Reviews | Fizzy Thoughts

A Small Place

11 March 2010

a small place

A Small Place
Jamaica Kincaid
1988
81 pages

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FTC disclosure: I bought this one from Powells. I lurve Powells. Except maybe you could talk to them about their slow shipping? It’s agony waiting for an order!

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The Antigua that I knew, the Antigua in which I grew up, is not the Antigua you, a tourist, would see now. That Antigua no longer exists. That Antigua no longer exists partly for the usual reason, the passing of time, and partly because the bad-minded people who used to rule over it, the English, no longer do so. p. 23

I’m not quite sure what to make of this book, which is a collection of essays about the post-colonial state of Antigua. Kincaid is angry, rightly so, but she also seems to take it a little far, stereotyping all English as “bad-minded” and “pitiful” and “miserable.” She is also critical of the post-colonial Antiguan government, with its inefficiency and corruptness.

There’s an interesting Mother Jones interview with Kincaid, in which she talks about how she seeks the truth over positivity. She says “I think life is difficult and that is that” and that she is not interested in the pursuit of happiness. Which I find incredibly depressing. But then at the end of the article she admits to being very lucky, so now I don’t know how to reconcile that with all the anger and negativity in both her book and the interview. And with the fact that she was sent to New York to be an au pair and send money back home, but once in New York she cut off ties with her family, didn’t send money home, and pursued her own life. Which is totally her right, but also sounds a bit like the pursuit of happiness to me.

Anyways, I’m not saying that we should all keep our head in the sand and ignore the bad things. I don’t think that at all. And I know that not everyone has the luxury to pursue happiness. But I just get the impression she completely poo-poo’s it, along with American attitudes, and I just can’t go that far. Either that, or she’s just feeding us a line. What do you think?

All the Living

10 March 2010

all the living

All the Living
C.E. Morgan
February 2010
208 pages

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FTC disclosure: I almost left this blank. The horror! Luckily, I remembered to come back and tell you I bought it, so you can recall the troops.

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Publisher Comments:

One summer, a young woman travels with her lover to the isolated tobacco farm he has inherited after his family dies in a terrible accident. As Orren works to save his family farm from drought, Aloma struggles with the loneliness of farm life and must find her way in a combative, erotically-charged relationship with a grieving, taciturn man. A budding friendship with a handsome and dynamic young preacher further complicates her growing sense of dissatisfaction. As she considers whether to stay with Orren or to leave, she grapples with the finality of loss and death, and the eternal question of whether it is better to fight for freedom or submit to love.

All the Living has the timeless quality of a parable, but is also a perfect evocation of a time and place, a portrait of both age-old conflicts and modern life. It is an ode to the starve-acre Southern farm, the mountain landscape, and difficult love. In her lyrical and moving debut novel, C. E. Morgan recalls both the serenity of Marilynne Robinson and the shifting emotional currents and unashamed eroticism of James Salter. It is an unforgettable book from a major new voice.

This was the book I mentioned a few weeks ago in a Sunday Salon, the one that is likely set in present day, but feels more like something from the 1950s. Probably because Aloma is pretty isolated living outside of town on a tobacco farm. And the closest town is very small town, in the sense that everyone knows each other’s business.

It was okay, but then I’ve never made it through a Marilynne Robinson novel, so I’m guessing that’s not a writing style that is ever gonna rock my world. And I’ve never even heard of James Salter. Have you?

The Disappeared

9 March 2010

disappeared 201x300 The Disappeared

The Disappeared
Kim Echlin
December 2009
235 pages

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Yet another FTC disclosure: Yet another purchase. And one I will never regret.

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Publisher Comments:

A searing, fiercely beautiful love story for the ages, The Disappeared — already a best seller in Canada — traces one woman’s three-decades-long journey from the peaceful streets of Montreal to the humid, war-torn villages of Cambodia, as a brief love affair turns into a grand passion of loss, mourning, and remembrance, set against one of the most brutal genocides of the twentieth century.

When sixteen-year-old Anne Greves first meets Serey, a Cambodian student and musician forced by his family to leave his country during the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime, she never considers the consequences of their complicated romance. Swept up in the fury and infatuation of young love, Anne rebels against her father’s wishes and embraces her relationship with Serey in the smoky jazz clubs of Montreal and in his cramped yellow bedroom. But when the borders of Cambodia are reopened, Serey must risk his life to return home, alone, in search of his family.

