deebee1's 2008 challenge

never tried this before, so i'm a little intimidated --- feels like 75 is a big number, but maybe it really isn't. so here goes... (comments and mini-reviews for later). off the top of my head, titles i've read (and finished! -- i'm a multiple book reader so this detail matters) from 01 Jan:

1. The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
3. If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
4. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky
5. The Devil's Cup: Coffee, the Driving Force in History by Stewart Lee Allen
6. The Man who Ate Everything by Jerry Steingarten
7. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
8. Blindness by Jose Saramago
9. Garbage: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royle

10. No End Save Victory edited by Robert Cowley - a different approach to writing war history, instead of one long account, a highly readable collection of writings (44 essays) of some of the best military historians and writers of events during World War II, spanning a broad canvas representing practically all fronts of the war. An interesting thing is that some of these stories are being told for the first time, following the opening up of some archives. Many of the writings are packed with the intensity and thrill that a first-rate adventure novel has, only this time all of that was true. Highly recommended for those wanting to have a quick, comprehensive, un-academic but insightful look into WW II.

11. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - lyrical, sentimental, with all the usual GGM ingredients thrown in; this book made me smile up to the very end.

welcome, deebee! You have a good start on 75!

Welcome deebee. Its a lovely place to be and the folks here are very friendly and down to earth.

thanks, avaland and trish. i look forward to interacting with the folks here...

Welcome! Don't worry, we won't fine you if you don't make 75 books...8^}

I'm about to start Mark Kurlansky's The Basque History of the World, and thought I'd try Cod soon. How was it?

thanks, drneutron. the going is too slow for my taste as my readings these days are mostly divided between technical articles and books (unhappily, "non-pleasure" reading don't count in the 75 challenge :-)), but i hope to pick up soon...

I enjoyed Cod a lot. i had always wondered about the role of this fish in history (especially the trade aspect but being a trade specialist, i suppose it came naturally, aside from the fact that i'm a big fish lover :-)), and this book gave a rather comprehensive (non-academic) background without being stuck in details. it's written in a tight manner, and i think Kurlansky was able to hold it till the last line. he manages to keep it light with some very interesting facts (some very amusing) that these days one wouldn't probably imagine had any connection to cod, including short stories related to some recipes. overall, a quick, easy but substantial read. do give it a go and let us know what u think...

deebee, is your challenge then to read 75 books of pleasure reading? I thought I'd use the thread to chronicle my reading, such that it is, and have been including all my book reading, including some research I have been doing. I have not chronicled the academic articles (several books' worth, I'm sure) but I have the books (or a book's worth). I've kept a book 'log' of titles read since 1997 but it was never very accurate as I often forgot to list nonfiction, poetry and a fair amount of fiction during heavy reading periods. Since I've been on LT, I'm getting much closer! I note what I'm reading on my profile page and cut & paste when my list gets too long to a file on my computer. This group will help remind me to write a little something on everything . . . I hope.

We'll look forward to reading about what you're reading no matter what it is!

yup, avaland, i think i will limit myself to books read for the utter pleasure of it... work-related stuff are not in at the moment. i know it makes the challenge even stiffer, with constraints on my time these days but i hope to make up for the lag somewhere along. but i'm not totally rejecting the idea either of counting work-related titles...if at the end of the year i do not make it to 75, then a few from this work-related batch could make up for the shortfall... :-)

the latest in my finished books pile include:

12. The Perfect Hostage by Justin Whitle - more than just a biography of Nobel Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi, this recently published book depicts the context of her struggle through a comprehensive background of Burma's fight for independence (from the British) and the tortuous beginnings of the democracy movement (albeit still unfulfilled until now) and the role of her father, Aung San, in building post-colonial Burma. The book is fairly detailed as well about the rise of the generals to power, and how the regime has managed so far to keep the country isolated. Overall, very good background reading for anybody interested in Burma's politics, and a better understanding of Suu Kyi's principles and ongoing fight. A trifle amusing, though, is the author's penchant for unfamiliar words --- he peppers the pages liberally, which could be a little off-putting sometimes. Some commentators say the book's drawback is that the author never had an interview or direct contact with Suu Kyi herself when writing the book. I'm sure the book would have benefited greatly from this, but i'm sure too that if the author could, he would have - the current severe restrictions on access to her, though, would make this almost an impossibility. Still, i found the book enlightening and very informative.

13. Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng - a memoir of the author's life during the Cultural Revolution when she was incarcerated for 6 years for the "crime" of belonging to the so-called elite and capitalist class. this is one of those "unputdownable" books i've read lately. one can't help admire the strength and poise with which this remarkable woman endured all that. written in unsentimental prose, and for all the tragedy that she had to go through (losing her daughter to the Red Guards among others), she manages to be somewhat detached from events - a fact which allows her to observe the events around her with as much objectivity as she could. thus she is able to provide the reader a context and analysis that is more logical in its approach rather than sentimental. i felt, however, that she adopts an almost condescending tone, both with the people she dealt with, and somewhat in the tone of her storytelling, as if she believed she was better than most and above all "these toiling masses."

the book gives a very good insight too of the turmoil in China during this period.

14. Death at Intervals by Jose Saramago - the latest of my favorite author's book translated into English. As usual, his prose is wonderful as only he can write, one grasps quickly his witty humor and profound wisdom of human nature. This time, the story is about the withdrawal/suspension of death (a she) where suddenly on the 1st day of the year, no one dies, and the day after, and the next, and so on. The first half of the story deals with the country's reaction - the chaos and confusion which follow, and how everybody in his/her own way dealt with the it (the government, the citizens, the church --- this one i found funny but indeed rings true, for they say, if there is no death, there can be no resurrection, and then what will be the church's own justification for existence? Indeed, the absence of death was a threat to the existence of the church itself! (this by the Archibishop).

The second half is the story of death herself --- death is restored, but at intervals... i found the ending of the novel a bit weak, though, and tending towards kitschy.
While entertaining and a pleasure to read, i think this is not the Nobel Prize winner's best.

15. S.: A Novel About the Balkans by Slavenka Drakulic - an immensely disturbing book about the systematic rape of Muslim women in during the war in Bosnia in 1992-95. Written as a first-hand account of a woman known only as "S", it tells of the horrors, the unspeakable that a group of "chosen" girls had to go through night after night, that is, if they manage to survive the brutality of the soldiers. After release, she discovers she is pregnant but as with others who too got pregnant, there was no way to tell who was the father. For many of these girls, there was really no choice as to what to do with the infant as soon as it is delivered. This is the enemy's child, not hers. But this is the point of the other side, to spread his seed among the enemy, another way of obliterating them --- the greatest humiliation.

A well-acclaimed book, it is a work of fiction, but based on real stories of countless women that the author had met and talked to. Indeed, we in the outside world, know very little about these, as very little documentation exists -- no one is willing to talk, the women bear their scars and wounds silently and more so since these things are taboo in their Muslim culture (CNN's Untold Stories, though, featured this issue some time ago). War is cruel and brings out the worst in man, but depending on how one looks at it, the story at the end, offers some hope of redemption.

Not an easy read at all, but highly recommended. The book is slim (about 200 pages), the chapters short but it took me 4 days to finish it. I found it impossible to read straight through -- it gets too heavy going sometimes, that i have had to stop after a few pages, and come back only much much later when i felt i had enough "strength" again to get ahead.

16. Life of Pi: A Novel by Yann Martel - this book has been read widely and talked about so often i need not offer a repetition of its description. Thought I needed to lighten my reading fare a bit (after a succession and being in the middle of some dark, heavy reads, a small respite sort of), so chose this book for this purpose. Enjoyed it, seems a kind of parable almost, with small doses of wisdom - a light child's story for adults. Found the second half a bit dragging, though.

17. The Tale of the Rose: The Love Story Behind the Little Prince by Consuelo De Saint-Exupery - this book gives a fascinating view of the lesser known side of the well-loved Antoine Saint-Exupery, written by his wife in 1945. The manuscript, however, was found only 15 years after her death. The book tells of their intense and tumultuous relationship, Saint-Ex being a complex, temperamental man. I found it quite difficult to equate this difficult man to the one who wrote the beloved The Little Prince. I have an ambiguous impression of the writing -- sometimes she writes with inspiration, nice turn of phrases and a pleasure to read, but at times, the dialogues all sound a bit too contrived, and the storytelling a bit telenovela-like.

18. After the Quake: Stories by Haruki Murakami - very slim volume of 6 stories, completely unrelated except for the fact that the characters' lives have been in one way or another touched by the big earthquake of Kobe in 1995. Written in his usual direct way, with a sense of the unreal, where at the end of each, the characters somehow find some kind of resolution to deeper but unasked questions. Murakami used to be a favorite, but I passed that phase a long time ago. This, though, is a good quick bedtime read.

19. The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela
20. A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
21. The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski
22. The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
23. The Taste of a Man by Slavenka Drakulic
24 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
25. The Scramble for Africa, 1876-1912 by Thomas Pakenham

...mini-reviews to follow...

Looking forward to yorur minireview on Crime and Punishment.....haven't tackled a Dostoyevsky yet, though I have several in my library which seem to stare out at me from the shelves, mocking me.

blackdogbooks, C & P is not an easy read (as Dostoyevsky is never), but well worth anyone's time...

19. The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela - this Spanish author, who won the Nobel Prize, is my new discovery for the year. His writing reminds me of Steinbeck and a bit of Hemingway, with the magico-realism of Garcia Marquez thrown in. It's hard to believe that this short novel, considered his best work, was written when he was only 26. The story unfolds through letters written by Pascual Duarte when he was in prison awaiting execution. Set in the harsh conditions of Extremadura, Spain, his is a dark, complex nature, with an uncontrollable rage.
He has committed several murders, including that of his difficult, cruel mother. In prison, he is seized with an obsession to write everything down, before they take him away. Although he doesn't say so directly, it can be gleaned from correspondences between authorities after his death, that he was sentenced for execution for political crimes, rather than for previous murders. A very good read written by someone at the top of his genre, I would give it 5 stars out of 5.

20. A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

- a memoir of the author's childhood and adolescent years in Jerusalem in the 1940s and the 1950s. It is a moving story of a gifted but lonely child, born into a family of scholars, who had the "weight of history on his back." Written in characteristic Oz prose, he gives the readers a vivid picture, from his family and extended relatives to the characters in his small community and immigrant life, from his small world in the dark, basement apartment to the historic events that accompanied the birth of the Israeli nation, all from the perspective of the child he was.

The 517-page book, though, is a bit circuitous and repetitive at times. And he belabors some details, sometimes unnecessarily. It is still, however, a good read and a good insight into Jewish life at the early stages of nation-building. I've always liked Amos Oz, and with this book, I can now better understand why he writes as he does.

21. The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski

- a simply beautiful book. A travel memoir of the multi-awarded Polish journalist and war correspondent of the years he spent in the African continent from the decolonisation years of the late 1950s to the 1990s. Perhaps the fact that his own "impoverished" Polish news service couldn't give him the logistical support his BBC and other colleagues had, was actually more a boon than a bane, for he was at most times, forced to travel in the margins --- and that was the way he wanted it to be, among the people and getting the news and feel of the place as raw as possible. He writes of the "indefinable" continent, tries to get inside the skin of the peoples, the tribes he meets by understanding their belief systems, their wishes, their world-view, if there are any, for a great majority live only for the next meal which can be wrested from nobody knows where. He writes of the warring tribes, the genocides in Rwanda before the big one in the 1990s (i never knew this detail before --- precisely because he says these things were never documented), the background of the unending conflict in Sudan, Chad. This book was published in 1998 and chronicles bits of almost 4 decades of his travels in the continent, but I felt like I was reading a travelogue version of the news of conflicts up and down Africa that I'm reading these days. I can't recommend the book highly enough.

22. The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek

- I've always been intrigued by this book, wanting to know what Jelinek won the Nobel for. Frankly, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth -- there are scores of brilliant writers out there who deserve the award more. She writes very well, but there's nothing extraordinary about it. The plot and characterizations are weak, as if from a cheap porno paperback, and the references to music and art do nothing to elevate the novel. Nothing absolves or redeems the character, and strangely enough, one starts to hate them quite early along the story and wish they would just die somewhere or disappear permanently to finish off quickly their prolonged self-destruction. Don't wish to add more of my own comments, but here's a quotation from a commentary passed on to me by a friend:

In 2005, Knut Ahnlund left the Swedish Academy in protest, describing Jelinek's work as "whining, unenjoyable public pornography" as well as "a
mass of text shoveled together without artistic structure". He said later her selection for the prize "has not only done irreparable damage to all
progressive forces, it has also confused the general view of literature as an art". Well said.

jump to list...

26. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - written in the way only this master storyteller can achieve, this was pure pleasure to read.

27. The Debt to Pleasure: A Novel by John Lanchester - random musings on food experiences with a dash of the enigmatic and a handful of recipes; not that pleasurable to read unfortunately.

28. The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster - well, disillusion is the best way to describe how i felt after reading this book. Auster used to be really good in his earlier works... I especially liked his New York Trilogy.

29. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami - found this short story collection a bit bland and unimaginative.

30. Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare - if i had to make my own (short) list of 100 books to read before you die, this one goes right in.

31. Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture by Apostolos Doxiadis - tight, well-written book about a math genius whose life was devoted to solving one of the oldest unsolved problems in number theory.

32. Stardust by Neil Gaiman - my first adult fairy tale. I read the illustrated version --- enjoyed the drawings, and that's it. Just confirmed once and for all that this genre is not for me... simply not my cup of tea.

33. Night by Elie Wiesel - haunting, powerful, this is a book bound to stay with u for a long, long time. It's interesting to note that this Holocaust survivor who later went on to win the Nobel, would say of his first novel " a total embarassment, and one which ought not to have been published." Of course he was referring to his writing style, then raw. I think, though, that it was this "rawness" -- stark, simple, straightforward which gives this book that quality to rank it among the best of memoirs of this very dark period of history.

Hi deebee, just dropped by to say I really like the shape of your reading list, a nice balance of fiction and non-fiction, and books from and about all different parts of the world.

There are some old friends here (Conrad, GGM), some barely on my radar (Kapuscinski, Drakulic), and some authors which are completely new to me (Saramago and Cela in particular have sparked my interest).

thanks, zenomax - while i have an eclectic taste in books, i actually tend more towards non-fiction writing. for fiction, i prefer not to waste my reading time on fluff --- there are so many excellent books out there. i don't believe in lists either (1001 books etc) :-)

i'm trying to work back on my list, filling up those without mini-reviews yet, so u may want to check back on my thread at some point later...perhaps it will interest you in a few more authors...? :-) Primo Levi, if u are not acquainted with him yet, is formidable.

Yes I will certainly check back from time to time.

I am familiar with Primo Levi - I seem to have read all around him without actually reading him if that makes sense! It is just such a thing to have to read about...

