a row. He learned that they were representations of stops made by an elephant, on a long journey from Portugal to Vienna in 1551. Intrigued, Saramago did more research and then imagined the journey for us through this short and witty novel.

The story begins with Portuguese King João III and his wife, Catarina, in bed one night trying to decide what to give Archduke Maximilian of Austria as a wedding gift. The queen suggests the elephant, Solomon, who came to them from India two years previously, but has "done nothing but eat and sleep" since then. They decide that Solomon and his mahout, Subhro, will travel first to Valladolid, Spain, where the archduke is residing as Regent of Spain. From there, it will be the responsibility of the Archduke and his wife, Maria, daughter of Charles V, to get the elephant to Vienna.

Much has already been written about the adventures of the fascinating characters of Solomon, Subhro, and the Portuguese master of horse who is responsible for safely delivering the elephant to the Archduke. Instead of trying to add to that discussion, I thought I would focus on Saramago's frequent references to the act of writing peppered throughout the book. The author and the narrator of the book appear to be the same, and I believe that the comments about writing shed light on Saramago the author.

I find the self-references to himself as a writer to be particularly interesting. When the boat carrying Solomon reaches the Italian port of Genoa, Saramago writes about the orderly and efficient manner of arriving, then he says:

We hereby recognize that the somewhat disdainful, ironic tone that has slipped into these pages whenever we have had cause of speak of austria and its people was not only aggressive, but patently unfair. Not that this was our intention, but you know how it is with writing, one word often brings along another in its train simply because they sound good together, even if this means sacrificing respect for levity and ethics for aesthetics, if such solemn concepts are not out of place in a discourse such as this, and often to no one's advantage either. It is in this and other ways, almost without our realizing it, that we make so many enemies in life.

News of the miracle had reached the doge's palace, but in somewhat garbled form, the result of the successive transmissions of facts, true or assumed, real or purely imaginary, based on everything from partial, more or less eyewitness accounts to reports from those who simply liked the sound of their own voice, for, as we know all too well, no one telling a story can resist adding a period, and sometimes even a comma.

The idea of placing levity and aesthetics ahead of respect for tradition and truth is evident in Saramago's disregard for the usual rules of punctuation and paragraph formation and in his creative stories which bear little resemblance to the real world. And yet there is a different kind of truth at work, that of the nature of humanity and society. Besides, Saramago seems to be saying, what is the truth anyway?

It must be said that history is always selective, and discriminatory too, selecting from life only what society deems to be historical and scorning the rest, which is precisely where we might find the true explanation of facts, of things, of wretched reality itself. In truth, I say to you, it is better to be a novelist, a fiction writer, a liar.

But Saramago also finds that novelists are inept at depicting the reality they do try to illuminate. In trying to describe the landscape of the snowy, cold, and windy Brenner Pass, Saramago inserts this aside:

The greatest disrespect we can show for reality, whatever that reality might be, when attempting the pointless task of describing a landscape, is to do so with words that are not our own and never were, by which we mean words that have already appeared on millions of pages and in millions of mouths before our turn to use them finally comes, weary words, exhausted from being passed from hand to hand, leaving in each one a part of their vital substance.

These "weary words" are "merely humble recognition of how much truth is contained in that well-known phrase, Words fail me. Because words really do fail us." Yet new words are created all the time "doubtless going around knocking on doors, with the absent-minded air affected by all new words, asking to be let in." If we substitute "work" for "word", an interesting image arises of authors with new ways of writing and new truths to tell peddling their ideas to publishers, "asking to be let in."

Saramago was a genius at creating new ideas and new works from the weary words we have inherited. Without being disingenuous or ostentatious, he was able to present the weary reader with a fresh and unique way of seeing the world. If Destiny, when it chooses, is as good or even better than god at writing straight on crooked lines,"* then Saramago was best at writing crooked, convoluted, and symbolic stories that gave us the straight truth as he saw it.

