Book Reviews

In another time I would never have heard of Daoud Hari, but he likely would be known in his own village as an educated man who knows many stories from other lands. It isn't another time, though, and Hari's book, The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur, is in my hands. What I find remarkable, beautifully so, is that Hari is a friendly, kind, gentle and loving man. The tribesman, potential tribal elder (looked up to, if not officially a leader) comes shining through. It is the saddest (a woefully insufficient word) thing that none of this is what Hari wants to show. The story he must tell, what makes him so remarkable to me, is painful and devastating (more insufficient words).

Hari has seen things no one should have to see, heard stories no one should have to hear, much less endure. He is from Darfur, a part of Sudan, where the "powers that be" are trying to eradicate those who have lived there for generations. He has seen his own village, and many others, wiped out. He has lost family members and friends

Hari is representative of his people. He is the way he was taught to be. His gentleness and faith in people are part of his culture. In The Translator, Hari gives us a glimpse of this culture and his youth. Then he tells the story of how he became, and his experiences as, a translator, mainly for journalists covering Darfur. The stories themselves made me want to put down this book. What is happening there is beyond horrible, but Hari's gentleness, his ability to find humor in the darkest situation, without belittling or destroying the genuine pathos of that situation, is what kept me reading.

Two lines in particular struck me. This first was in Chapter 10 Sticks for Shade: When noting the limited and often inappropriate aid the people of Darfur are receiving he stated "Perhaps the wealthy nations had finally blown themselves away and were no longer available to send their token remedies for the problems that their thirst for resources has always brought to such people as these." (pp. 73-74) A kind, gentle man, yes, but not blind or ignorant of the world. The second was something to think about. "The proof of a democracy is surely whether or not a government represents the hearts of its people." (p 85)

Where do we stand? Can we, as humans, afford to lose a people whose sense of hospitality interferes with their ability to torture others?

I knew something bad was happening in Darfur. I didn't really know what. It is far away and doesn't affect me personally. Daoud Hari has told me what is happening and made it personal.

I was expecting Red Zone Blues, by Pepe Escobar, to be something like a dry political discussion and found instead the, often conflicting, heart of the people. This book reads to me like Escobar's notes as he traveled. It has a choppy unconnected feel to it. There are some sloppy grammatical errors. I could nitpick the writing, but find any flaws are minor and outweighed by the content.*

Many might find the author to be anti-American, but, whether or not he is, he nonetheless provides an accurate picture of how America is seen by Iraqis. This is the value of the book. It should be required reading for all Americans. If Americans refuse to look at how others see us and/or demand they see us as we see ourselves, we are doomed. While we should not compromise on who and what we are, knowing how others see us should help us to make sure our actions are in line with who we really are (and hopefully not point out that we aren't who we think we are).

*This was an advanced reading copy, which is not the final, edited copy, something I was not aware of when I first began doing these reviews.

The Sex Club, by L. J. Sellers, starts out with a sense that it's going to be preachy about pro choice, but it doesn't take long for it become a very compelling mystery. Detective Wade Jackson is a thoroughly real and likable guy. [In my mind he appeared as Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman from Heroes).] Wade, Kera and the policemen were all likable characters. Even the Mayor had something likable about him. The mystery was complicated enough to keep me interested and, although I had an idea, I didn't solve it before it was revealed. Sellers has an easy reading style that kept the story moving.

The only part of the story that bothered me, though it may not bother everyone, was the depiction of the Christian characters. Most of them seemed one sided and I don't recall any but the victims being given a likable trait. Sellers needs the kind of character she painted to tell her story, but I wish she had also shown that there are some fundamental Christians who are caring and forgiving, and not merely of their brethren. The stereotypes do exist or there wouldn't be stereotypes, but not everyone is a stereotype in the reality of my experience.

I liked Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell. Agnes Shanklin is as real as any living, breathing person I've met.

The plot of the story is simple. Agnes, an "old maid" (this is about 1921) schoolteacher, takes a trip to Egypt after recovering from the war and the influenza epidemic of 1919. While there, she meets some of the famous statesmen and military men who were "solving" the middle east problem. She also falls in love while there.

The plot is not what held my interest. As Agnes tells her story, you know that she lived through what she is telling. Reading it, I sensed that some of the gaps in my knowledge of the period were being filled without the drudgery of history lectures. I found myself fascinated by a topic that had not particularly interested me before.

I was delighted to read in the acknowledgments at the end, that Ms. Russell had done her homework and invented only Agnes's story. Where it crossed the well known individuals, she kept them true to reality.