A decade later, Anne will travel halfway around the world to find him, and to save their love from the same tragic forces that first brought them together. Written in tenacious, achingly tender prose, The Disappeared challenges our notions of how to both claim the past and move on after those we love vanish.

Part elegy, part love letter, part call to arms, this courageous novel is a soaring tribute to all those who have disappeared in the violent conflicts throughout history.

If you think this description sounds over the top, well, it’s not. This book is absolutely haunting. It’s both beautifully written and heartbreaking. And I’m not the only one who thinks so…My Friend Amy loved it, as well. I honestly cannot say enough about the writing. It’s so evocative and touching, and I’m not one to normally notice these things.

The book is written from Anne’s perspective, and it reads like a love letter to Serey.

You keep coming back to me in little bits of moving images, light on a winter wall. Come to the door, spirit I know, and I will stand and hold you. Come alive just one more time, let me feel your breath, Serey, let me hear your voice in song, let me wash away the pain. Come, and I will whisper your name to you one more time.

As Anne reflects back, she recounts the story of their love. But she also tells the story of Cambodia, its people, its culture and its history. And she talks of genocide.

The Khmer Rouge used words to kill the people. Touk chom nenh dork chenh kor min kat. Sam at kmang. They said these things over and over, To keep you is no benefit, to lose you is no loss. Cleanse the enemy.

These were phrases I had never studied.

And finally, Anne and Serey’s story is a tribute to both love and genocide. Not two things that normally go together, but Anne’s love for Serey will not die, and she refuses to let Serey and his life go unremembered. Thus, his story becomes the story of all victims of genocide, the disappeared of the title.

I do not understand the unfathomable love I feel for you. But I am in the place the old Gnostics call emptiness. If your face appeared around the doorway where I sit at his small desk, I would turn to you and say, Now I am awake.

The strangeness of my love for you is that it has made me dead in life and you alive in death. I am afraid you will disappear and no one will remember your name.

Please, read this book. It will break your heart, but you’ll forgive it because of the beauty of the writing and the things it makes you think.

One Amazing Thing

8 March 2010

one amazing thing One Amazing Thing

One Amazing Thing
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
2010 (although the ARC was out in 2009)
220 pages

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FTC disclosure: This is an ARC, and it was sent to me by a fellow reader (thanks Diane!). The publisher and me? We never talked, we never met.

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Nine strangers are sitting in the basement of a building (the Indian visa office) when an earthquake strikes, leaving them cut off from the world. As the group alternately bickers and struggles to survive, one young woman challenges them each to share a story, “one amazing thing” from their lives. It is these stories that will bring the group closer together as their situation becomes more precarious.

The characters are all very different. Their only common denominator is they were there to obtain a visa to travel to India (or were Indian, and working in the office). There are the proper Pritchetts, whose marriage is obviously strained. Cameron, the natural leader of the group, struggles with health issues and emotional trauma. Young Uma is questioning her ability to love. Tariq is angry at just about everything. Punky Lily and her quiet grandmother Jiang remain largely in the background, but share compelling stories. And the office workers, Mangalam and Malathi teeter on the brink of an affair.

In a way, this is a bit like The Canterbury Tales, in the sense that we have a group of strangers telling stories. But this is a very diverse group, made up of a Muslim-American, an Indian-American, two Indians, two white Americans, one black American, one Chinese-Indian and one American-Chinese-Indian, if that makes any sense. Their different experiences and world views all factor into the group dynamics, as well as the stories they tell.

The stories were wonderful, and along with the group’s interactions, made for a fascinating story. Until the end. I wasn’t too fond of the end. I should go to the bookstore and check out the end in the published book…I suspect it’s the same, though.

Because the author is a native of India, this counts towards the South Asian Authors Challenge.

Because Diane kindly shared this ARC with me, I’d like to pass it on to one of you. Please let me know in the comments if you’re interested and I’ll draw a name later this week.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

6 March 2010

temple of heaven

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven
Susan Jane Gilman
2009
304 pages

Last year when this book was first published I saw all sorts of reviews and thought… “Meh. China. Not interested.” Because China is one place I have no interest in traveling to. Call me eurocentric, but when I think about places I want to travel, I think of Ireland, and England, and Croatia, and Czechoslovakia, and Canada, and lots of places in the US, and if I’m really feeling adventurous, Mexico (because Hamburger thinks the cheaper the better, and if I ever travel to Mexico again I just know I’ll be sharing a room with a cockroach, and that’s so not my idea of a good time…and there’re a few cockroach scenes in this book that support this).