*The idea of God being able to write the truth even when faced with imperfect humans is an interesting one. According to an article in the journal Folklore, the proverb is widely known as a Portuguese proverb, but some scholars link the phrase to the writings of St. Augustine.

Some of you may have noticed that I skipped several books in order to comment on The Elephant's Journey. I read it most recently and thought I would write about it while it was fresh. My next couple of reviews will be of books that need to go back to the library. My pile is so high and my memory of the books so stale that I may just do some quick comments rather than reviews or lengthy thoughts.

I need to get caught up!

P.S. I reread some Harry Potter books while I've been under the weather. I'm not planning to review them.

What a wonderful review of The Elephant's Journey! I think it will enhance my appreciation of anything I read by Saramago.

Really excellent thoughts on The Elephant's journey, which provides real insight into Saramago's art.

I really like this quote:
It must be said that history is always selective, and discriminatory too, selecting from life only what society deems to be historical and scorning the rest, which is precisely where we might find the true explanation of facts, of things, of wretched reality itself. In truth, I say to you, it is better to be a novelist, a fiction writer, a liar.

I do enjoy reading your reviews as you offer thoughtful insights into both the book and the writer! I am adding The Elephant's Journey to my list and am looking forward to reading your future reviews.

Bravo, Lisa! I loved your comments about the craftmanship of Saramago, which gives me a new perspective on him. I'll plan to re-read The Elephant's Journey next year, and I'll keep your comments in mind when I read Cain next week.

Very nice take, Lisa. Blindness is on my wishlist but the authorial (and elephantine) perspectives of this one may make it my first Saramago.

Great review of The Elephant's Journey. The only Saramago I've read so far, but not to be my last, The History of the Siege of Lisbon, also meditates on the meaning of truth and history and on how we know.

Edited to change egregious absence of the word "not".

Lisa- That's an amazing review of The Elephant's Journey! Well done. I loved Blindness but have not sampled anything else.
You should post the review, so I can give you a well deserved Thumb!

#217 Thanks, Steven, I hope you get to sample Saramago soon. He is an original and thought-provoking author.

#218 Hi Barry. I think about history and the truth in history quite a bit. Memory and perspective are so mercurial and nebulous that it is hard to establish authenticity. In this quote Saramago seems to embrace this ambiguity and say History can never be accurate, so why try? Interesting idea.

#219 Thanks for dropping by, Michelle. I see from your profile that although you have favorite genres, you are a risk taker in the books you read. Sometimes I think I stick to the familiar too often.

#220 Thanks, Darryl! A few chapters into The Elephant's Journey, I was struck by a passage about writing and decided to follow this thread. Pulled together, the passages do seem to give us a glimpse into Saramago's thoughts on writing. BTW, did you see that The Twin, an Archipelago book, made the Guardian's list of top 10 farming books? It's a book that you enjoyed more than I. Perhaps I'm the wrong audience.

#221 Hi MJ. Although I think Blindness is the better book, some people have given up on Saramago after reading it. The Elephant's Journey is more accessible and much less bleak. Either way, I hope you give the author a go. He's one of my favorites.

#222 Rebecca, I'm curious why you say The History of the Siege of Lisbon is going to be your last Saramago book. What did you dislike about it? I don't own Siege of Lisbon yet, but from what you say, it will be right up my alley.

#223 Thanks, Mark. If you liked Blindness, The Elephant's Journey is a walk in the park on a sunny day.

91. Castles Burning: A Child's Life in War by Magda Denes

Magda was nine when her family went into hiding from the fascist Arrow-Cross. Her father had left them when she was five, and her mother, brother and she lived with her grandparents. Later her aunt and cousin join them. Amidst the chaos of seven people living in a single apartment, Magda always had her older brother, Ivan, to be her rock. When she and her mother fought or she wanted to understand a difficult piece of literature, Ivan was there. Despite their seven year age difference, they were very close. As the situation became increasingly dangerous for the Jews in Budapest, Magda's family was forced into a series of hiding places. On the run and constantly in danger, Magda was often separated from her brother and had to try and understand the world around her without his guidance. After the war Magda and her family had to live as displaced persons, still on the move and trying to find a country to take them in.