While I didn't hate it, I felt the final chapter was added on to express some opinions of the author that didn't naturally fit into the story. The naturalness, and reality, that I loved about the rest of the book fell away here. Though Russell gave hints early on, it just didn't work for me. Nonetheless, the book was a good read and I would recommend it to anyone interested in love stories and/or the early twentieth century.

What a disappointment! I must have missed something in all the hype about it when it came out. I knew what the premise of the book was. The disappointment is that there is nothing beyond the premise that I can see.

McMillan writes in a very conversational, run-on sentence way. At first this annoyed me, but as I continued to read, I began to appreciate it. It drew me in and created the familiarity I needed to finish the book

McMillan creates good characters. By the end of the book you feel like you know these people, and generally like them. That's a good thing. My favorite character was Stella's son Quincy. There was no one to hate in this novel.

The books fulfills the requirement that a character must change. Stella has changed quite a bit by the end of the book. The whole book is about her obsessing about whether or not she should be falling for Winston, who's half her age. If you like romances and very light reading, I guess it works. I found it boring.

I take it back. There is a little more to it. McMillan also briefly talks about women taking charge of their lives, giving up the "role" they've made for themselves for practical reasons. Had she developed this more, it could have been more interesting. But McMillan doesn't really develop this aspect. Stella was an investment analyst and learned from the job and a mentor, and she was very comfortable financially. She could afford time to figure out where her heart was professionally as well as romantically.

The best part of the book for me was when she first arrives in Jamaica (maybe the second day) and is going through the books she took with her, trying to decide what to read. She comments on all of them -- including Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale.

On a five point scale I'd give it a three. It's ok, but I didn't find anything to think about, really.

If you don't mind a sometimes difficult, quirky (and sometimes annoyingly so) book that will make you think, this might be it.

The Fabric of Life

This book is not for someone looking for light escape fiction. It exposes the everyday reality of life with it's lack of connections and unpredictability while at the same time showing the threads that connect all of us just because we're human. We see how each of us lives in our own world, affected by the world outside and things we can't control, never really knowing what we think we know about someone else and his world.

Ian Odamench sees Reuven as a potential messiah. Some of the women who work with Reuven's mom think he's special, too. Reuven just wants his mom to get well. He's looking for a savior for his dying mom, Eileen. He thinks Jonah is who he is looking for. Jonah has gone through life only barely aware of how he has affected others. Though once part of Eileen's life, he's just looking to get through each day.

For all the connections of the main characters, all the lesser characters have their impact too. No one has a truly minor role. Sometimes it's the character the walk-on role who provides the most significant catalyst. These characters are real whether or not they live on your patch of the fabric of life. This book can be startling, annoying or difficult but ultimately, it reveals the true pattern of the whole.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is nothing I expected it to be. I thought it would be an out and out horror story. I didn't expect to like it and I didn't really, but for totally different reasons. I can't exactly put my finger on any one reason why. I found it annoying right from the start. The constant word games became tiresome. Both Luke and Theo seemed rather cold to me. Dr. Montague was practically a non-entity. I never really cared about any of the characters. At the end, I can see that since it was mainly from Eleanor's point of view, that the disassociation makes sense, but as a reader I felt cheated.

That's one of the things I didn't like. It didn't start out from her point of view. It was the omnipotent narrator, at first, then we get pulled into her POV and never really get out. Considering where the story went, it should have been 100% her POV, in my opinion. It would have been stronger/clearer.

I don't know... I don't get that the author was trying to say anything with this, other than tell the story. I didn't know what was going on half the time. Maybe Jackson wanted the reader to be confused. I certainly was. Even within the framework of the story, some things still don't make sense to me.... like the problem with Theo's clothes. What was the point of that? What was wrong with the Dudleys? They seemed so wooden or robotic. I can see why they wouldn't want to spend time in a haunted house, but why so unfriendly? And then abruptly with Mrs. Montague, Mrs Dudley seemed more human than she had to anyone else. I don't see any point in that. Why did the cold spot go away for Mrs. Montague? I don't see where these things served the story. Everything in a story should mean something or serve to move the story along. None of these do either, that I can see.

Mrs. Montague's arrival served no purpose for me. If anything had actually been scary, maybe it would have served as a bit of comic relief, but as it is, she and Arthur were just more stereotype characters in a stereotype cast... Just that one teensy hint of reality with Mrs Dudley.

I find the premise that the house itself was insane to be somewhat ludicrous. I think houses can have human properties, but the house itself is an inanimate thing, so those properties must be reflections or echoes of the people who lived there -- or actual ghosts, if such exist. I don't think the house is what drove Eleanor over the edge (no pun intended). She was already beginning to lose it before she ever left her sister's and she felt that guilt about her mother's death. The situation probably had a strong hand in her madness. Everything was so superficial, but it's hard to say what was part of the story and where the story simply failed. In any case, nothing in the story, from beginning to end, made me believe the house was mad.