34. Letter from Lisbon by Neil Sarman
35. Captive Passage: the transatlantic slave trade and the making of the Americas, various authors published by the Smithsonian
36. A Tranquil Star: Unpublished Stories by Primo Levi

37. Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories by Ismail Kadare - easily one of my most exciting reads this year, and for me, just established him as the author to watch. This relatively recent publication is a collection of 3 stories, written in different styles, but individually masterful. Interesting to note that this book is based on texts smuggled by the author out of Albania to France, claiming they were French translations of a German work.

The setting of 2 stories is during the dictatorship - the first one is the complex musings of a young man during national day, about his just-ended love affair with the daughter of a high-ranking leader, mainly that denying individual wants/desires (and especially that he is not of the ruling hierarchy) is a necessary sacrifice to ensure a smooth running political system. The second story is very interesting, and i swear it could have been written by Saramago. It has elements of the latter's novel Blindness including an authoritarian regime (although in Blindness case, this was a result of necessity to impose order in a highly chaotic situation), but what was most striking is the similarity in writing style. The last story is about spirits of dead soldiers and the Great Wall. The short story also resembles strongly Saramago, in both theme and writing style. All in all, a very interesting read, and highly recommended.

38. The Night in Lisbon by Erich Maria Remarque
39. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

now a bit more than halfway through my 75-challenge and thought it would be interesting to take stock of my reading fare these last months. a quick look at my list shows this general profile of my reads:

- 39 books, of which 2/3 fiction (F), 1/3 non-fiction (NF)
- heavy on war-related themes and political history whether for F or NF
- a good number of memoirs/biography
- a high number of notable authors/works
- some short story collections
- while fairly well-representative, there are more European authors (almost equally from West and East) than from other regions
- no fluff :-)

knowing this, would aim for the following for the remainder of the challenge:
1. more authors from South America, Asia and Africa
2. more essays/works on current events/politics and science-related
3. more short stories (which i love)
...and perhaps with a more directed reading fare this time, i would succeed in reducing a teeny bit my very tall TBR pile!

let's see how it turns out.

tried listing my recommended books, but i ended up listing practically everything, so maybe it's easier to just mention which books i REGRET wasting time on, and those i wouldn't bother to re-read. they are much fewer):

Regrets:
Taste of a Man
The Devil's Cup
The Book of Illusions

Not very bad, but certainly won't be picked up again:
The Debt to Pleasure
Stardust
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Pleasant surprise (lesser known author):
Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture

My new discovery: Camilo Jose Cela

Would make a good read on trips
The Shadow of the Sun
The Man Who Ate Everything

Something I would like everybody who lives in (big) cities to read:
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash

there u go. now i'm off to my 2nd half of the challenge...

I really like your idea of a midway evaluation and using it to guide your reading in the second half of the challenge. I may well steal it when the time comes!

Well done on passing halfway.

I hope you will have time for mini reviews of books 35 through 39 - they all sound interesting. I keep meaning to read Koestler, but never seem to quite get there.

thanks both...

rebeki, please go ahead with the steal...i'm more than happy to oblige :-)

zenomax, will try to get around to do that. i realize i have a good number of titles to work back on. and yes, the last ones are indeed interesting...highly recommended!

had a bit of a reading lurch in June, so got only a couple more titles to round up my first half of the year list...

40. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee - not an easy read, but a very satisfying one, rich in theme, symbolism and irony. at first, the story seems straightforward enough and the characters easy to recognize. as the story progresses, things turn out not to be as they seem -- there are several layers of and more complex realities and inter-relationships involved. the story deals with love (romantic, paternal, elemental), issues of aging, sex, gender, race, violence, renewal, amidst the changing social and political scenario in South Africa in the 1990s. it's amazing how Coetzee manages to pull together all these universal themes in a slim volume that can be read in one sitting. this is an essential read.

41. Distance Voices by John Pilger - a collection of reports, essays, articles by this distinguished Australian journalist, dealing with various subjects including on the Gulf War, East Timor, Cambodia. In his writings, he tries to look behind the "official" versions of events, behind the myth-making of mainstream media. This collection also pays tribute to dissenting voices that are seldom permitted to be heard.

Hi deebee,

Have really enjoyed reading your thread. I agree with a lot of what you say - Cela, Primo Levi, Coetzee, Garcia Marquez - so I'm going to have to follow some of your recommendations of things I haven't read, and see if we coincide there, too! I have books on my TBR shelf by Kapuscinski and Dostoyevsky, so maybe I'll start there. I, too, am curious about Elfriede Jelinek; I guess I'll give her a go.

thanks, rachbxl, i look forward to what you think of some of the titles in my list. i just took a peek at your mid-year stock-take and saw what an interesting reading fare you've had. i'm most curious about Los Premios, i've never read Cortazar.

42. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - in true Dickens fashion, this story puts together the usual elements and themes: coming-of-age, poverty, cruelty, pride, arrogance, wealth, friendship, humility, memorable characters, idyllic countryside and dirty London. it is a story for both children and adults alike, it is part love story, adventure, mystery, crime/thriller --- everything that makes for an enjoyable read, written with his characteristic wit and humor. It is also part social commentary of the times -- the snobbery of upper class England, the preeminence of wealth and class relations. And of course, there is always the lesson to be learned --- in this case, that wealth didn't bring Pip happiness, and over time he did learn what is truly valuable in life. I wasn't endeared at all to Pip's character -- he was a weak, ambitious, self-centered boy, but he somehow grew into me towards the end...where he almost seemed to deserve the wealth soon to be at his disposal. But the other characters making up the tableau are all very memorable and for me, they stand out even more than the rather bland main character.

43. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding - a reread for me, but i came away as disturbed as i was the first time i read it decades ago. I kept wondering who would i be if i were one of the characters in that paradise island turned hell? This is one of those books which raise more questions than provide answers about human nature and society, and none of them easy, comfortable ones. Anyone who missed this for a required reading back in high school, please try to get hold of a copy.

44. The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic - the only way to describe it is DIFFERENT, and yes, in big letters. It was with some hesitation that i started this novel owing to its unusual format --- it is a purported lexicon about the Khazar people composed of three books, the Red, the Green, and the Yellow book, representing Christian, Islamic and Hebrew record sources respectively. Some of the entries are cross-referenced to each other, but the story/description in one book may be different or even be conflicting with that in another book, so one may end up with different versions of the same story. The book can be read in many different ways, and here the reader can opt how to proceed -- i chose to read the cross-referenced entries first, and then what were "independent" entries --- whether randomly or by a more systematic approach doesn't matter, the entries are folk tales and narratives which are interrelated, but can stand as individual tales in themselves.

The book takes the reader to the realm of dreams, legends, myths, folklore, and there is a lot of beautiful imagery and wonderful prose (I didn't know before this how poor my imaginative skill was!) :-) I had to learn to let go of the usual mindset when reading a novel (plot, characterization, setting, etc) everytime i opened the book because only then do i start to enjoy the vivid images that each page evoke. This is a book recommended for those who are feeling a little adventurous and courageous to try something unusual...

Thanks deebee, #44 is another book I have never heard of which sounds fascinating. I can always rely on you to come up with something of interest.

By the way have you ever done the Myers Briggs test?

Hi Zenomax

I have taken the Myers Briggs test and find it very accurate. I'm enfp. How about you?

INTJ here - I was wondering about deebee who seems to have some quite similar tastes in books to me.

hi Zenomax,

INTJ here too!!! :-)) never thought there could be a correlation between personality type and taste in books - that's an intriguing idea... now, i'm trying to figure out how one can tell (hahaha, this is the INTJ in me at work!) -- guess it's got something more to do with reaction to certain types of books rather than the choice of books...

thanks for ur comment about my reads. book #44's author is a noted Serbian literary figure and historian, and this book is considered one of the most intriguing works of postmodernist fiction.

Whisper1, i also find this test (frighteningly) accurate. ur being ENFP did show somewhat...enthusiastic and friendly :-)

I think I am an INTP. Can't be a INTJ because I'm not a perfectionist : ), which I still am not sure is a good thing or a bad thing.

ah gee Deebee (rhyme not intended) I'm simply a bit weary at the end of the week.

Thanks ever so much for your nice comments~

Hi Deebee! Nice going on your challenge. I thought #44 The Dictionary of the Khazars sounded particularly interesting so I am going to try and find it. Thanks for the suggestions.

45. Arrival and Departure by Arthur Koestler - this is the last book in a trilogy (of which Darkness at Noon is the second) whose theme is the conflict between morality and expediency. The story is about a young disillusioned former revolutionary who has escaped to a neutral country (unimaginatively named Neutralia). Back in his homeland, he was from an elite intellectual class who has joined the ranks of workers and revolutionaries. He is caught one day and goes through a series of interrogation. He does not confess even at the point of death, and for this he is considered a hero in his country. Once in Neutralia, he suffers a nervous breakdown and undergoes psychonanalysis. The gist of the story is that in the course of this process, it is revealed that his revolutionary zeal was not founded on a conviction of its historical necessity or social justification, but out of a guilt complex from his childhood and imaginary "moral" obligations.

While there are thought-provoking parts of the story, especially where he is in a discussion with a Party member who is trying to win him to their side, i found the story much weaker than Darkness at Noon. The main character does not convince. Throughout the novel, one senses his identity crisis, weakness, hesitation and confusion. Even as he decides what he eventually decided to do (at which the novel ends), I wasn't sure if it was even what he wanted. But it did make me ask whether to be effective at something, only "pure" motives suffice.

Now i'm interested to read the first of the trilogy, called The Gladiators, to round out Koestler's take on this theme.

46. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami - i didn't have much expectations about this book, and didn't think it would be entertaining knowing that it dealt with some disturbing themes. However, i did enjoy the quick read. It is fast-paced, has some unforgettable characters, and intersperses nicely philosophical digs without sounding tedious. The seemingly separate stories in the beginning converge at some point and were interesting in themselves, however, after that, everything became very predictable. The two themes recurring throughout is that "everything is a metaphor" and " in dreams begin possibilities." It is through these lens that i think the novel should be seen --- otherwise, trying to make sense of the events and details will only frustrate...how to explain talking cats, fish and leeches raining from the sky, and multi-dimensional realities?

Read Darkness at Noon just a few titles back and really enjoyed it. I had no idea that it was part of a triology. The book really seemed to stand on its own without the earlier story. Based on your thoughts here, though, I will probably not read the early or latter book. Koestler's theme, for me, that resounded was the cyclical nature of political and personal history.

blackdogbooks, i had no idea either. indeed they are all stand-alone stories, as Koestler intended it to be a trilogy only in the sense that they are about the same theme - this conflict that i was mentioning. Rubashov's trial (if u still remember the main character's name in Darkness) is only mentioned in passing during Slavek's (the main character here) interrogation, nothing more. in Darkness, this theme is more obvious - Rubashov does a complete turn-around and struggles with the question of whether the end justifies the means. he used to be the ruthless master of expediency, but subtly, a transformation occurs and he decides to do what he thinks is the moral thing. in Arrival, Slavek's struggle is that he never truly believed in the revolutionary principle (although he is not aware of this before the psychoanalysis) but he is merely trying to expiate himself from some morbid childhood guilt and being born into the "wrong" class. he does not, however, completely face up to this question of whether the end (expiation) justifies the means (revolutionary zeal). like Rubashov, he also does a turn-around in the end, but had much less conviction for doing so.

47. Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima - is an intense, complex novel written by one of Japan's foremost modern writers as the second book in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy. Considered as the strongest book in the series, it is set in the early 1930s and deals with Japanese fanaticism in the years that led to war. The story revolves around a young patriot-fanatic, steeped in bushido (samurai code of conduct), who believes that Japan's integrity is being corrupted by a group of leading industrialists who have usurped the Emperor's power. His inspiration is driven by the story of the League of the Divine Wind, a group of samurai in the late 1900s who opposed the reforms and changes in the society including what they believed to be a dilution of the samurai code, brought about by Japan's opening up to the West.
Isao, the hero in this novel, believes that the only way to restore the Emperor to his rightful place and to purge the evil that has permeated society, is to follow the steps of the League -- eliminate the corrupt business leaders and the sacrificing of lives of pure instruments, young men as himself whose purity of purpose and single-minded devotion to the Emperor were without peer. Isao is characterized almost as divine in his utter simplicity of belief and determination to achieve perfection through seppuku. On the other hand, these, combined with his naiveté made for a dangerous and volatile mix.

This is my first Mishima, and i find his writing superb, masterly. The tetralogy is composed of different stories about the several reincarnations of one person, each time with a focus on a different theme. Each book, though, is stand-alone. The presence of certain personalities and subtle layers of interrelationships between people and between events provide the link to the different phases/stories, and give context to the overall story and character development. How Mishima adeptly interweaves all these is simply first-rate.

This novel immensely fascinated me because it mirrors Mishima's ideology and the events he instigated along the course of his adult life, highlighting in a coup attempt he led aimed at restoring the powers of the Emperor, which ended in his own long dreamed-of seppuku. It was, for him, the most fitting last act to a life devoted to mythifying himself.

Mishima is my new discovery for the 3rd quarter of this year.

Now I have had to star your post here. You have a very wide ranging taste and the titles seem to be very culturally diverse. Lots of great recommendations. Soon, almost everyone will be starred and I will go quite mad with the number of books I am looking for and trying to read.

thanks, blackdogbooks, i vary my reading fare as much as i can without being overwhelmed -- don't u agree that literature just offers so many worlds it would be a pity, and life is too short, to be "stuck" in just one? :-) look at u --- with all that stars, aren't u having fun expanding ur universe? :-)

48. Terrorist by John Updike - this is the type of book i would never pick up unless a friend thrusts it into my face to do the favor of reading, which is just exactly what happened. In any case, i thought it would go well for comparison coming as it is on the heels of book 47, which was about a related subject --- it would be good to know how a modern American writer would write about such a theme, and to check out Updike as well, just to see what the fuss is all about. Well, simply put, this book reads like a cheesy paperback, or comes across like an episode of some TV detective mini-series. Everyone was a stereotype, everything so predictable where deus ex machina saves the day. Updike uses beautiful prose when describing something, but that's about it. It's disappointing to see a theme such as this which could be explored in all its levels and nuances, be treated in this shallow and rather cheap way.

First, I completely agree about variety. I like to dip into a lot of different genres.

Now, as to Updike......I just can't read him. There are only a few of those considered great who I just don't connect with and he is one. I have tried several different titles at different times with no success.

I remeber reading a number of Updike books a long time ago when I would raid my mother's books and I pretty much did not like them - in particular the Rabbit book where the first moon landing took place. Was that ever a knife-in-the-eye book! I just wanted to slit my throat after reading that monstrosity. Bleech!!!!

49. Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving - Irving published this collection in 1832, some time after traveling to Spain and being an actual resident of the Alhambra for several months. Enchanting, dream-like, and with a timeless quality, Irving writes so beautifully and seamlessly in a collection of essays, stories, and legends about the Moors in Granada, that form this travelogue. I have never read anything like it which seemed to put me in a kind of wondrous spell each time i sat down to read. The book first took its hold of me when i was in Granada myself just a few weeks back opening the book for the first time seated on a bench under the shadow of the walls of the Alhambra. Being where I was, i felt i was inside the book and was also a spectator of the images and events so vividly described. The feeling just lingered till the last page --- the prose is that magical. It also helped that my copy is illustrated with contemporary engravings depicting scenes from that time. Like a child on an excursion, it was with excitement that I was later on able to associate places within the palaces and gardens in Alhambra to certain legends and stories, when i had my chance to visit a few days after.

Irving is a wonderful storyteller, with humor, grace, and the endless wonder of a curious traveler. From this book, I learned what "the moor's last sigh" signifies (ignorant me) -- the cry of the last Moorish monarch in Spain, Baobdil, on his flight from Granada, viewing on the opposite hills for the last time the "paradise on earth" which he was forced to surrender to the Spanish conquerors. (This leads me to Rushdie's book of the same title which i got to read some time soon.)

Recommended to those who would like to be swept away for a little while from this tiresome, dreary, too-real world today, to the lyrical Moorish world of poetry, music, and love, whether one is visiting the Alhambra or not.

HI deebe
I recently purchased a dvd of the celtic, Canadian singer/artist Loreena McKennitt. The concert was held in the Alhambra. The music and the setting are simply incredible!
I had a wonderful American literature professor in college who taught works of Washington Irving. Since that time (long ago) I've been spell bound by his writings. I've not heard of The Tales of Alhambra but will certainly look for this book.

Whisper, yes, the place is unlike any other. I'm sure u too will like The Tales. I've seen somewhere that he published this originally as A Series of Tales and Sketches of the Moors and Spaniards, which for me, doesn't quite evoke the same images as the revised title.

yet another book to add to the pile. Thanks for the recommendation.
Have you heard of Loreena McKennitt?

50. Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf - this book was a joy to read. Exuberant, fanciful, exemplifying literature at its finest. This semi-biographical novel is partly based on the life of Vita Sackville-West, an intimate friend of Woolf. Orlando is a character who is liberated from the restraints of time and gender. He starts as a young nobleman in the Elizabethan era and ends as a modern woman three hundred years later. Woolf explores the theme of femininity and roles of men and women within certain cultural (English mainly and Oriental) and historical contexts through some bizarre and outrageous devices (e.g. Orlando is not the only androgynous character). The reader is taken on a wild and playful ride, from his days as a young steward of the queen and on the throes of passion for a Russian princess, his devastation on her desertion, to a period of ambassadorship in Constantinople where he awakes one day as a woman, to time spent with the gypsies, and eventually, to her return to modern-day England. The 2 constant things through all this was her passion for writing, and search for love -- the fulfillment of which she finally found towards the end of her 300-year journey (signifying the drastic difference of the social milieu and implications for women in general). The novel is full of wit, and where Orlando has moments of ambiguity and confusion (owing mostly to social restraints of the era) -- which she would after a round of internal debate, invariably junk, i found hilarious.

This publication of this book in 1928, was a hallmark in literature, especially in regard to women's writing and gender studies, for obvious reasons.

Again another recommended read.

51. The War of the World: 20th Century Conflict and the Descent of the West by Niall Ferguson - a riveting survey of the major events of the last century that characterize it as the most violent period in history. The book reads very easily with no dull moment as Ferguson writes engaging narrative of otherwise dry historical facts. Also, by frequently offering counterfactuals, he is able to make the analysis more interesting. Although the book seems to fizzle out towards the end, it is a testament to Ferguson's skill to be able to sustain a reader's attention for the length of an 800-page book of this topic -- he writes wonderfully and very accessibly for an academic and a historian.

Ferguson's main thesis is that the brutal conflicts of the 20th century were influenced by these factors: ethnic conflict, economic volatility, and declining empires. Much of the book, despite its ambition to cover and explain world events, is however largely devoted to WWII and the fate of the Jews in Europe. The rest of the century after that, he condenses into one chapter, and unavoidably there he enters into generalizations. Also, he was not able to expound very well on the notion of the descent of the West. At times, he couldn't help coming across like an apologist for British war policy. These were, for me, the flaws of the book.

For world history buffs and readers of military history, there is nothing especially exciting or new about this book, and while I'm no specialist, I think that even his hypotheses do not sound novel. But being the sucker that I am for war and history, this was still a fairly good read. For its comprehensive subject and engaging prose, I recommend this more as a beginner's book to the subject of world conflicts.

52. Lovers for a Day: New and Collected Stories on Love by Ivan Klima - 'lovers for a day' sounds like the title of some racy paperback, and if i didn't know who the author was, this book i would never have picked up. Klima, however, is a leading Czech author, whose works were banned in his country until the mid-1990s (his writings are considered more political than that of Kundera). This book is a collection of vignettes about love in its myriad forms; nothing grandiose, however, but love as u and i know it. Some were written in the 60s, and others from the 80s and 90s, and while the political milieu is not explicitly mentioned in any of them, one somehow understands the context, pre- and post-Communism, through the extent to which the characters are able to explore or define the limits of love. The stories are easy to like because these are snatches from lives of ordinary people, and characters are so lifelike they could be anybody we know. Klima writes with acuity and refreshing humor, which makes this collection a good, light although not flimsy diversion from serious, heavy reading.

53. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - straight out i have to say that Emma is the most selfish, self-centered, delusional, manipulative, corrupt, pathetic protagonist i've ever come across. The plot is practically the template for what we know today as telenovelas, cheap entertainment and totally inane. Nothing in this book would shock us modern readers, but i do imagine the scandal it made when it was first published in the 1850s. BUT, Flaubert writes brilliantly, able to evoke clarity, depth and feeling in few words, weaving a narrative that is fast-paced but not hurried, and effectively developing characters who, while deplorable most times, rightly portray human tendencies. It is one of those rare books where the farther u get on with the story, the stupider and more histrionic the characters seem to get, but u keep on because the writing is simply flawless.

54. Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami - a chilling read, this is an account of the Tokyo subway attack in 1995 from the point of view of those who experienced it. The first part is a collection of interviews with survivors or relatives of victims, and the second is a set of interviews with former members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. The sometimes seeming repetitiveness of the stories (on the way to work, sudden strange smell, etc etc) do not numb but rather emphasize the randomness of acts of devastation that do not differentiate between victims. We are also given a partial picture of the workings of the cult, the leader, and the men who took part in the attack. It gives us an idea of the appeal of such groups, and the motivations of people who join them. There is plenty of food for thought after a reading of this book, and they are not easy to digest.

55. The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories by Ernest Hemingway - i've read this collection several times, and always i derive as much pleasure from it as i did the first time. There is no surer way to spark my reading than a Hemingway. Isn't it obvious yet that i'm a big, big fan?

56. The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

57. Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic

58. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima

59. How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulic

60. Genes, Peoples and Languages by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

mini-reviews to follow...

Another interesting set of books deebee.

Re. number 60. I have read some books on genetic investigations into population movements in the UK - roman, celt, anglo saxon (breaking down into Angles, Saxons & Jutes) norman etc. Really fascinating area.

The reviews of Cavalli Sforza's book seem mixed - so looking forward to your views on whether it is worth reading.

hi deebee

I think I need to read more of Hemingway. Years ago, one of my college professors portrayed him as a dark, deep, troubled and crazy man. It tainted the way I perceived his writings. It's time to revisit Hemingway and re-learn.

Thanks for your comments which prompt me to do so.

Hemingway is a favorite for me, too. Though, I have to admit I haven't read everything yet. I am about to read A Farewell to Arms for the first time. One of my favorite books of all time is A Moveable Feast. The prose is so rich and the descriptions of some of Hemingway's contemporaries is sad, hilarious, and thought provoking.

deebee

If you haven't read Wild Nights Stories about the last days of Poe, Dickinson, Twin, Henry and Hemmingway by Joyce Carol Oates you might want to give this book a try.

Blackdogbooks, i haven't read everything yet either, but i hope to get there.

Whisper, thanks. will certainly be on the lookout for that title.

now to work back a bit on some recent reads:

56. The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa - an epic read, this tale is based on an actual rebellion in the Brazilian backlands in the late 19th century by a large group of fanatics who refused to submit to the authority of the central government, and everything it represented (they rejected civil laws and institutions including marriage, the use of money, census, among others). Led by a deeply devout, charismatic man, the motley group of social misfits, criminals, and the extremely poor was able to draw entire villages to them, with thousands abandoning what little they had to join them in establishing their "holy city", their stronghold for when the Evil One comes. They wage their battle against the government by expropriating for themselves properties and landholdings, and creating an autonomous existence. The government decides this "independence" is a threat that may lead to a disintegration of the young republic, and calls for military suppression. An all-out war was waged after several failed military expeditions, which ended in carnage in both sides with the community practically annihilated despite its heroic defense. For the community, this was the war of the end of the world, the war with the Beast.

Vargas Llosa illustrates in vivid prose the complex political backdrop, the wretchedness of the harsh hinterlands and its even more pathetic inhabitants, the blind devotion of the followers, and the battles fought. He is able to masterfully weave the web of sub-plots into the main storyline, although I think he was sometimes repetitive and dragged somewhere in the middle. But he tells a powerful story of political conflicts and self-interest, of conviction (here, shown by both sides), the tenacity of underdogs, and the danger of fundamentalism.

The book is quite dense, but well worth the read.

Hi Deebee,
I know you're a Saramago fan, so I'm turning to you for advice. I've never read any of his work, but I want to - is there anything you would recommend as a starting point?
I'm struck once again by the wonderful variety of books you've been reading; I enjoy visiting your thread.
Thanks!

57. Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic - a collection of the author's observations and reflections about daily life in the early post-Communist days in several Eastern European countries. The snippets give us a down-to-earth version of the impact of the transition on ordinary people's lives, mainly the cultural adjustment they confronted in a new so-called democracy. The title refers to the ubiquitous Cafe Europa one finds in every city and town in Eastern Europe that imitates in, according to her, rather very bad taste similarly named cafes in sophisticated Paris, Rome and the like. She portrays this as simply representing the almost pathological anxiety of ordinary people to overcome the deprivations of their past. Some articles tend toward some materialistic babble -- for example, her envy, when she travels, of other people who have "perfect" teeth, who have "better" quality stuff, and equating this with self-respect and independence from shoddy state-sponsored services and institutions. I find her also a bit hypocritical when she mentions the indignity and anger she feels when in international forums, she is classed or identified mainly as "an Eastern European" author, and not recognized as simply a writer free from any association of having lived through "the regime." I find disconcerting her going back again and again to lack or absence of toilet paper (in Romania mainly) as emblematic of the failure of these governments to learn the basics of democracy.

While she writes with humor and frankness, the book fell short of my expectations. I found her analysis too simplistic, and her reflections lacking depth. I thought it strange that she could make sweeping conclusions about these societies, including her own, based on a few random incidents and experiences. These societies were undergoing transformation (the book was published in 1999), and unlearning the habits of decades of closed rule take time, and expectedly not without pain. It doesn't mean either that adopting "capitalist" behaviour and customs is always right or the superior path, although this is what she seems to underline throughout.

She is a journalist, so perhaps I was looking for more journalistic type of writing, with critical analysis (not mere criticisms, as she did here) and more insightful views, which were not evident in this book.

58. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima - yet another intense psychological novel from this truly great writer. This story was inspired by actual events - the burning of the Golden Pavilion Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, dating from the 1400s and considered a national monument, by a young acolyte in 1950. Mizoguchi, the young Buddhist acolyte in the novel, is afflicted with an ugly face and a stutter. His stutter alienates him from others and he starts to harbor evil thoughts. His physical ugliness he justifies with inner ugliness and on this is rooted his obsession for beauty and a pathological urge to destroy whatever represents beauty. The Golden Temple is for him, the most beautiful thing on earth, and so he must destroy it.

Typically Mishima, there is plenty of internal monologues in this novel, as well as the intellectualizing of a seemingly trivial act. Symbolisms abound, more obvious in the types of friendships Mizoguchi is able to develop. His dark and morbid outlook is reinforced by his friendship with a fellow-student, who is also ugly and deformed, and who is even more masochistic and bitter with life. He also befriends a student who symbolized the good and the perfect. But all of them reject the world, in their own ways.

This is certainly not an easy read, and it takes effort on the reader's part to be able to hold the narrative and follow the thought processes of a disturbed mind. I liked this book a lot, though not as much as Runaway Horses (book #47), which i felt has a more fascinating subject.

#77 I too read Cafe Europa! Years ago now, and I barely remember it, though I do remember that disappointed feeling as well. ;(

59. How we Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulic - i liked this collection of articles better than Cafe Europa. Here she seems much less whining, most of the vignettes are touching, written with sensitivity and quiet humor. She focuses on the dismal lives of women under the Communist rule, and how the failure of the system to ensure even the basics of "decent" living ultimately led to its failure. The book's flaw, though, is its tendency to oversimplify the explanation behind regime failure, and lack of acknowledgment that there are far more nuances and more complex factors at work.

60. Genes, Languages, and Peoples by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza - a good introductory reading on a fascinating subject by the world's leading population geneticist, summarizing in very-easy-to-follow narrative main findings of his research in the last four decades confirming the hypothesis that the human species is not divided into color-coded races. From the genetic point of view, the concept of different races is unscientific, the outward or physical differences exhibited by various ethnic groups are mere outward adaptation to different climates. He argues and attempts to show that there is a linkage between the evolution of genes and development of languages and cultures. Cavalli-Sforza introduces a lot of information, but only skims the surface which i found disappointing. He also tries too much to "laymanize" some concepts, which i felt perhaps lost a bit of scientific rigor. It does, however, point the reader to other sources, including his own more technical and comprehensive publications.

61. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa - a brilliant political novel about the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, Vargas Llosa weaves drama and suspense about real events with such mastery and intensity. He constructs a vivid portrayal of the last days of the brutal regime from three points of view -- from the daughter of a disgraced former top Trujillo ally, from the conspirators and Trujillo's assassins, and from Trujillo himself. (The first thread is the weakest, verging on melodrama. The third one is the most effective, an insight into what goes on in an authoritarian leader's mind. He is both larger-than-life and very human, in this point of view.) Vargas Llosa depicts the rise of Trujillo, the abuse of power among Trujillo's family and cronies, the political intolerance, the human rights abuses, the relationship with the Church, the political machinations of the US and the CIA, the cult which developed around Trujillo's powerful persona, his assassination, and the power struggle that came right after which exposed the fragility of the institutions he created. The storylines are interspersed, and timelines go backwards and forwards, but rather than confuse, they elucidate and render pieces of the puzzle that the reader can fit into the bigger picture. Without being being preachy or subjective about the evils of dictatorship, Vargas Llosa delivers a punch on the subject.

An absorbing and very well-written book, i cannot recommend it highly enough.

deebee1
You list of books is amazing!

thanks, Whisper, this has been a great reading year!

62. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer - a seemingly light novel about not so light themes, Foer does a successful job of being funny and moving at the same time. A young Jewish American (named after the author, Foer) goes to Ukraine in search of a woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. There is only an old photograph, and the name of an obscure village, to go by. He enlists the services of a tour company, and he is given a quirky old man as driver and his grandson, as translator, plus a dog with a personality. While the main theme is the search, the novel is actually a tapestry of stories of several characters spanning several generations. These are put together through letters between Foer and Alex (the translator), a sincere, if a bit naive young man who writes horrendous but immensely funny English, memories of the grandfather, and the plot of a story that Foer is writing.

I enjoyed this story, not just because of Alex's laugh-out-loud way of expressing himself in English, but because of its element of magico-realism. There is a dream-like quality to the events and the characters who lived in the village before the war destroyed it forever. The novel evokes a haunting, nostalgic feeling, but there is an underlying sadness in the recurrent themes of love, desire, happiness, destruction, and loss. The novel, in fact, turns out not to be a funny and light one.

deebee, interesting to read your review of Everything is Illuminated - this is one of the very few books in my life (like, fewer than 20) that I have been unable to finish - in fact, I don't think I made it past 50 pages: I got totally bogged down in the first flashback-to-the-shtetl section and never emerged. Am I just a philistine? What have I missed?

(note: I absolutely loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close so it's not just not liking the Safran Foer style. curious.)

Great reviews deebee - thanks for the recommendations. You have added to my every expanding reading list. I am especially interested in the Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza book and hope I can find it at my library.

thanks, alcottacre, i hope u find it in ur library.

now for my latest reads

63. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

64. A Heart So White by Javier Marias

65. Liquidation by Imre Kertész

66. Innocent Erendira and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez))

67. Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair

68. Granta 52 Food: The Vital Stuff by various authors

69. Selected Stories by Anton Chekov

70. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West

mini-reviews to follow...

63. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev - it is easy to see why this novel is considered a masterpiece of Russian literature. Written in the mid-19th century, it deals with intergenerational conflict (i read somewhere that originally, the title was something like "Parents and Children"), with each major character personifying types found in Russian society - the older generation who come from the fading world of the nobility but at the same time attempting to be liberal in their views, and those of the younger generation who advocate nihilism and free thought. The protagonist, an intelligent young doctor, Barazov, represents youth, strength, new ways and ideas, but with very little awareness of his own naïveté and hypocrisy. He is arrogant of any manifestation of "weakness" such as the finer emotions, and when he falls deeply in love with a woman, who was his equal in strength of will and ideas, he goes through an intense struggle with himself. The other characters in the novel provide a brilliant counterpoint to the personality of Barazov, and the exchange between and among them in a subtly woven plot underlies the the slowly changing political and social landscape of the country, signaling a restlessness that characterize periods of transition or upheaval.

This book has all the elements I look for in a work of fiction, which means I liked it immensely. It is intense but not tedious, written with economy without being terse, lyrical without romanticizing, and revolve around themes that appeal to both intellect and heart. Highly recommended.

deebee, I'm looking forward to your mini-review of A Heart so White. I was loaned a copy when I lived in Spain, and whilst I don't remember much about it (it was almost 15 years ago now), I do know that that book was responsible for my career - I decided to become an interpreter after reading it! (I realised that my mind worked in the same way as the main character's, and as it seemed to work for him, why not?)

wow, rachbxl, to have a book influence your career choice! now that says an awful lot about the book!

the novel easily goes into my top reads this year. comments soon...

A Heart So White by Javier Marias - even among a good number of excellent reads this year, this novel stands out as my most exciting discovery. It begins with a young woman who has just returned from her honeymoon and kills herself. Sounds like ur typical mystery paperback? Not at all. Fast forward to a hotel room somewhere in Cuba where the protagonist is spending his honeymoon. He happens to look out of the balcony and gets to be mistaken by a woman below for somebody else. It's the guy in the next room, it seems, whom she knew. Trivialities, petty occurrences, chance happenings, but things are not as trivial as they seem to be. He does not yet understand, but there are hints of connections, links between seemingly isolated banalities that reflect darker and more painful truths. Shakespeare's Macbeth provides the underlying theme, and how the author subtly interlaces the complex themes of love, betrayal, and truth into parallels in the story is simply extraordinary. Mariás weaves an intricate mosaic of fragments of stories, effortlessly shuttling between past and present, in rich, evocative prose with wit and a profound insight into our lesser explored inner selves.

This novel is deep, complex, multi-layered, and the author effectively draws us, through the protagonist, into self-reflection through stream-of-consciousness writing. It is certainly not for those who prefer fast, linear narratives. Highly recommended to those who are interested in “thinking” novels. This would be a very good book for group discussion/reading – lots of material there, both in terms of substance and writing style.

Liquidation by Imre Kertész - set in Budapest a decade after the fall of Communism, this is a short, powerful novel about a renowned Hungarian writer whose suicide forces his close friends to confront some difficult truths about themselves and their individual struggles to live “normally” in post-Communist society. Among his papers, a play entitled Liquidation is discovered. In it, he eerily foretells the crises that his friends are now going through – having survived the Holocaust and Communist years and the surge of hope and optimism after Communism's downfall, they are left with a seeming emptiness, internal confusion, and loss of identity.

Kertsz writes sparsely, and there is neither wasted nor frivolous word in the narrative. It is almost as if there is an effort to save on words. But the writing is in no way simple. The story is intricately told from a friend's perspective alternately using the 3rd person and 1st person narrative, interspersed with script from the play, and finally, from the dead writer's ex-wife.

This novel effectively evokes the sense of frustration and helplessness among the so-called intellectuals in the 1990s. It was as if, “and now, what?”. There is a hesitation to face up to the underlying feeling of guilt, of loss of meaning, and the dead writer who was himself an Auschwitz survivor, had to be the one to push this question.

Another very good novel, highly recommended. A pity that Kertész, 2002 Nobel winner, is not so widely read in English...can somebody tell me why?

Innocent Erendira and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - a collection of short stories spanning more than four decades of his career, the earliest one written in 1947. GGM is a favorite of mine, but this collection was a disappointment, and several stories seemed to me amateurish though they were written already in his later years. All the stories employ magic-realism, but none succeeded in evoking the fancifulness and brilliant imagery of his longer and more known works. The lead story, Innocent Erendira, even seemed to me very mediocre though some 2 or 3 stories were interesting enough, albeit all forgettable.

Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair - a 45-year old unmarried Indian woman decides one day to get away from it all and go by train somewhere she has never been before. The title refers to the carriage exclusively for elderly people, handicapped, and women, a practice in India which lasted until 1998. She meets 5 other women and gets to know their stories. The underlying theme is their society's repression of women's individuality. Each has gone through some kind of struggle and an attempt to restore self-worth, and with it, happiness.

Without doubt, the book has a noble theme - emancipation of women in highly traditional societies. It cannot go wrong, unless it is shabbily told. And it is told in the most shabby way in this novel. Unimaginative, shallow, and kind of standard fare for telenovelas. And written also like a script for one. It could also use some proper editing. There are far better books written on this subject, and I suggest better stick to those.

deebee

Your book lists and your descriptions are incredible!

thanks again, Whisper. some of my recent reads (except the last 2 reviewed) are truly exceptional writing, literary gems, i would say.

# 92 - well another author I haven't come across, but I can see from your description why you were drawn in, the themes seem very INTJ ish.

Also congratulations on finishing Black Lamb & Grey Falcon, I'm not convinced I have read every page of it.

However it is one of my favourite books - one I will always return to. So looking forward to your impressions.

Wow! Deebee, your reads are just awesome. Thanks for some great recommendations and more books to add to Continent TBR.

zenomax, Javier Marías is big in his native Spain, and this novel, winner of the 1997 Dublin IMPAC award, is considered one of the most important books to come out of the country. He is definitely an author i will seek out again and again.

BLandGF was an experience, and while i have read every page of it and think it is extraordinary, she (West) becomes tedious sometimes and repetitive. mini-review soon...

thanks for dropping by...

thanks, alcottacre....i know how fast ur Continent TBR is growing, by now u must be close to moving over to Planet TBR!

71. Emilio's Carnival/Senilita by Italo Svevo

72. The Body Artist by Don deLillo

73. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

mini-reviews coming up...

Granta 52 Food: The Vital Stuff - a collection of short works having to do with yes, food, by various authors, including J.M. Coetzee, Graham Swift, Giles Foden among others. Interesting, informative, and thought-provoking, with writings about vegetarianism, aphrodisiacs, women and cooking in 1950s America, an experiment on men as chickens (cooked up by a weird British lady advocating for animal rights, here against "inhumane" treatment of battery chickens), unusual foods, cannibalism, etc etc.

This was my first Granta, introduced to me by a souvenir shop owner whose shop i visited in Granada a few months ago. While looking around the usual souvenirs, i sniffed out a shelf at the back of the store with a sign saying for sale. I had stumbled on a treasure trove of dozens of used novels in English and Granta issues! Apparently, he, the owner was moving and had to give up boxes of his beloved books. He didn't manage to sell any souvenirs to me, but i lugged 2 big bags of books out of his store instead, and a recommendation to subscribe to Granta. So there, i'm a new convert.

So close to the goal, deebee - keep it up!

I have to admit to being a lapsed Granta subscriber - really enjoyed the first few I'd got, but found them increasingly disappointing and cancelled after issue 93, God's Own Countries. They have had a state of serious editorial flux recently - their last editor, Jason Cowley, only lasted about six months before moving to the New Statesman.

Alex Clark (former deputy) was due to start in September - will be interesting to see what she makes of it....

thanks, Flossie...

why did u find it increasingly disappointing? i'm not in a hurry to subscribe, but would love to hear ur views before making up my mind.

Two reasons really:

* I initially subscribed with the 'Best of Young British Novelists' edition, and wanted most to discover new fiction writers, or read more short pieces from ones I already liked. Over the course of my subscription, the ratio of fiction to photo essays/reportage/political pieces/memoir seemed to gradually decrease, until the balance no longer really suited my reading tastes - I like reading that other stuff, just not as much as I enjoy the fiction. I found I was skipping more and more pieces in each issue, and it just didn't seem worth it any more.

* I also got really fed up with the politics - the God's Own Countries had a very nasty anti-American tone, not necessarily in the pieces, but noticeably in all the blurbs trailing it, promoting it, etc. etc. etc. While I may not necessarily agree with US foreign policy in all areas (and in any case am far too ill-informed to wish to get into any kind of lengthy debate about it!!), there is a certain hectoring leftie rant tone to some discussion of that area that leaves me completely cold. I don't care if there are things worth saying in those pieces, it's impossible to find them if they're too well-swaddled in prejudice.

BUT all of these things will obviously be heavily influenced by editorial policy. When I cancelled my sub, Ian Jack was still editing; there've been two editors since then (including the current one). Alex Clark was a Man Booker judge this year so I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the next issue to see how things might be changing.

Sorry, that was a bit of a long answer to a simple question!

thanks, Flossie, for your candid opinion...

Sorry, it's come out rather more strongly opinionated than it was in my head!!

I should say that the writers are almost without exception excellent, the themes are good, and it is indeed a really good way of discovering new writers. It just didn't suit me any more...

nothing to be sorry about...we're a quite opinionated lot around here, and in my opinion, rightly so! :-)

Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov - together with Guy de Maupassant, he represents for me what ultimate writing is -- exquisite and efficient prose imbued with deep humanity and realism. I can read his stories again and again and never tire of them. Same goes for his plays.

This book is a collection of 24 stories that between them, gives us a snapshot of common people's lives in the mid to late 19th century Russia, of their toils, frustrations, hopes, joys, jealousies, and simple faith. It also includes stories that poke fun at the petty bourgeoisie (this is how far he goes in his politics, at least here). There is an endearing story about children playing cards (The Children), and a heartbreaking one (Little Jack). Straightforward, neat, concise, honest writing -- a real pleasure to retreat to anytime but especially when other reads start looking too wordy and rambling.

I will definitely look for the Chekhov book. I have not read any of his stuff before, kind of surprising to me actually since I have read so many Russian writers, but Selected Stories sounds like a good place to start. Thanks for the recommendation, deebee.

>110 deebee1: Deebee, I picked up that very book in a bookshop earlier this year and read the first page or two, and knew that I had to read it. Actually I didn't buy it that day, because I decided that I had more than enough to be getting on with and that it would be good to have something to look forward to - but you've made me want to go out and buy it tomorrow!

alcottacre, u won't be disappointed with Chekhov, i promise. yes, that would be a good place to start since it includes stories considered to be some of his best.

rachbxl, LTers can never have "more than enough (books) to be getting on with" :-) and Chekhov is a must read, so what are u waiting for? :-)

deebee, I've certainly heard of Chekhov, but not read any of his works. I'll be sure to add yoru recommendation to the tbr pile.

Thanks.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West – to finish this immense book, a doorstop several times over at a whopping 1181 densely written and small printed pages which is part travelogue, history, with plenty of philosophical musings thrown in, required a good amount of persistence.

The book, hailed as West's masterpiece and considered one of the greatest books of the 20th century, chronicles a 6-week journey that she and her husband made in the late 1930s through the ex-Yugoslavia and provides a mosaic of country and town life in this troubled region. She provides a sweeping account of its history and politics, and while critics question the accuracy of some information, it gives us outsiders a good starting place to explore Balkan history. In general, she keeps a highly romanticized view of the peoples, and amidst some captivating prose and interesting insights, a degree of intolerance shows through.She is especially biased towards the Serbs, termed by some reviewers as her fascination over their "noble savage" character. The Slavs are an intensely nationalistic people, and West is able to depict this very well, and how in history this has served them two ways, to defeat their common oppressor, the Turks, and later on, to divide them along religious lines. West tells us why all these centuries, from the time of the Ottoman conquest, this region has always been volatile, and that their revolts and eventual victory against the Ottoman empire is not just a local or even regional achievement, but meant the defense of Western civilization against the East -- they fought for Europe's very existence.

West evokes picturesque and dramatic landscape. Here, she does not exaggerate, as I saw this for myself when I traveled to parts of the region last summer. Interestingly, nothing much seems to have changed in the countryside --- the wars that rocked the region after West wrote this book that resulted in its isolation from modernizing influences, has kept it like this. In every place she visits, she provides a historical context and some analysis, some accounts of which are quite riveting, two of which, for me, stand out -- the assassination of Prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo (which triggered WWI), and the tumultuous reigns of the Serbian kings.