In many ways Castles Burning reminds me of The Diary of Anne Frank: a young girl on the cusp of womanhood forced into the frightening insecurity of hiding from the Nazis. Precocious and social, the girls share frustrated dreams and both have a difficult relationship with their mother. But whereas Anne is locked in an immobile microcosm, Magda is constantly on the go and interacting with everyone, often at great peril. The book also has elements of A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal. It too is about the author's childhood, but written long after the fact, and with the luxury of context and hindsight.

Castles Burning is one of the few childhood memoirs of the Holocaust in Hungary that I have seen. It is important not only for this uniqueness, but also for its vivid language and passionate dialogue. Magda is a girl who confronts the world head on, even as she struggles to make sense of it. Although a bit predictable, I enjoyed cheering for Magda as she made her way in the world. Recommended.

I read Castles Burning a couple of years ago and thought it was quite outstanding, she really had attitude. Not a holocaust read but fiction based on his father's story is Tibor Fischer's Under the Frog which covers the years from the end of the war to the 1956 uprising. Also have you seen the graphic memoir, We are on our own?

224. Big oops! I meant it would NOT be my last Saramago and have corrected my original post. Sorry about the error and confusion. I loved the book.

#226 Magda did have attitude. Her spirit made the book. Thanks for the recs, I'll look for them at the library.

#227 Ahh! That makes sense. Our tastes usually run similarly enough that this would have been a big departure.

As a special treat, I hit our local Indie, Third Place Books, and purchased some great books, all at half price.

1. Close to Jedenew by Kevin Vennemann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin (Contemporary Art of the Novella series). Based on an actual event, it's about Polish children hiding in the woods and from the villagers who have turned on the Jews of the town without Nazi provocation.

2. Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman, translated from Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler (NYRB). This one is about a man who returns from 30 years internment in a gulag and must try to make a new life for himself.

3. Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi, translated from Hungarian by Richard Aczel (NYRB). Set in 1900, this fairy tale like story is of a mother and father complete absorbed in their life with their mediocre daughter, Skylark. When she goes away for a week, the parents rediscover a life for themselves. But then Skylark returns.

4. A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz, translated from Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange. The autobiography of the author.

5. Shards by Ismet Prcic (publ. 2011). A young Bosnian flees the Bosnian conflict and comes to America. There he must try to adapt to life without war, while keeping alive his relationship with his family and country. In the process he makes friends with Mustafa, an elite soldier who may or may not be real.

I'm a big fan of Grossman: Everything Flows is great. The section on the terror-famine is horrifying and surpasses nonfiction I've read on the subject. And I really enjoyed Skylark too.

Haven't heard of Shards or Close to Jedenew but they sound intriguing.

Hi Lisa, Castles Burning: A Child's Life in War sounds excellent; great review. Nice haul from a bookstore I've had the pleasure of frequenting (but only once). I haven't read all the books I picked up that one time.

Hi Lisa, excellent review of The Elephant's Journey!
I'm curious to find out what you'll think of Skylark. I thought it's one of those books that stick.

#229 Once again, our tastes seem to converge. Although I haven't finished, Everything Flows is amazing. Grossman manages to humanize almost every aspect of life under Stalin: the informers, the camps, life for woman, the famines, the criminals, the difficultly in rebuilding a life after the camps, the orphaned children. Have you read Life and Fate?

#230 Next time you come, Bonnie, we will have to meet up too. :-) Hope you are recovering from the wedding!

#231 Thanks, Monica. I'm eager to get to Skylark, but I have a review book I want to read first. It's called The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey and it's a version of the Snow Maiden fairy tales out of Russia set in Alaska. Looks good.

It's my luck week! First my birthday splurge at Third Place Books, and then the local library's book sale yesterday. I'm a Friend of the Library and had to staff the checkout table, but I managed to browse a bit and came away with:

The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War by Barbara Tuchman. (The first world war that is)

The Zimmerman Telegram also by Barbara Tuchman. Her most famous book and the one that started her career. It's about a crucial telegram that the British decoded. They then passed the info to the Americans without the Germans realizing their code had been broken.