Maybe it was because it was from her POV, but no one seemed real to me. Everyone, even Eleanor, seemed to be a cardboard cutout stereotype. Eleanor was the most rounded character and she was still flat. The situations didn't seem real. The book was written in 1959, so I don't expect today's sensibilities, but it felt very Victorian and or/1930's most of the time. One of the caveats I hear all the time, as a writer, is "show, don't tell." I don't feel Jackson really did this, despite all the description. The phrase doesn't mean description, but rather drawing the reader into the world of the story. I didn't feel anything as I read. I wasn't drawn in.

I just finished reading To Kill A Mockingbird before getting to this book. It's possible that it was just the difference between the books that made this one so flat to me, but I don't think so. I often go from one kind of book to something very different without this sense of being cheated. In TKAM I was drawn in so much so that I thought about the story between readings. I was there. I was then. I knew the people. With HHH I never thought about it between readings, was hardly ever in the house and didn't know or care to know anyone there. I was always on the outside, slightly irritated with the sense that she was trying to create a mood and not doing it.

I finished the book because I hoped there would be some really interesting twist at the end to make up for the boring beginning. It didn't happen. Had it been any longer, I'm not sure I would have bothered finishing.

Elizabeth Donald's collection of short stories rather deliciously makes a point against the adage that shining a light on our fears makes them go away.

What I liked (??) about this collection is that some of the stories ["Gauntlet," "Memoir," and "Our Turn" from her first (unpublished) novel, Sanctuary] touched the fears hidden within my own soul. Growing up when I did (early cold war), I have a latent fear of the "enemy" attacking. The enemy in these stories is as unknown as the one I feared as a child, and perhaps more worthy of fear. The fear is the same, though not as buried.

Another story that I particularly liked was "Symphony of the Woods." The young heroine of this story has a lovely ability that is apparently both her burden and her salvation.

"Wonderland" takes a look, with a classic science fiction stance, at the fear many have of any new technology -- even some of us who embrace it.

Each of these fifteen stories held my attention and even compelled me to continue. I appreciated the diversity of stories -- from present day psychological tensions to futuristic science fiction, with a dash of fantasy, and not a little adventure.

I finished Hyperspace by Michio Kaku today. My mind is kind of swimming in it all and not focusing on any one idea presented.

I can't speak to the accuracy of the science. He's my teacher, not my peer or my student. It doesn't sound crazy, so I believe he is accurately depicting the state of physics as of the time the book was written.

The first time I read about superstrings, I thought it was a wonderful theory. It just "clicks" for me. This may have something to do with Kaku's ability to write clearly. I think it was in his book, Beyond Einstein where I first heard of the theory.

I'm more a metaphysicist than a physicist. (Not that I'm actually either.) I'm always trying to relate physics and religion and philosophy (and psychology and everything else!). A lot of that can be done with superstrings. Kaku addresses some of it. Scientists dismiss some things because they can't be repeated experimentally. Those are often the kinds of things I like to think about.

Some people in the past used the theory of multiple dimensions to explain where heaven was. Until and unless we find that particular dimension, of course the scientists will question it. It's their job (and nature) to question everything. But from the metaphysical point of view, it a very good thing to think about.... even if we don't get the right answer. If we have beliefs, they will definitely influence our conclusions.

This book feeds thoughts like this. Lots of "What if?" ideas come to me, too. I don't know the strict science or the math necessary, but I can think. I believe I have some powers of reasoning. A book like this also helps me keep on track because it tells of the paths that didn't work, the theories that didn't stand up to the experimentation, didn't fit the real world.

I wonder if I'm merely a child of my generation, one which has always seen rapid discovery and changes, or if I'm just one of the wild eyed dreamers of the world.

I like the idea of ten dimensions. I like the idea that those six extra dimensions, which are now curled up to Planck size (tiny!) may possibly, in the very distant future, provide the means of human survival. Assuming, of course, that we survive long enough to discover how to use them. I also like the idea that everything will come together one day and prove all to be inter-related.

This is the book one of my very favorite movies is based on. I was looking for a rich text that the movie implies to me. I didn't find it. Lee's writing style is very simple, even a bit more "telling" than I like.*

Nonetheless, I found the book enjoyable. It is enough the same as the movie see what she doesn't describe. I also like the ending better than the movie's ending. The ending in the movie is perhaps more dramatic, but in the book the ending is more real.

*It is possible that it is the translation that is flat, rather than Lee's style.