What is tiresome in this book is that West loves to go rambling on what seems at first a philosophical discourse but after a while, turns into some mystical reflections. I find this surprising --- she appears to be very rational and intellectual in her initial approach to exploring the story and the mindset of these peoples, but in trying to understand them, she somehow imbues mystical qualities to events and characters. In any case, she can go on and on, and it is nothing but mind-numbing. She also becomes quite redundant and predictable in her reactions and insights, and at times, quite narrow-minded (the meaning and her interpretation of the symbolism of the book's title, for one). What I also find lacking here, is her lack of interaction with the locals. She had a very knowledgeable guide, and got to meet important political and religious personages, but all the views she got were from the elite. Would it have mattered if she had had a serious conversation with one of those "noble savages" that she idealizes? I guess so... it would have rendered her observations a little more authentic, a little more engaged, and not merely views of the typical well-to-do, foreign tourist who obviously delighted in the exotic and strange ways of these people but who prefers to be detached anyway.

West wrote this book for 5 years, in the period when the rumbling of the imminent war was getting louder and closer. She provides in the Epilogue what i consider in the book to be her most incisive analysis, this time of the events that were sweeping Europe, and how again Yugoslavia would be drawn into the maelstrom.

In any case, this book is an experience to read. There is much to digest here, so it's best to be read in an unhurried way. Be prepared to be delighted, to be disturbed, to be surprised, to be entertained, to be informed, and also to question, to wonder, to understand --- a book which does this and more deserves to be read at least once.

Thanks for the review, DeeBee. I found it at a book sale this last summer and snatched it right off the table (man, it weighed a ton - kind of wish I'd found it at the end of my search) and have been looking forward to reading it. Hoping to get to it this coming winter.

Happy reading, Fourpawz...

Emilio's Carnival/Senilita by Italo Svevo - lovers of literature have James Joyce to thank for for the launching of Svevo's literary career (at the rather late age of 64 yrs) and giving us this delicately crafted novel, and the more popular The Confessions of Zeno. (Joyce was in earlier years, hired by Svevo as English tutor.)

Set in Trieste (now Italy, but then still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire) this psychological novel, written in 1898 and considered a pre-eminent work of modern European fiction, is the account of Emilio, a failed writer, and his intense relationship with Angiolina, a much younger, beautiful but promiscuous woman.

The novel explores some dark themes namely self-doubt, jealousy, self-torment, disillusionment, betrayal and failure. The feeling of tension and fleetingness underlie the entire story. Angiolina is a chronic liar and a cheap tart, but Emilio cannot help himself -- one minute, he is madly in love with her, and the next, he is willing to let her go. But like the perennial loser that he is, he would rather fill his anguished mind with delusions of being a heroic and self-sacrificing lover. He seems to want to experiment with his feelings, without possessing the strength necessary to bear the results. In short, to exaggerate the simple into tragic proportions.

I hated this character who vacillated too much, and Angiolina as well, who despite her shallow mind and morals, was a genius in exploiting this weakness in Emilio's character. These rapid shifts and instability in mood, however, are what critics consider to be the modern elements of this novel. Over all, I admired the depth and the venture into what was then considered modern voice, but it got me brooding over some imponderables for a while after.

The Body Artist by Don DeLillo - a strange, psychological story about grief, and coping with the trauma of sudden loss. A fine morning nothing out of the ordinary, and a husband who drove out to his first wife's place and put a bullet through his mouth. The wife, the body artist, returns to the rented house where they spent their last days together and discovers she is not alone in the house. Has her husband "returned" in the voice of the young mentally-challenged man who has, seemingly, been occupying some hidden part of the house? Or is it merely her loneliness and imagination, and another expression of her grief the reality of which she renders effectively in artistic body performance?

This is the plot, simple and streamlined, but there is something profound and mysterious in it that makes this novella a quite interesting read.

74. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima

75. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

mini-reviews to follow...and yes, this completes the challenge... :-)

Let me be the first to say "Congratulations" on completing the challenge!!

Deebee, you've reached the big number, with ease, it seems! Congratulations! And thanks for the many fascinating recommendations!

thanks, blackdogbooks and akeela!

Congrats!

Congratulations debee!

Add my congratulations to the list!

Impressive in terms of quality of the books read as well as quantity.

congratulations deebee. Please tell me what you think of Doris Lessing's book The Fifth Child

thanks, all!

Whisper, i found it deeply disturbing, even creepy, but it's a book i strongly recommend. will try to post a mini-review soon...

76. The Best Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant

77. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

78. The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić

Thanks for letting me know your impressions of The Fifth Child I'll add this to my list...

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima - this novel has a deceptively simple storyline but is full of parallelisms, a chilling tale that invokes some disturbing themes. A 13-year old boy, his beautiful widowed mother, and a sailor. The boy is devoted to his loving mother and seems to have normal interests for a boy his age -- swimming, sailing, the sea. Unbeknownst to her, he belongs to a small group of highly intelligent students eager to live out the ideals of their so-called life philosophy, "objectivity", where they denounce emotions and sentimentality. It is no mere innocent childish rebellion against adults, they reject adulthood as illusory and hypocritical. They believe themselves to have the moral right to free the world of "romanticism" -- a kind of exaggerated nihilism, even fanaticism where violence and brutality are mere instruments to be wielded whenever necessary. A spy-hole where he peeps at his mother at night, and a savage dissection of a cat are merely two tests in emotion control.

The mother meets the sailor and they become lovers. The boy, from the beginning, looks up to him as the epitome of the hero their group aspired to -- strong, daring, valiant, glorious, terrifying, rough, in short, macho as macho can be. There is a gradual disillusionment when the sailor and his mother decides to marry and he stays ashore for good. This is the ultimate betrayal -- for once he ties himself to land and the institutions of adulthood, his weak, feminine side now dominates him. He is essentially condemned, his perfection soiled. This the group can never except, so they must do something about it.

There are strong symbolisms apparent between these main characters, the tension between imperial and modern Japan, and Mishima himself. Unlike the other Mishima books i read this year (Runaway Horses and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, the characters do not go into complex self-reflections, and do not exhibit the usual torment, conflict and self-mutilating behavior. The prose is stark compared to his other novels, yet Mishima effectively lets us explore the pathology of misplaced idealism. He is very good in doing that.

The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing - a harrowing novel that kept me thinking for several days about the difficult issue of societal acceptance of what is not "normal", not "nice", and not "like us", and the power of a mother's bond to her child. Set in the 60s, Harriet and David -- middle class, conservative, old-fashioned, with strong family values, begin planning a large family. All seem happy and well, four children are born in succession, Harriet is exhausted though content, everything is in order.

Then came the fifth child -- hated the moment his mother feels him in his womb -- large, overly active, very difficult, so unlike her other pregnancies -- regarded as a monster growing in her belly. He comes out large, ugly, malformed, repugnant. He is uncommunicative, has incredible strength and a huge appetite, and most of all, a violent and malevolent streak -- everything a child should not be. Very quickly, he alienates his own family -- his own father loathes him, the other children are deathly afraid of him. Instead of laughter that used to fill the house, it has become a house of dread. Ben, the fifth child, is kept in a cage, but the whole house seems like a cage since he came.

Harriet suffers a dilemma, as I imagine only mothers in similar situations can. She sees her family disintegrate, the personalities of her other children severely affected maybe even irreversibly. She is alone in this, her husband has disowned the "problem". All the relatives who used to converge regularly in big parties in the house, are now staying away. It is she who will determine the fate of this loveless, luckless, ugly child.

Lessing's narrative is straightforward, uncomplicated, but the questions she raises are dark and immensely important. How prepared are we to accept deviation, in our family and in others? What is the extent of a mother's love, duty --- to this child, and to her other children? Where to find the balance to be able to keep the family together?

This is a powerful book, highly recommended.

The Best Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant - a collection of 17 of his most-beloved short stories, including Boule de Suif, the immensely popular The Necklace, as well as The Piece of String. Maupassant, together with Chekov, definitely share top position as masters of the short story. What differentiates them is that with Maupassant, there is always something that stays with u, a lesson to learn, a moral, without him sounding like a moralist. There is nothing frivolous about these stories, there is even an element of tragedy that subtly underlies them. In this collection, we glimpse images of the French countryside during the Franco-Prussian war.

As always, Maupassant is a good and more than worthwhile read.

Mishima sounds interesting, my husband has a lot of his works, I might try one.

Yes, FAMeulstee, to say he is quite interesting and unique is a big understatement...go ask ur husband (for sure he knows). Knowing a bit about him will help in appreciating better the themes of his novels. If ur husband has the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, do try that -- it's considered Mishima's best work.

Yes deebee1, we have The sea of fertility, but I think I'll start with one of the shorter books ;-)

deebee, thanks for your thoughts on two wonderful books. I have heard the titles for both but knew little about the stories. It's like having a team of readers sifting through books to give me material for my own reading. This challenge has definitely been the best thing for my reading.

deebee...
The Fifth Child seems very dark and I imagine it is a book that stays with you for awhile.
I'm so swamped with work and under a lot of stress right now, so I think I'll put this one on the TBR pile, but not on top. I'll read this in 2009.
Thanks for your description. I appreciate it!

Hi deebee,

glad you liked The Fifth Child (if 'like' is really the right word) - it's over 6 months now since I read it, and it's still with me.

The Mishima looks interesting - thanks for the review.

79. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

80. Unique Item by Milorad Pavić

81. The Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev

82. Granta 48 Africa

deebee, thanks for the excellent review of The Fifth Child - really interesting. I put this on my list after Lessing won the Nobel last year; I can't now remember where the recommendation came from, but it does sound like a really thought-provoking read. I'll keep an eye out for it.

The Fifth Child is not my kind of thing at all, but I liked your review so much that I tossed it onto the wishlist, too. It sounds interesting.

I read Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry during the summer and thought it was great. I read his short story collection Tales from Firohsza Baag
last year. I will definitely be reading A Fine Balance and Family Matters.

dihiba, save A Fine Balance for when you have some surplus positivity - very sad things happen. A very powerful book.

Dihiba, I read Family Matters a few years back and still remember it fondly. It's remains one of my favorites.

Flossie, just wanted to thank you for a post you made somewhere responding to my question about a comparison between A Fine Balance and The White Tiger. i agree one needs surplus positivity to read this.

My pleasure, deebee! It was rebeccaNYC's thread, but I now realise I didn't say anything about the style. The White Tiger is not a lyrical sort of read; I remember A Fine Balance as being one of those books that just sweeps you along with the prose even as you can't quite come to terms with what's happening to the characters.

Adiga's novel is much sharper - it has been described as "satirical" but to me it just came over as scathingly angry. There are some comic moments, and there is a vague attempt at some sort of spiritual redemption for the central character towards the end, but it's a bit half-hearted.

I do think it's still worth a read - I just couldn't honestly say I "enjoyed" it.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein - this book challenges the myth of the infallibility of neo-liberal, free market theory, aggressively advanced by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School since the 1960s. Privatization, deregulation, free trade, and decreased social spending comprise the package of neo-liberal economic policies, but, she argues, as these are impossible to be instituted without massive public resistance owing to the insecurity it causes (loss of jobs, social security, etc), political upheavals and natural disasters, in short, periods when the society is most vulnerable, have become the pretext to coerce governments to adopt these otherwise inadmissible policies.

By citing numerous well-researched examples from Latin America (during the era of US-propped dictatorships in the 1970s) to Eastern Europe and Russia (after the fall of Communism), and right on to the US's own backyard, New Orleans after Katrina, and to the biggest mess disaster capitalism has wrought, the Iraq War, Klein makes vivid and and convincing her argument that unfettered capitalism has and will not hesitate to have blood in its hands.

Very good and timely read, and recommended to all who care to understand what's going on.

Definitely sounds like something I need to put on Continent TBR, deebee. Thanks for both your review and recommendation!

Good to see u again, alcottacre. I couldn't put this book down, it fascinated, disturbed, provoked without let-up -- a spy or detective thriller couldn't have done it better.
Klein did us a huge favor by putting things we only vaguely knew, heard about, or suspected, into a coherent, well-written book. now we have a better, unfortunately not more pleasant, picture.

Miracle of miracles - my local library actually has Shock Doctrine! Unfortunately, both copies are currently checked out, so I had to put it on hold. Hopefully, I will get a copy soon because it sounds well worth the read.

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro - a hauntingly sad, enigmatic novel, it tells of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living in England, who is trying to come to terms with the suicide of her eldest daughter, and in the process, is drawn to memories of her own life back in Japan. She remembers in particular the summer just after she got married -- she strikes up a friendship with an enigmatic woman and her young daughter who kept seeing a "lady." This was post-war Nagasaki, and people were still dealing with the loss and destruction from the bombing. Ishiguro deftly and subtly uses metaphor, is ambiguous in parts, and sometimes frustratingly sketchy. But this style evokes very well the brokenness of people's lives then, the hurt, the picking up of the pieces, the unreality, the abruptness of change. There are a lot of things Ishiguro left out -- why the daughter killed herself, the missing part of Etsuko's life between that long-ago summer and her life now, what happened to the mysterious friend and the girl -- details which might have "completed" the story. But we are left to wonder, and perhaps the details do not matter so much as the sentiment and portrayal of loss, disconnection, and memory as identity.

Whoa, your last book sounds really amazing. I am yet to read an Ishiguro book that I did not like. This sounds like one of those books that makes you think and reflect upon your own life.

What were your thots on A Pale View of Hills?

The Shock Doctrine also seems like something that I would love to read. It sounds very insightful and timely.

For me, A Pale View of Hills was not an easy book to like in the usual sense --- i liked it in an incomplete and strange sort of way. it felt like i had to connect the dots, through snapshots of Etsuko's past, present, the symbolisms and the ellipses, but that i'm allowed to connect them in the way i wanted, and this very personal interpretation is itself, understanding of the story. i was not too happy in the end but it was a shortcoming i blame on my own lack of attention to the small but on hindsight, i realised, very important details. so it's a book i will surely read again at some point, and much more carefully.

I read my first Ishiguro book this year and am looking out for others he wrote. Thanks for the insightful review of A Pale View of Hills. Definitely one for which I will hunt.

Gosh, I must look like an idiot. I was looking at your list and did not scroll down and see that you had written a review of A Pale View Of the Hills. I just saw it listed and did not realize that you wrote the review already. Please think if me as hilarious and not insane. Thanks for your further thoughts on the book.

no problem, trish, i did have to squeeze my brain somewhat there, but it's a welcome exercise once in a while :-)

The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić - This is a tale of a bridge, and much more. It is the story of a small town on the Bosnian border; its life under the Ottomans and later, the Austrians; the joys, the hardships, the pains of the people of the town of Visegrad whose fates depended on the whims and decrees imposed by the far-off capital city of whoever was the imperial ruler then; the reverberations of revolts and wars that were being fought across the border or further inland; and a bridge who was witness to it all.

Spanning a canvas of more than 300 years, Andrić brings to life in the most beautiful and vivid way, rural and town life in Visegrad which was first just a little sleepy border place along the river Drina made up of Turks, Jews, and Serbs who, though they harbored deep suspicion of each other, have learned how to live, and even like each other, albeit depended on each other for their mutual survival.

First, there was no bridge. Then sometime in the 16th century, the great Mehmet Pasha, whose origins were from that region, instructed the construction of a great bridge. And life started to revolve around that bridge. As well as death, for along the centuries, it became the symbol and the stage where the power, repression and aggression of the ruling power were displayed in the most savage form both as reminder and punishment.