South by Sir Ernest Shackleton. It's a reprint of the 1920 edition in which Shackleton describes the expedition of the Endurance and the fate of the crew after the ship was crushed by sea ice.

Parrot & Olivier in America by Peter Carey. A National Book Award finalist that was also short-listed for the Booker Prize last year.

Each book was $1. I love library book sales!

#232 Yes, Life and Fate is probably one of my favorite books of all time, and was what got me started on Grossman. I enjoyed Skylark too -- definitely a strange little book.

Really enjoyed The Proud Tower too.

96. Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson

What do you do when you are getting older and have no relatives to take over your life's work? Why kidnap some children, of course! So begins this fantastic tale of Dickensian children living in a Roald Dahl world. Three eccentric aunts live on a secret island and nurture the unusual creatures that come to them for refuge: a family of Mermaids living in sinks and tubs, a giant nesting Boobrie who must be kept fed, and an enormous hypochondriac worm who mopes about the place. When the aunts realize they won't be able to continue on alone much longer, they hatch a scheme to kidnap some children to help them in their work. Their plan succeeds, and the ocean's balance is maintained with the help of the grand Kraken. That is, until one boy's father reluctantly decides to rescue his son and make a fortune exploiting the creatures of the island.

This is the second Ibbotson book which my daughter and I have read aloud, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. The aunts are wacky but loving, the creatures of the island are human-like in their cares, and the kidnapped children enjoy an adventure of magical proportions. For children who love animals and are concerned about the health of the environment, this book will particularly resonate and entertain. If you like James and the Giant Peach, you will enjoy this story as well.

97. Every Man in This Village is a Liar: An Education in War by Megan K. Stack

Thank you to Bonnie (brenzi) for recommending this memoir.

An eager 25-year-old journalist, Megan Stack learned about the bombing of the Trade Towers while on vacation in France. Since she was physically closest to Afghanistan, her editor at the Los Angeles Times sent her to Afghanistan to be on the ground for the invasion. Thus began a seven year stint, reporting from all over the Middle East, wherever the fighting was heaviest: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, the West Bank.

When her memoir begins, the world and its problems seem clear. Ms. Stack is naive and idealistic, absorbing all she experiences and writing the reports expected of her. But as time passes and the war drags on, she begins to see things that change the ways she thinks about the role of the West in the Middle East and specifically the policies of the United States. How can a nation promoting democracy turn a blind eye to some dictators and ruin a country in order to depose another? Who's side is just? Does it even matter given the amount of human suffering the conflicts inflict? Questions such as these begin to weigh on Megan, and her thoughts become grim as she reflects on the costs of the Middle East wars.

This is who gets left behind when war comes: poor people, old people, and handicapped people. This is who they are bombing now. In this moment I am numb and still, but I am aware that I deeply hate everybody for letting this happen. I hate the Lebanese families for leaving them here. I hate Hezbollah for not evacuating them, for ensuring civilian deaths that will bolster their cause. I hate Israel for wasting this place on the heads of the feeble. I hate all of us for participating in this great fiction of the war on terror, for pretending there is a framework, a purpose, for this torment. I sit in hatred and write everything down with filthy fingers.

Although the book is somewhat dated now, with Osama bin Laden dead and popular revolutions having brought down some of the despots about whom she writes, there is still an immediacy and potency to Ms. Stack's memoir that makes it compelling. Her writing is poetic, and her self-insights are honest and direct. The only difficulty for me is that as a journalist, she must remain apart and write of what she sees, instead of stopping to help the victims. She writes of how hard that is. I think I would have just stopped and done what I could. Regardless, the book is a heart-breaking tribute to those caught in a disaster not of their own making and to her own journey to greater self-awareness and understanding.

If you are interested in another quote from Every Man in This Village is a Liar, read on:

I see all of it in one glance, how the borders were drawn, religion swept over deserts and through empires, colonialism came and went and came again. I've read the books and considered the arguments... Everybody lying; everybody failing a little, then failing some more. The powerful tripping along, blinded by their own mythology, led astray by their morals. I can see all of it. I am bogged in facts. But here I stand among the mad and maybe that's all it's ever been. The Middle East goes crazy and we go along with it... We chased it all down into the Middle East and we came up dry, coughing on other people's blood.

And now, in the depths of this war {Israel's attack on Southern Lebanon}, I believe that nobody will ever see this, that Israel will never really look, and America will never really look, either. This is real to nobody. This would never be real to me if I were not here. Oh God just make it stop. Make the bombs stop. There was this policy, and that policy. One war and then another, all of it clumped together. It must have meant something-it seemed to mean a great deal-back when we all went into Afghanistan. Somewhere between Afghanistan and Iraq, we lost our way. The carnage of it and the disorder, all to create a new Middle East. But naturally there would be no new Middle East because the old Middle East is still here, and where should it go? Only a country as quixotic, as history-free, as America could come up with this notion: that you can make the old one go away. Maybe you can debate until it makes sense from a distance, as an abstraction. But up close the war on terror isn't anything but the sick and feeble cringing in an asylum, babies in shock, structure smashed. Baghdad broken. Afghanistan broken, Egypt broken. The line between heaven and earth, broken. Lebanon broken. The broken faith and years of broken promises. Children inheriting their parents' broken hearts, growing up with a taste for vengeance. And all along, America dreaming its deep sweet dream, there and not there. America chasing phantoms, running uphill to nowhere in pursuit of a receding mirage of absolute safety.

Okay. Now I am only 7 books behind in reviewing...

Brilliant extracts from Every Man in This Village is a Liar. It looks to be a cold dose of reality for those people who play their power games from the safety of their board rooms.. Its on my to buy list. Thumbed

#238 Thanks, Barry.

In the NYT Review of Books blog, there is a two part interview with Art Spiegelman, the author of the Maus books. It gives some important context for his books and from where his drawing inspiration came. If you are interested, the first part is here: Why Mice?. The second is here: Drawing the Holocaust.

Thanks for the links, Lisa

98. We Are on Our Own: A Memoir by Miriam Katin

I am new to graphic books and, to be honest, a bit leery. In a surprising (to me) discovery, this is a book I cannot image being told in any other format. Miriam Katin is truly able to convey a thousand words in key frames.

In 1944, Miriam is a bright and happy child living in Budapest with her mother and her dog Rexy. Her father, a dimly remembered figure, is away at the front. Miriam's mother, Esther, worries about the increasing restrictions on Jews, but Miriam's too young to understand the adults' fears. But when her dog is taken away and then they themselves have to move, Miriam struggles to make sense of her world and links their situation to her early lessons about God, often in a very literal way. On the run and relying on the protection of strangers, Miriam and Esther face loneliness, hunger, and fear over and over again during the next year. Finally the war ends, but it is still months before their journey ends.

The sketches in the book are mostly in black and white. Interspersed throughout, however, are a few pages in color. Most of these pages depict Miriam's perspective on her childhood as an adult, now with a child of her own. I found this juxtaposition to be particularly effective and easy to follow because of the use of color. The evolution of the child Miriam's concept of God during this horrible year is mirrored in the adult Miriam's struggles with religion and what she will teach her son. I found this strand of the story to be an important link between past and present, and representative of the effects of trauma on Miriam as an adult.

Miriam's memoir is also the story of her mother's bravery. The drawings of Esther portray a mother desperately trying to keep her daughter safe and, perhaps even harder, innocent. Visually seeing Esther's grief and despair, I leaped immediately to an emotional response, without needing to have it described in words. In a way her grief is beyond words. For me, this was the hardest part of the book to experience and the most beautiful.

I strongly recommend this book, even if you are not a voracious graphic novel reader.

*A big thanks to Kerry (avatiakh) for recommending this book.