Andrić writes a fictional but truthful history of the bridge at Visegrad. We meet a host of memorable characters and experience unforgettable events. There are the peasants, the townsmen, the merchants, the priests; then came the workers, the builders of the bridge; then the soldiers and new settlers from far-off lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who administered the town's transformation in the “Western” way; then there were the intellectuals, the students, and the revolutionaries. Between these waves which took place over many generations, we feel as if the town is always at the edge of something that is not within them to control. Change came, most of the time not subtly and not from any internal source, and here we see how tensions developed, grew, and sometimes, exploded. And those who could not accept change simply faded away for there was no room for these misfits in the new social order. This is just a small part of a much bigger story, but we begin to have a glimpse of some of the historical sources of the volatility of a region located at the crossroads of East and West, and which served as a pawn by much greater powers in their games of political domination. Through all these waves and changes, there stood the bridge - the only constant, permanent thing in their lives. It was solid, it was immense, it was indestructible. But was it really?

This book is a truly a masterpiece. I was swept away by the writing from the very first page, and didn't want the tale to end. But it had to end, and it was not a very happy ending, even as we know that until now what is there is a fragile peace, and deep scarring from a bloody recent past.

TrishNYC: I'm adopting "Please think of me as hilarious and not insane" as my catchphrase, if you don't mind me stealing it from you.

deebee
I enjoy your descriptions of the books you read.
Conincidentally, this evening my husband and I were watching the excellent, award-winning documentary The World at War and the particular dvd we saw concentrated on Japan. I'll add A Pale View of the Hills to be tbr mountain.

#160 deebee: I have The Bridge on the Drina home from the library now and am looking forward to reading it even more after having read your review.

Whisper, thanks. isn't the The World at War just a staggering piece of work? i'm still working through the entire set which we've had for a few years now, but doing it slowly coz i try to accompany it with reading and finding out more about the particular episode i'm watching.

alcottacre, hope u enjoy it as much as i did. would be interesting to know what u think of it. Andrić actually grew up in Visegrad where this bridge was...

deebee, I'm going to have to track down a copy of The Bridge on Drina in our library system! Thank you for your review.

79. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - a moving portrayal of the lives of four people who were caught up in the brutal, sweeping policies of 1970s India during the State of Emergency rule of Indira Gandhi.

Dina, a 40-ish widow, is determined to be an independent woman in a society where women cannot and do not have a say; Ishvar and his nephew Om are from the untouchables but, through immense courage and determination on the part of his father/grandfather, have managed to escape the bondage of caste and become tailors in the city; Maneck is a sensitive boy from a well-to-do family in a mountain town who needed to train for a career because the family business was declining. They are brought together when Dina decides to hire the tailors, and to let a room in order to support herself financially. They are first suspicious of and then eventually adjust to each other, become friends and even live together convivially. There is a brief respite from the despair each has previously known, life is still a daily struggle but it is less difficult, and happiness seems to be within reach.

The chaos of political events unleashed by the State of Emergency reach them and their lives start moving beyond their control quickly and insanely. Rampant corruption, harassment and violence, fear and terror started to rule, sparing nobody. The government imposes drastic, brutal policies in the name of political stability and economic development, policies such as forced eviction which left thousands homeless, forced labor in big infrastructure projects, and forced sterilization. Our friends go from bad to worse, and from then it was just from one misfortune to another. There were points along the story where I just wished Ishvar and Om to die – that would have been kinder to them. Yet they survive. And I think, indeed, why should I, the reader, be spared the inconvenient truth that in real life, many of the poor and destitute had actually gone through and survived the viciousness of that period in their history? Mistry pushes us, relentlessly, beyond our comfort zones.

I call this novel a story with a heart. The author writes with sympathy, without being sentimental. We recognize the characters -- they dream, they despair, they laugh, they hope, they feel pain, they get angry, they get jealous, they find change difficult but eventually accept their fates, they don't trust politicians. Mistry writes of big, serious themes and of small, ordinary lives. The novel raises sensitive issues of class conflict, ethnic conflict, gender, dispossession, and political repression, and how invariably the first ones to get sucked up in the vortex are the weak, the small, the powerless, the defenseless, the disenfranchised. He describes with vivid and realistic imagery the cruel and hard life of the untouchables in rural India, the squalid poverty of the shantytowns and the homeless in the streets of the city, the pervading cultural myopia, and the brutality of an oppressive regime.

The story is tragic, monumentally tragic even. Adversities came in waves, and while circumstances could have easily crushed or corrupted them, these four friends were never pathetic, were never wretched in their souls. The balance between hope and despair is very fine indeed. A big novel that at another time (and another place) might have been banned for tackling potentially inflammatory issues.

Highly recommended.

What a fabulous review, deebee. Really does the book justice. And I am so with you on that impulse to wish Ishvar and Om dead... I found that marketplace scene a particularly gut-wrenching moment.

I'm glad you enjoyed A Fine Balance, deebee - I was really struck by it when I read it a couple of years ago, on a recommendation from a friend, and I think it's one of the best books I've ever read.

Great review....very thoughtful.

thanks for ur kind words (>167 FlossieT: to >169 blackdogbooks:). frankly i wasn't too enthusiastic when i set out with it though i've had the book around for months now. all my previous reads set in or about India had largely been disappointments, so i was a bit hesitant to pick up (another) dense book about the place (and especially when i saw that awful you-know-who Book Club endorsement on the front cover --- geez i was ready to drop it if it had not been a cheap used copy in a sale). but now i'm sure glad i did what i did and read on.

>170 deebee1: that's exactly how I felt! I'm often reluctant to read on the basis of friends' recommendations (just because they've liked it doesn't mean that I will, and then they keep on and on asking if I've read it yet...), but now I happily read anything this particular friend puts my way. Have you read any of Mistry's other books? I've read Family Matters and Such a Long Journey, both excellent as well. If you haven't read them yet, don't do what I did! I read them all back to back, so I now have no idea which was which, which is a shame.

rachbxl, this was my first Mistry and it has more than convinced me to look out for his other works. if i can help it, will avoid reading them back to back :-)

for my recent reads...

83. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

84. Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

85. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Oh, hey - now I'm going to have to read Ivan Denisovich. And I'm not even sure I like Russian lit.... yet.

>173 FlossieT: Rachael, just read it! Then I can stop telling you to... Anyway, it's so short that even if it turns out that you don't like it, no harm done.

>172 deebee1: deebee, have you really read Cancer Ward as well already? That was quick work. I hope you'll be posting your comments on it, as I'm keen to see what you think of it (am thinking of making it my next Solzhenitsyn, having been so impressed with Ivan Denisovich).

#172: What did you think of Cancer Ward?...I checked for a rating in your library, but you don't have your latest in there, yet. I read the first few pages, but it didn't immediately grab me as did Ivan Denisovitch, The First Circle or The Gulag Archipelago and I ended up picking up something else to read. Was it as good?

Flossie, as the other Rachel said :-), just read it! if u would like a painless (that includes relative length) intro to Russian lit, may i suggest Chekov and Turgenev as a start. there's plenty to like there!

>174 rachbxl: and 175, i liked Cancer Ward in a different way that i liked One Day because it paints a larger canvas, and we get a better feel of the recent history and the events taking place in Russia at the time of the story, as well as class relations. There is not much action, movement or element of suspense compared with One Day, but these cancer patients being doomed, we see another dimension of strength and hope being tested to its limits, and in a much more terrifying way. Rachbxl, i hope that with these initial thoughts (will post a mini-review soon as i have the time) i have convinced u to go ahead and read Cancer Ward.

TadAD, these are the only 2 books i've read so far by Solzhenitsyn, so I can't make the comparison with his other works.

>133 deebee1: deebee. I agree with you about Maupassant and Chekov. Have you read any of the short stories by the English Maupassant, W. Somerset Maugham?
His stories are excellent, also.

Great reviews - got some great ideas for my 2009 Reading List - thanks!

- TT

>176 deebee1:: Well, perhaps I'll give it another try. I'd recommend The First Circle and The Gulag Archipelago to you when you have time.

> TheTortoise, i also love W. Somerset Maugham; Isaac Bashevis Singer as well. these two, together with Maupassant and Chekov are for me the ultimate in short story writing. i'm glad my review is helping with ideas -- let me know if u want some comments about titles i read early this year which i've never gotten around to review. i'd be happy to share my thoughts.

> TadAD, thanks for the recommendation, those titles are already on my 2009 list.

deebee, I'm so glad you liked The Bridge on the Drina -- I found it amazing too, and it is certainly one of my favorite books of the year.

Unique Item by Milorad Pavić - another attempt by Pavić (more known for The Dictionary of the Khazars - book 44 on my list) to redefine, to extend, to twist around, to have a different take, to go against the notion of what is a novel, this time a mystery with 100 possible endings --- the end is up to you. An intriguing and playful story revolving around an androgyne who is a dreamcatcher and possessing an incredible power of smell. Several murders occur in different occasions, an opera singer who last performed as Pushkin (this detail we discover later is crucial) dies, some shady characters pop in and out, through it all the androgyne appears to be the link -- she has caught dreams for those people who, by dreaming dreams from their past life and dreams from after their death, forfeit their own present lives.

I found this book more interesting than i expected -- Pavić cleverly interweaves historical detail (the Pushkin part) with myth and fantasy. I was reminded of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita where the Devil came in disguise to wreak havoc on the characters' lives -- there are similarities in this book. I wouldn't be surprised if the idea was Bulgakov-inspired.

Ok deebee - so I have The Dictionary on my list - but should I put this latest book ahead of it?

Granta 48 Africa - this volume came out in the mid-1990s when the continent was just emerging from a very dark phase - the genocide in Rwanda, the end of the civil war in Angola, the war in Liberia. We feel once more, through the articles, the pain, the desolation, the wretchedness, the hunger, the terror, the fear, the hate, the brutality that took over many people and many places in the continent during those dark years. Contributors include Paul Theroux who writes about a leper community, Ryszard Kapuscinski about Ethiopia, and excerpts from a speech by Nelson Mandela talking of the African Renaissance.

zenomax, if u manage to obtain a copy of this book, it would be good to read it ahead of The Dictionary --- it's shorter and more fun (although it can use a bit of editing). i say "if u manage" because as far as i know, this book has been published only in Belgrade (where i bought mine from the publishing company's store), and the single (indeed a "Unique Item") copy i found being sold anywhere is at Amazon marketplace (US) and cost a shocking US$ 199.80! i've not checked elsewhere, but perhaps u can order online from the publishers themselves, DERETA.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - what can i say here that has not already been said about this book? if i were to name 2, and only 2 books that are essential reads, this would be one. the other would be Night by Elie Wiesel. after books like this, the rest seem petty, inconsequential, frivolous even.

Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn- a very moving story of life and death, of disease and recovery, of love and discovery. We get a glimpse of the lives of the patients in the male cancer ward, and the medical team, none of whom escaped the long and heavy arm of the Stalin regime and thus have a story to tell. The main character, Kostoglotov is a labor camp survivor and is an "exile in perpetuity", then there is the loyal party member Pavel Nikolayevich; a talented, ambitious young man, a couple of young students, some old Khazaks and Uzbeks, other exiles -- the ward represents a cross-section of Russia who for all they represented in the outside world, were all reduced and made equal by cancer to the same sorry mass of misery.

From the discussions that occur between the characters, we get a picture of Stalinist Russia. They have intense debates about morality, about the role of medicine. Fiercely defended individual positions reveal the tension of class relations. There is, however, a wonderful dynamism in these exchanges, even if some were bitter and felt pointless -- it showed that the damage in their bodies had not touched their minds. In a way, this is symbolic – the cancer in the society brought by the regime could reach and even destroy the body, but never the mind.

This novel was depressing a lot of times, one feels very much for their agony and the seeming hopeless battle against cancer, but we also see strength especially on the part of the doctors, who despite their own personal battles, try to overcome severe resource limitations with great ingenuity and much hard work, becoming themselves symbols of hope and deliverance. Authentic in its portrayal (Solzhenitsyn himself was a patient in a cancer ward, after his release from the camps), Solzhenitsyn doesn't spare us from anything – we feel the daily grind of treatment and care, denial, the shadow of death looming over each bedside, the fear of death, resignation. We feel Kostoglotov's tortured personality, his wonder, curiosity, pig-headedness, and difficulty to accept love, acceptance – sensations he had learned to forget during his long, hard years in the prison camps. The story ends with Kostoglotov's release, but we do not know what is in store for him – we continue to feel his powerlessness -- against a remission, and the uncertainty of the sweeping changes that were taking place after Stalin's death.

Solzhenitsyn speaks with authority because he has been there. His fiction is no fiction at all – they are powerful accounts of true events, of real lives, of the weight of history, and of some unknown source within us of frail but unyielding hope against all odds. There is much cruelty and injustice, but there is also redemption. This is the stuff of truly great literature.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink -- a story about a 15-year old boy's brief, secret and intense affair with a much older woman, which marked him for life. What started out as a purely physical and obsessive daily encounter goes beyond the animal encounter of possession and subjugation and even acquires an element of romance when the boy begins to read literature to her. They do not share anything but these couple of blissful hours everyday, they do not share each other's stories. But the boy is 15, and there were other things in life which started to interest him. Yet he clings to her. Then one day she disappears. Devastation and guilt of his "denial" of her haunt him, and her memory relentlessly follows him.They meet again, many years after, he a student lawyer attending a trial, and she, a defendant. He finds out she was an SS guard, guilty of monstrous deeds.

The story is fascinating and is written in lucid almost unfeeling prose, but i did not find it profound or compelling as many do. There was lack of character development -- one never gets into the skin or the mind of any of them. Also, I would have preferred if the author had explored the "secondary" theme of how the generation of Germans born after the Holocaust "dealt" with the generation of their parents and their collective guilt. There is also some disconnect in the story, such as why the woman would think the "shame" of her being found out to be illiterate justifies her self-destructive behavior. A so-so read for me.

deebee

I think I'll simply have to copy all your recent reads and paste them into my library! Wow! What an incredible selection.

Thanks again for your wonderfully written reviews and for posting such a great list of books.

Thanks for noticing that I reached my goal of 100 books this year...I didn't think anyone read my posts!

Hi TheaMak
I checked your library...It is quite impressive.

I looked for your thread here, TheaMak, but then realized you are over at the 1001 books threads. You should join us in the now or in the new year at our new challenge.

Yes, I agree with blackdogbooks...it would be great to have your join our friendly, well-read and lively group.

>188 Whisper1: Whisper, thanks...i hope u enjoy those books as much as i did.

86. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - a portrayal of the crippling civil war following the secession of the Igbo people to form the independent nation of Biafra in eastern Nigeria in the 1960s.

I bought this book because I was intrigued by the many raves and the recommendations in LT, but i'm afraid i belong to the tiny minority who are lukewarm to the novel, not finding it an exceptional work. The theme is without doubt noteworthy, and we feel the misery, the loss, the brutality of war, but Adichie's approach and treatment of the subject didn't leave much of an impact overall.

I didn't like that the book didn't seem to know what to get at even after 150 pages. It does get a bit better, and picked up much later but only towards the end. We meet the characters often, we see what's happening in their lives, it gives us a semblance of knowing them, but we never get to know them deeply because they do not engage us, we do not see into their psyche. Also, Adichie perhaps in her attempt to depict the "humanness" of the main characters (she calls it "emotional truth") overemphasizes their weakness instead so that they become very irritating -- for example, the characterization of Richard, the white man, as the spineless, needy and sniveling type, is repeated a lot of times that it becomes well, boring. Same thing with Olanna (one of the twin sisters) -- Adichie doesn't seem to have a very clear idea of how to portray her. I also found it disconcerting that the book doesn't give the reader the context, a background of events (historical and political) before the war unleashed -- the anchor is just not there, the reader gropes for an understanding but doesn't find it (in an almost 500-page book at that). Those many meetings by the academics and intellectuals at Odegnibe's house would have been very good venues for the author to provide this necessary background, but Adichie did not explore this -- we know what drinks these people liked, what hobbies they had, we know they made a lot of noise but we never get to know their opinions, their ideologies, their politics -- and they were supposed to represent the core intellectual and revolutionary elite on the verge of momentous events. Somehow it just doesn't connect.

Overall, i felt there was a lot of "noise" in this novel, a hesitation to challenge the reader to think, to reflect, there is plenty of skirting around without touching on a core theme, a lack of focus and depth. And she didn't seem to know how to end the book either...it seems to want to project uncertainty (with Keinene still missing) but is uncertain how to go about it, quite weak i should say. I'm glad I read it though -- it made me want to learn more about Biafra.

>186 deebee1: Deebee. I tried to read Cancer Ward but never got into it, but as I am having a Russian category next year I will put it on my list for a retry. Thanks for your review.

- TT

#195 deebee: I liked Half a Yellow Sun better than you did from the sounds of it, but not as enthusiastically as a lot of other LT readers. I thought there was too much soap opera too it, and would have preferred more info about Biafra.

deebee and alcottacre, I'm one of the people who loved Half of a Yellow Sun and pushed it hard here on LT (some might say ad nauseum), so your comments that there should have been more info about Biafra and the historical context of the war made me think. But it seems to me we can't as readers expect fiction writers to educate us in this way. They write the books they feel compelled to write and it is up to the readers to learn more in other ways if they are so inclined.

For example, I just read Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. A lot of 19th century central European history is alluded to in this book (various wars, economic crises). I could certainly read and enjoy the novel without knowing the details of these events and just as certainly might have gotten more out of the book if I had known more about the background. But I didn't think it was Thomas Mann's job to provide that information to me. I could make the same comment for many other novels, both ones written by US and European authors and ones written by more "foreign" writers.

Maybe in this case it was less of an issue for me because I was already familiar with some of the issues surrounding the war in Biafra. But I felt the book was less about the war and its aftermath than about general human and family issues, as well as the continuing impact of colonialism.

rebecca, thanks for your comments, i understand what you're saying. i haven't read Buddenbrooks so i can't make a comparison, but i would hazard to say that Half of a Yellow Sun does not merely allude to a war or various wars (as you mention there are in Buddenbrooks) -- a war, a very specific war was itself the context, everything in the story derived from the war, so that something very central to a story i think merit a bit more elucidation.

in any case, my enjoyment of a novel is not just from the historical element, whenever it's relevant; most of it i derive from the author's style. but that, of course, is a very personal preference.

#198 rebeccanyc: I understand what you are saying as well. I just would have preferred more info regarding the context of the war, as deebee mentions in her message. But then again that's just me - and as in a ton of cases, fiction will lead me to nonfiction reading on the subject.

87. A Separate Development by Christopher Hope

88. The Yellow Wind by David Grossman

89. The Great Game: The Struggle For Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk

90. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

deebee1
I would like your opinion on book 89, it looks intresting.

FAMeulstee, Jumping in here because I read The Great Game some years ago. It's an older book that was reprinted in the 90s, so it has a little bit of an older, sort of "great adventure" kind of style, but it gives great insight into a lot of what's happening now in Afghanistan, etc. (more of the same, basically).

87. A Separate Development by Christopher Hope - published in 1981, this novel is a brilliant satire set in late 1950s South Africa that is at its heart an indictment of apartheid. No wonder this book was banned in South Africa, and was controversial in many circles. The author, himself, who later won awards for this work and other books, was exiled from SA since 1975.

The story is a "confession" of Harry Moto, a 15-yr old white boy whose main preoccupation was, as befit his age, his fallen arches, hair that was becoming more crinkly by the day, plump breasts, and unusually dark skin. We follow his last days as a "white" person -- as a member of a middle-class family, as a student in a Catholic school, and as a typical teen-ager eager for experience and adventure. His "non-white" features increasingly obvious, more and more get him ridiculed and into very embarrassing situations. Before he could fully grasp it, events overtake him and he is forced to become the unthinkable. He has always known there was something "odd" about him, and so it is without qualm, indeed, it was with great relief and not a little joy, that he "morphed" into invisibility as a coloured individual. As we follow Harry's "descent", we learn, together with him, how it is to be the oppressor, then the oppressed.

I liked very much Hope's intelligent, crisp, unsentimental writing --- the book is very funny, outrageously funny even, it had me laughing off my seat many times, but there is nothing intrinsically funny about the subject matter, that is, Harry's fate and the nature of apartheid. And that is the brilliance of this novel --- he uses to maximum effect ridicule and satire, without ever demeaning into low humor or venturing into moral exhortation, to expose the cruelty and the absurdity of the racial system. And with this device, he gets the message across even more sharply and more effectively.

Hope is one of those breed of authors who write superbly and with incredible acuity and sensitivity, but who aren't a big commercial success because they write about issues that are politically sensitive, even offensive to some. But, for me, all the more reason to search out the works of this lesser-known jewel.

Highly recommended.

>204 deebee1:: Deebee, A Separate Development sounds really interesting. I lived in South Africa in the late 1980's early 1990's and was there around about the time Mandela was released. You say it is set in the 1950's. My recollection is that apartheid was only introduced in the 1960's. Anyway, the story sounds really intriguing.

- TT

hi TT, i just had a quick look at Wikipedia, and (while it's certainly not the last word on any subject) it says that the National Party enforced apartheid between 1948 and 1990. hope u get around to reading the book and enjoying it as much as i did...

>206 deebee1: deebee, I am sure you are right - I remember something happening in the sixties, but can't remember what!

- TT

>207 TheTortoise: TT
I thought the same and again from Wikipedia:
On 31 May 1961, following a whites-only referendum, the country became a republic and left the Commonwealth.

Deebee, Hope's book sounds wonderful! I'll be looking for it soon! Thanks for the recommendation.

hi deebee, and thanks for the review of Cancer Ward - I'm convinced! Did you enjoy The Uncommon Reader? That's one that I'm hoping to pick up when I go back to the UK for Christmas. (You're always a step ahead of me!)

rachel, surely Solzehnitsyn doesn't need help, least of all from a lowly reader like me :-) The Uncommon Reader was a delightful little read, and amusing too. made me wonder what in real life she actually reads for leisure!

>211 deebee1: deebee: State Papers!

- TT

oh what bliss it is to be a common reader...!

>213 deebee1: deebee, I agree. I have toyed with the idea of writiing a book, but then I think "Would I rather spend a year writing one book or reading 100 books!. So I am a reader not a writer!

- TT

TT, one year??? what about time spent for research on the material pre-writing, and then the, i suppose, dreaded part of finding a publisher, editing, etc etc? don't those stages count too in the way of disrupting your reading time? and we're not even talking about what a drag on ur time it will be once it hits the stores and, horror of horrors, becomes a bestseller? hasn't it occurred to u that u might just hit it big, and by then, your time is no longer yours? just imagine how much reading time u would have lost by then --- by your measure, i would already have knocked off at least 300 books from my TBR stack, between your moment of inspiration and the latest translation of that bestseller! (just to be clear, we're not using alcottacre's reading rate as a standard here)

91. The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa

92. Granta 21Storyteller

mini-reviews for books 88-92 to follow...

> 213 deebee. I hadn't thought of the dreadful of horror of actually having to do the book tour! I shall never write another word! (Except reviews of all the wonderful books I shall read instead!)

- TT

d

The Yellow Wind by David Grossman -- a very compelling, insightful, and frank depiction of the human face of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Written 2 decades ago as part of a reporting assignment, this collection of articles is based on a 7-week encounter of the author with the Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Grossman listens to their stories, asks penetrating and oftentimes uncomfortable questions about the occupation, tries to understand where they are coming from and what dreams they may have. He visits homes, kindergartens, universities, a radical Zionist settlement, and observes, probes, reflects without passing judgment. Together with him, we witness the pain and humiliation of dispossession, the bitter anger against the occupiers, the deep mistrust of each other, the intransigence of positions. We see his struggle with his inadequacy to make sense of the seemingly unending cycle of violence and fear, and we too feel a sense of futility. In a kindergarten, 2-3 yr old boys point make-believe guns and shoot him because he is a Jew. In a meeting with Israeli "terrorists" or extreme right members, he asks if they can imagine being in the Palestinian's shoes, and is told off saying this is a question they never ask.

This book earned international acclaim but, not surprisingly, was controversial at home. Grossman came out of this experience with the message that the occupation of one people by another degrades the moral and political life of both the occupier and the occupied. And this message would underlie what Grossman would later become, an outspoken peace activist.

Written 20 years ago, the actors might be different, but the message has not changed, and the questions remain. Essential reading for those who would like to understand even just a bit of this complex issue, from the perspective of those who actually live there.

>219 deebee1: deebee: Excellent review of The Yellow Wind. I was reading in What's So Amazing about Grace? (see my thread) that the only way to break the cycle of violence is to "forgive". Of course, that isn't going to happen anytime soon in Palestine, because their positions are so entrenched and the hostilities go back millenia. So the cycle of violence will unfortunately continue until both sides experience a personal sense of forgiveness that will enable them to forgive their enemies, resolve their conflicts and work out an equitable peace.

May that day soon come!

- TT

deebee, you do write such great reviews. I'm definitely going to pick up The Yellow Wind in 2009 if I can - my employers have a lot to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it sounds like it would be a very useful education. Thanks.

> 220 TT, thanks. i agree with u about forgiveness being the key. but then it's easy for us to say this, being outsiders, being mere observers. both sides are not innocent, both feel a great injustice done to them by history, both claim the same strip of land, both feel each one's claim is the rightful one. i read just the other day an interview by NY Times with Ehud Olmert last Sept., practically denouncing longstanding policy about the West Bank and Israeli defense doctrine, calling for a pullout there and in East Jerusalem, towards a peace settlement with the Palestinians. very interesting development, this complete turnaround by a right-wing leader, though he has been making such intimations the past year. but of course, he is leaving government soon, so we have no way to know how this will affect policy. here's a link u might be interested to check out

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/world/middleeast/30olmert.html?ref=todayspaper

>221 FlossieT: Flossie, thanks, it's not a "painless" business for me, this writing of reviews :-) -- but i found it to be a good way to gauge my reaction to what i've read, and to consolidate my thoughts...it has also helped me retain more of the book's substance longer than i would have without this exercise. this was my first Grossman --- but i learned that he writes very good fiction, too --- that would be interesting to explore as well. also, to help update your "education", the link above might be useful.

>222 deebee1: Thanks for the link deebee. I agree with your summary that under the present conditions "forgiveness" is practically an impossible concept for either side to grasp. Real "peace" is not just the cessation of hostilities but a state of mind which is foreign to either side at this present time.

It needs "a strong hand from someplace" to bring that about. I think that is a quote from Churchill.

- TT

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk - the original Cold War, this is a historical account of the game played Britain and Russia from the late 18th to the early 20th century, for supremacy of Central Asia. On the British side, at stake was the security of its source of wealth, India. On the Russian side, it was ostensibly new markets for its goods, but was actually a consolidation and expansion of empire.

It is an extraordinary tale of adventure, great daring, intrigue, and warfare. Needing to secure India from the Russian threat by surrounding itself with friendly neighbors, with Afghan kingdoms and tribes on the west, and on the north across the mountain passes, Sikh as well as other local chiefdoms, Britain decided to adopt a low-key forward policy. Written from the point of view of the British, Hopkirk introduces us to some very interesting individuals, exemplary in their bravery (and sometimes necessarily, bravado) who took up the challenge of the unexplored territory and of the unknown. We travel with these men, and with countless of their Indian subjects, across some of the most hostile environments in the world even in the coldest of winter – the vast expanse of the steppes, the deserts, the highest and practically impassable mountain peaks, home to warring and some of the most fearsome tribes of Central Asia. They map out regions and impenetrable mountain passes, identifying pockets of areas the enemy could use in a possible invasion. They strike up relations with local chiefs, buying their loyalties with expensive gifts, gold, and money, and promises of military support against their enemies, and against Russia. With these men, we are awed by the splendor of the ancient cities of what we know today as Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran, cities along the ancient Silk Road such as Bokhara, Samarkand, glimpses of which we still see today (unfortunately not anymore of Kabul). Many of these men would lose their lives in heroic ways, and many bloody battles fought because of treachery mostly on the part of the local tribes (we have to keep in mind though that this is a one-sided assessment, as the records are mainly from the British side) who, aware of their strategic value to either parties, were not above playing off Russia and Britain against each other with their loyalties. We are also given a picture of the directions and the lapses in the imperialist policies advocated by Britain in this region.

Hopkirk writes in a very engaging way, and much happens that are stuff of imagination so that we almost forget that this is not a work of fiction. The Great Game “officially” ended a century ago, the main players never reached an actual war although they came dangerously close a few times. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan, however, many decades later in 1979, simply went to show that those in the British imperial government at the time of the Great Game were correct in their belief that one day the Russians would come (for another reason this time, of course, but the evidence is there that they still had an interest).

An interesting, highly readable book that helps us understand a bit of the history of the region which today holds the most intractable of military and political challenges.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett - a delightful and funny little book about Her Majesty's discovery of the joy of reading...and evolving addiction to books so much so that the people around her begin to think that she was starting to neglect her queenly duties. those printed things had to go or it will be the ruin of them all! for an entertaining one hour, go read this novella.

The Great Game sounds really, really good DB. Onto the wishlist it goes.

I think it's interesting how many people here have recently read The Great Game considering it's about 15 years old. It's been on my TBR list for ages so I guess I should move it up.

93. The Time of Light by Gunnar Kopperud

94. Hunger by Knut Hamsun

95. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

96. Granta's The Anthology of New Writing No. 15

97. The Native Commissioner by Shaun Johnson

98. The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Claus

I have been looking for a copy of Hunger at all my haunts with no success. A friend loaned me a copy of The Growth of the Soil, which I really enjoyed. Did you like Hunger?