I spent a good half hour today trying to decide upon purchasing one of these books:

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Cain by Jose Saramago
and one other which I can't for the life of me remember.

Which one did I end up with?

Neither! I put them back and bought Van Gogh: A Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, who won the Pulitzer for their biography Jackson Pollack: An American Saga. I've always been drawn to Van Gogh's paintings (I think even children can relate to the colors and shapes), but in 1988 I was able to go to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, and I became fascinated with the man. The letters on display from Vincent to Theo were heartbreaking. This newly released biography was done with extensive cooperation from the museum archives, and I think it's going to be very good.

*Rats, the touchstone isn't working for the Van Gogh book, to see it click here.

Van Gogh: The Life. I wonder why the touchstone didn't work for you. I've seen other problems recently with them, so you're not alone. The advantage of my putting it here, besides testing it, is that it should list it in the upper right of the thread with the other touchstoned works. The proof of the pudding is in the 'post message' clicking.

Here goes,

Robert

So pleased you enjoyed the Katin book and that's one great review for it. I've enjoyed most of the graphic memoirs that I've read, though I usually work from recommendations than just grabbing at random from the library shelves.

#243 Hi Robert, the touchstone seems to be working now. It was odd because I even put the work number inside the brackets, etc., and nada. Perhaps I just needed to go out of the post and then back in; sometimes that seems to help.

#244 Kerry, you're right, I looked at the list of 8 or 9 graphic novels that I've read, and I liked them all. I don't know why I don't seek them out more. Usually I only read it if someone who's opinion I trust, like yourself, recommends it.

Finished Everything Flows. 4 stars. Hopefully I'll get to the review tomorrow. And I just started Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. It's an advanced reading copy, so its not on shelves yet or I would tell you to run out and get it. It's the author's debut book, and it is fabulous. I can't put it down!

{Aside}

Wired magazine has posted a list of "9 Essential Geek Books You Must Read Right Now". Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, Ender’s Game, Godel Escher Bach, Neuromancer, Snow Crash, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Lord of the Rings, I've read. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Watchmen I have not.

I guess that puts me pretty high on the geek scale. Unfortunately several of the ones I've read, I haven't liked. So maybe I'm a wannabe geek? Or a geek with identity issues?

Well two of my all time favourite books are in that Geeks guide: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide and Ender's Game.

Hi there! I saw your post in Just Joey's about your library not having Two Generals , the graphic novel that I mentioned . I really enjoyed it -it's only my 2 nd graphic novel and I picked it up at Chapter's. It lead me to finally reading All Quiet On The Western Front which was a 5 star read for me, and I see that you enjoyed it too.

I'm just looking at some of your other planned reads. Cutting for Stone was one of my favourite reads a couple of years ago, ohh and I love Memory of Love,The Twin was one of my recent favourites, and Major Pettigrew' Last Stand was such a fun and interesting read.

I see you've just discovered graphic novels, just like me! I too was suprised by how much one could take away from a graphic novel. I've only read Stitches which was an amazing memoir of a dysfunctional family, and Two Generals , which , while not perfect, was really interesting to me because of some of the interesting details and the fact that somehow one of the Generals reminded me of my grandfather who fought in WW11.

I'm in the " 75's reads for 2011." Habibi is a graphic novel that I am hoping to get from my library.

#247 Barry, who would have know you were a D&D player? I'm trying to picture it in my mind...

#248 Hi Deborah, thanks for stopping by my thread. I live just south of you a few hours, outside Seattle. We are 50/50 on our likes, because although I read Memory of Love and The Twin, they weren't favs. Loved the others you mentioned though. :-)

Darryl (kidzdoc) and Richard (richardderus) have set up a meme called Who are your favorite LIVING novelists? I cheated a bit and added nonfiction authors as well. Here is my list:

*********
In no particular order

Fiction:

Mary Doria Russell, F, US
Connie Willis, F, US
Jacques Poulin, M, Canada (writes in French)
Olga Grushin, F, Russia/US
Neal Stephenson, M, US
Ha Jin, M, China/US