BDB, i liked it very much, i hope u succeed in finding a copy soon. my thoughts on it and books #91-94 to follow...

Hunger is a wild and crazy book isn't it? The delirium is really vivid and in-your-face; Hamsun's writing is so fresh. Check out Mysteries by the same author, which describes a similar kind of dislocated reality but in a more dispassionate style and with the outright magic elements more prominent.

yarb, i so agree with u...it's easy to see why the book is considered a landmark in modernist writing. thanks for the recommendation, will definitely check out Mysteries.

The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa - a delightful poetic book, and told by a witty, though rather unusual narrator, a gecko.

Set in Angola just after the civil war, the story unfolds in vignettes, seemingly unrelated at first -- recollections of his life now as a gecko and of his past as a man, his dreams, and observations of what goes on in the home of an albino, Felix, where he also lives (on the wall somewhere behind the bookshelves). Felix earns his living as a fabricator of pasts (the Portuguese title translates into Seller of Pasts) --- he is sought after, mainly by petty and ambitious politicians and newly successful businessmen, who think it necessary to be descended from aristocratic or venerable lineage. One day, a photojournalist comes and demands a fictitious lineage. Events unfold so that we see imaginary history enter into a collision course with present reality that has its roots in an enigmatic past, and without meaning to Felix enters the tableau he created and fact and fiction come together, and we are met with a rather unexpected climax.

It is with a delicate and clever touch that Agualusa, who won the Independent's Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007 for this, dealt with the themes of ambiguity of identity, and mutability of truth in this dream-like narrative.

Granta 21: The Storyteller - a very interesting collection of stories by some of today's best storytellers - Isabel Allende, Patrick Süskind, Raymond Carver, Oliver Sacks, Ryszard Kapuscinski. Also some letters by Václac Havel when he was in prison, and writing by Primo Levi. Perhaps the best issue i've read so far.

The Time of Light by Gunnar Kopperud - powerful, deeply moving and superbly written, this novel is a reflection on war, exile, and redemption. Is it possible to atone for war? This is the question that Kopperud attempts to answer in this thought-provoking novel.

Framed by the nine-day Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994, a former German soldier, Markus, now living in exile in the region, revisits his haunted past by recounting his story to an Armenian priest. While they speak, the present war unfolds its own atrocities triggering in Markus memories of his own horrific deeds 50 years ago during the Battle of Stalingrad. Tormented by guilt all this time, he seeks atonement for his actions.

Their conversation (confession on his part) transports us to the time before he is drafted into the German army, to his military service, up to his capture by the Russians. We meet him with his 2 friends, also drafted into service, and witness the depths bereft of moral code to which they easily descended in the name of obedience to a cause they would later realize to be a lie. As they neared Stalingrad, they looted, raped, pillaged, as barbaric as any marauding army. Kopperud describes in vivid, almost cinematic, unforgettable detail the hunting down of partisans and extermination of villages sympathetic to the enemy. Later, in their captivity, the soldiers begin to think about what brought them here, ask themselves questions nobody had the answer to, until finally they are forced to confront the futility of war, and their broken selves. Upon their release, in their own individual ways, they try to make amends, try to make things right, try to relieve their conscience, to make sense of their lives again. In references throughout the novel made about the question of Jews and the role of the Catholic Church during the war, and Palestine today, the themes of guilt and atonement likewise recurs.

Unlike most WWII novels which focus on victims of war, here the involvement in war is told from the invaders/perpetrators point of view, specifically from the point of view of ordinary soldiers who made up the most hated and feared of armies then. We realize that war exacts its toll on both the victim and the perpetrator. And in the end, what exactly is attained by war?

This book surely ranks among my best reads in war fiction. Highly recommended.

deebee, The book sounds fascinating. I've read about the siege of Stalingrad from the Russian perspective (albeit with some sections on the Germans) in the amazing Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman, so it would be interesting to see it, as you point out, from the other perspective - as well as all the other themes.

rebecca, i'm sure Life and Fate is an impressive account and i look forward to reading it (it's actually on my 2009 TBR list). In contrast to this autobiographical work, The Time of Light was written by a Norwegian who had nothing to do with the war, although he is able to portray the destruction and the guilt element with such force, obviously influenced by his being a journalist and philosopher. For me, the story recalled the theme of The Reader by Bernard Schlink which i read recently, about atonement from the perspective of the perpetrator (in that case, the ex-Nazi guard).

Yes, I think that should make it quite interesting and I look forward to reading it. However, although there are autobiographical elements in Life and Fate, most of it is extremely insightful fiction, although based on historical events. (Vassily Grossman was a reporter during much of the war, and some of his journalism is collected in A Writer at War; this, I believe, is what enabled him to put so much telling and realistic detail into his fiction.)

Message #235
Thank you deebee! Now I know what to get my husband for Christmas. He is an avid reader of anything having to do with WWII. Your description of this book sounds like something we would very much like to read.

#235: Definitely going on Continent TBR! Thanks for both the review and the recommendation, deebee.

Hunger by Knut Hamsun - I approached this influential work with high expectations, and i was not disappointed.

The novel is raw, stark, spare -- the effect is visceral. It is psychological realism at its best. We follow a short phase in the life of an impoverished but talented young writer in the streets of Christiana (Oslo) in the late 19th century, who is reduced by his condition to borderline madness. Indeed it seemed that his flashes of brilliance are occasioned by extreme starvation when delirium brings on inspiration and creativity. We witness his misadventures at finding work or something to eat, his humorous encounters with some characters, his sometimes infuriatingly schizophrenic behavior, his spinning of a small world around him rushing from heights of ecstatic revelry and hope to pityingly low depths of self-pity and mockery, and back, always in a mad dash. His is a complex character -- irritatingly self-possessed and proud but also generous to a fault, literally giving away the last shirt on his back. In an unforgettable passage, he challenges God for the injustice of withholding opportunities from a toiling, hardworking, and well-intentioned person as he. We feel his isolation, his torment, self-deception, his caprices, his small joys, his passions, his dignity. He is a man destined to write, and he lives because he writes.

With such themes, the novel could easily have been dark and depressing, but it is not. There is plenty of comic relief and the mood is exhilarating, fast-paced, rebellious. The character reminded me of Dostoevky's Raskolnikov but without the drama.

Definitely a must-read.

>241 deebee1: Deebee: Excellent review - one to look out for.

- TT

Wow! Another one for my TBR list. Thanks, deebee!

Hunger has been on Continent TBR for a while now. I am definitely going to have to look for it.

deebee.
I'm added quite a few of your recommendations to be tbr pile during 2008. I'll end the year by adding yet another. ... on to the pile goes Hunger

All good wishes for a blessed 2009!

Whisper, i'm happy to have contributed to your pile...

All the best, too, to you for the coming year! May it be book-filled, if possible, even more than this year was!

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie – brilliant, extraordinary, Rushdie is a storyteller par excellence and he truly dazzles in this epic tale.

The novel begins at the stroke of midnight 15 Aug 1947, we are in Bombay and witness to the birth of one Saleem Sinai which coincides with the exact moment of India's independence from British colonial rule and the creation of the new state, Pakistan. Within that magical hour of midnight a thousand other children were born. Gifted with extrasensory powers, they are midnight's children, and as destined, their fate will be intertwined with that of their country. Sinai's own gift is his oft-ridiculed ugly nose through which he can “smell”his way into other people's thoughts. This is how he learns about many things including certain dark secrets such as the realization that he was not who he thought he was.

Sinai here, is a storyteller and from him, we travel across time, from his grandparents' romance up to his own 31st birthday, and across India and Pakistan during this tumultous and exhilarating infancy phase of the two nations. We are carried away in a hallucinatory and dizzying fashion into the midst of great events and conflicts, into the minute but never boring details of people's lives --- his own family's, his neighbors, into the minds of politicians and millitary leaders, into the enlightened conferences he holds mentally with the other magical children, into his roller-coaster incredible life when he leaves for Pakistan and later, on his return to India. Rushdie's prose is vivid and intensely sensory, with a stark humor that is underlined with sensitivity, and throughout, characterized by rich metaphor and an extreme and superb playfulness with words and expression which only the best of writers dare or are able to do.

This book is a grand celebration, an indictment, a history, a biography, a metaphor, a literary tour de force. Rushdie, in this tale, brings magico-realism, as well as non-linear narration to another level. Either you will love this book or hate it, and intensely either way. I loved this book even better than One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I thought was difficult to top when I read it two decades (!) ago. Why I waited this long to read this book, I honestly don't know.

Highly recommended!

Midnight's Children has been on Continent TBR for a century now, since my local library does not have it. I am obviously going to have to go further afield for it. Thanks for the wonderful review!

> 248 really??? any self-respecting public library should have at least one copy of this book! i wonder if ur library is open to suggestions from regular (and ardent) borrowers for new acquisitions? u can sweetly tell them u love what they have but u notice there is a big gap...and will they kindly....

good luck, anyway, wherever afield you need to go to grab a copy...

best wishes for 2009, and i wish you another book-filled year!

I picked up Midnight's Children while on vacation and put it down after five pages. It just wasn't grabbing my attention and I had soooo many other books lying around. I guess I should give it another try.

> Tad, if you have not tried Rushdie before, perhaps MC will be a trifle offputting for a first novel --- his writing style which is replete with verbal gymnastics and is non-linear as it can get, requires some effort at the start, but once you've gotten the hang of it, it becomes seamless and before u know it, u will be skating away. as an alternative read, may i suggest one of his smaller, but well-loved, works Haroun and the Sea of Stories for a more manageable theme and scale.

>251 deebee1:: Thanks, deebee1. Maybe I'll try that first.

Granta's The Anthology of New Writing Vol. 15 - published in 2007, a collection of short stories, essays and poetry by mostly new writers but also includes more notable ones such as Anita Desai, Dorris Lessing. Themes and settings vary, ranging from why women wear veils to how a writer imagines himself inside two very different fictional beings, from gay clubs to British bookshops, from Israel to South Africa. Easily the most disturbing, thus unforgettable, work is Selma Dabbagh's controversial story Down the Market, about a brutal dawn market raid carried out by Israeli extremists on a Palestinian settlement seen through the eyes of a disaffected teenage Jew visiting from America. There's also a hilarious story in letter form called Dear Dear Leader by Tod Hartman, a chain of correspondences between a big fan of North Korea's Kim Jong-Il based in England, and the Dear Leader himself. In my view, a worthy collection.

That sounds excellent. I'll have to hunt that one down in 2009.

Edit: deebee1, the touchstone didn't come out on your post. Is this it?

Tad, yes, that's the one.

#251 deebee: My library does have Haroun, so I am going to do as Tad, and start with that one while I track down the other. Thanks!

The Native Commissioner by Shaun Johnson - this is the touching story of an English born civil servant who served as Native Commissioner in many parts of South Africa for many years from the 1930s to the 1960s. Dedicated and conscientious to a fault, George Jameson, is also an expert in the local languages, the history and culture of the tribes of the region. More and more, this kind, quiet, and sensitive man, despite himself and his sympathy and convictions about the eminent rights of the black people, finds himself inadvertently drawn as a pawn into the politics of the new government, indeed efficiently carrying out even against all his principles, the policy of apartheid. On the surface, he remains a highly competent and good civil servant, but unbeknownst to all, including his own family, he goes through a long and deep struggle about his role in the instruments of apartheid, and his inability to assert his convictions. We only know about this intense phase, his doubts, his fears, his anger, his frustration, his moods, his depression, 40 years after his death from thousands of documents and records he meticulously kept in a box all those years. The narrator is his son, himself trying to fight his demons, who goes through the stuff and it is both painful and liberating for him to piece together parts of the story of an affectionate father he barely knew.

This novel feels so true, so real, and speaks to the heart perhaps because it is partly based on the author's own story, and there is no attempt at embellishment. There are no extraordinary characters, no very exciting events, no fireworks, no clever dialogues so that the narrative seems dry at times, but the story draws us in deeply to the life of this troubled family, and what we do not forget is how the system in an unobtrusive but certain and lingering way, destroyed an honest man's ideals of good and fair governance for both white and blacks. In the end, he paid tragically for his inability to accept and make sense of this changing order.

Johnson is a well-known journalist and a leading figure in South Africa's media, and this novel, his first, won several awards. He now heads the Nelson Mandela foundation. I recommend this book to those who have an interest in looking at the issue of apartheid from somebody who was a necessary but reluctant cog in the wheel.

my 98th and last book for the year...

The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Claus - regarded as a masterpiece of 20th century Dutch literature, this is a panoramic novel of life in wartime Flanders. It is a scathing, moving, at the same time humorous portrayal of a Flemish community, primarily of the family of a young boy, Louis Seynaeve, as war approaches, as the Germans invaded and occupied Belgium, as the Allies arrived, and as they try to put back together again pieces of their broken lives.

It is also a coming-of-age story where we see Louis in the first part of the story, spending his last days in the sheltered world of a convent school and being transported into the chaos of the rapidly disintegrating world outside as the enemies arrived. Beliefs, political and religious, loyalties, friendships, family bonds are severely tested as war raged where each defended his own or claimed something else, whichever gave a better chance to survive. Danger and much confusion abounded as accusing fingers pointed to collaborators, to nationalists, depending which side people thought were winning. Interestingly, we see the tension between the Flemish and the French cultural and linguistic traditions surfacing in every aspect of the people's lives the entire time that we start to somehow understand the ambiguity that still characterizes and divides Belgium today.

The narrative is told mainly through dialogues and conversations, and through Louis's imagination and musings. It is very witty and poetic, full of unforgettable characters trying to cope with the destruction in their little, miserable, sometimes pathetic or even poignant ways. There is pain, betrayal, horror and death, but the story never becomes sentimental or dark. Remarkably, there is plenty of comic relief even in the bleakest of situations. It seems sorrow masquerades as humor.

An immensely enjoyable read -- i highly recommend this book.

just a rough summary to close this 2008 challenge thread...

Books read: 98 of which
- fiction, 72
- non-fiction, 26

By country of origin of author: 31 countries in total (fiction and memoirs only) the most number of which are from

- Japan, 8 books
- Russia and UK, 7 each
- US, 6
- Hungary, Italy, and Croatia, 4 each
- South Africa, Colombia, Serbia, 3 each

Translated from other languages into English: 57 books

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Here's wishing one and all a new and another book-filled year!

The Native Commissioner sounds excellent--I love books about the fallout of colonialism.

What an exceptional reading year, deebee!

Hi deebee,
I am brand new to this site -- stumbled in after Googling Tales of the Alhambra (I don't even remember why I was doing that). Looked through your entire 2008 -- what a great list. I, too, was enchanted by Irving's "Tales." Wanted to mention that, since you recently read Great Expectations, I think you would enjoy a book I read last year called Mr. Pip. Anyway, thanks for some great reading suggestions. I'm going to pick up some Chekov and Maupassant right away!