Memoirs:

Azadeh Moaveni, F, Iran/US
Art Spiegelman, M, US

One book wonders:

Mark Mustian, M, US (The Gendarme)
Karl Marlantes, M, US (Matterhorn)
James A. Levine, M, UK (The Blue Notebook)
Jean Kwok, F, China/US (Girl in Translation)
Eowyn Ivey, F, US (The Snow Child)

Nonfiction debut authors:

Anne Applebaum, F, US (Gulag: A History)
Barbara Demick, F, US (Nothing to Envy)
Candice Millard, F, US (River of Doubt)

Childrens:

Jeanne Birdsall, F, US (The Penderwicks series)

Authors whose other works I am actively seeking in translation

Phillippe Claudel, M, France (have only read Brodeck's Report)
Carmine Abate, M, Italy (... The Homecoming Party)
Dominique Fabre, M, France (... The Waitress was New)
Yoko Ogawa, F, Japan (... The Housekeeper and the Professor)

Whom am I forgetting? I know I'll think of several right after I post the message.

Lisa- I loved your review of We Are on Our Own: A Memoir. Sounds fantastic and it's a graphic title I'm not familiar with.
the new Murakami is on my "Must Own" list.

Wow, that's a heck of a list of favorite living novelists! Did you miss anyone? LOL.

*blush* I know I went a little overboard, but I know your list would be even longer, so don't talk! 1Q84 is a big book. Despite my confusion over WUBC, I want to read it and am on the library wait list.

I've read a graphic novel you haven't? Wow! What's the world coming to?

Lisa- I just put in a library request for We Are on Our Own: A Memoir.

Which Ogawa titles are you lookin for? AFAIK, there are only the 3 in translation.

>246 labfs39: I admire Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information tremendously. Haven't read much sci-fi or fantasy, but picked up Ender's Game years ago upon high recommendations as one to try; liked it well enough but put it aside after a third or half. I recall Ender as a smart and gentle observer so am shocked to see him characterized as violent/ruthless -- will have to start over and read it through!

Wow your book list at the top is at 99 -- what's on deck for #100?

#253 I hope you like it, Mark.

#254 I've been passive in looking for her works, mostly at our local Indie. After seeing your question, I went online and checked out the two I found: The Diving Pool and Hotel Iris. Is Love in the Margins translated? Anyway, after reading about DP and HI, I have decided to take Yoko Ogawa off my list. I loved the creation of unique relationships in The Housekeeper and the Professor, but I don't like to read sadomasochism or horror, and it sounds like her other works fall into these categories. Thanks for pushing me to investigating, Lois!

#255 Ender's Game is primarily about a society where children are selected and put into military schools at a very young age. What would such a society be like? Could a child maintain his own identity in such a system or be changed into something else? In addition to being good in its own right, it is the first book in a trilogy about Ender (Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide following). I thought Speaker for the Dead was also very good. It's full of philosophical and ethical questions about the effects of a dominant culture colonizing a native culture. Both of these books won the Hugo and Nebula awards. I didn't care for Xenocide as much.

I have browsed through The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, but didn't count it in my list, because I haven't spent the time with it that it deserves. Somewhat in my defense, I must admit that most of the books I read in my teens and 20s. :-)

And to answer MJ's question, for book 100 I read a review copy of the following:



100. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

This debut novel was amazing. Based on a Russian fairy tale, Snegurochka or The Snow Maiden, this novel is about an older couple who move to Alaska to try and rediscover themselves after a personal tragedy. Their individual personalities and their relationship are beautifully depicted, as are the rugged Alaskan winters and life as a homesteader. I can't say enough about this book. Literally. To get the full scoop, check out the an upcoming issue of Belletrista. I will post the issue number once I get it. The book itself is scheduled for release on February 1, 2012.

Edited to fix link.

Sounds like a great book, Lisa.

Also, I too have only browsed through The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (and its sequels) but find them fascinating.

To celebrate reaching a 100 books and to prevent the thread police from shutting me down, I am moving on to pt. 4.