But then I read Dawn’s review and she included a few quotes from the book and I thought, “Hey. I like the way Gilman thinks. Maybe I should read this one after all.” And so I did. And it was totally worth it.

After college graduation, Susan and Claire, two casual college friends, decide to backpack around the world. They start their trip in China, which in 1986 had just started to allow tourists, and then the plan was to work their way west. Unfortunately, after a few weeks in China, Susan started to notice Claire was acting a bit paranoid. At first she explained away her observations with excuses like Claire just needed some alone time. However, it soon becomes very apparent that Claire was experiencing some sort of mental breakdown.

Since I’ve done the student backpacking trip (7 weeks through France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, (staring at the Yugoslavian countryside from the train because we had no Visa for Yugoslavia, and I just dated myself), Hungary, Austria and Germany (whew) I must say I spent most of the book feeling very grateful for the sanity of my college roommate, who was an awesome traveling partner, and with whom I’m still on speaking terms (although infrequently, as we now live in different states). My 40 year old self was appalled by some of the decisions that were made, although if I think back to my 21 year old self, she wouldn’t have been quite so shocked.

Anyways, I seem to be digressing more than usual in this review. Besides the fact that Claire’s increasing paranoia makes for an interesting story, and if you’ve ever done the student travel bit parts seem distressingly and comfortably familiar, and the people they meet are fascinating, Gilman has some fantastic observations about travel. Here are a few:

For perhaps the first time in my life, it became viscerally clear to me just how little I mattered, just how much I was not the center of the universe. It was like a swift kick to the gut. p. 13

…travel is a bit like the Internet – there’s a protective anonymity to it. Cast into a situation with people you never have to see again and shielded from repercussions, you turn brazenly candid. p. 41

Being a tourist, I was beginning to see, meant being infantilized much of the time. All power is contextual. Take a brain surgeon in Uzbekistan and stick him in Manhattan; take the toughest homeboy from Compton and leave him in Tuscany. Drop any of us, anywhere, in an alien environment, and you’ll see our IQ plummet. “IS THIS THE BUS STOP?” we holler at strangers, while dementedly pointing to the bus stop. To buy a sandwich, we’ll pantomime chewing. This is why, I suspect, so many otherwise decent people back home behave like assholes abroad: There’s nothing quite like feeling helpless to turn you into a world-class control freak, to make you forget your manners and throw a tantrum if your room isn’t ready and there’s no ice in your drink. In a strange environment you feel like a baby, and you’re often treated like a baby, and so you act like one. pp. 59-60

Soon we were all vying to establish our backpackers’ street cred, to prove how intrepidly we’d been traveling, how much discomfort we’d incurred at how little expense. The irony of this was wholly lost on us. We were too young and myopic to recognize the perversity of a logic that equates voluntary deprivation with authentic experience. We thought that by wearing burlap pajamas, contracting intestinal parasites, and opting to ride in third class with ‘the people,’ we were somehow being less Western and more Asian. pp. 147-148

If you like travel memoirs, I’d highly recommend this one. It would most definitely go on my list of bestest travel books, if I had such a list.

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It’s also a great book for the Women Unbound Reading Challenge. Two young women backpacking in China? It doesn’t get much more unbound than that! For a variety of reasons, their trip took an amazing amount of guts and fortitude. And rumor has it, one of Gilman’s other books, Poufy White Tiara, would also make an excellent book for the challenge. I see that one in my future, too.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

5 March 2010

henrietta lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
February 2010
384 pages

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FTC: This one came from the bookstore, so nothing to confess here, move along.

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If you read one non-fiction book this year, make it this book.

Seriously.

At first, I was a little leery of this book, but only because of the science. I pretty much consider science to be Boring. But this book doesn’t read like a science book. It hardly reads like non-fiction. Skloot focuses on the people, and in doing so, she tells the story of Henrietta Lacks AND her cells.

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks was 31 years old, mother to 5 children, and wife to David Lacks. The Lacks family was descended from both slaves and slave owners. The extended family grew up together, working in the tobacco fields. Henrietta and David were first cousins, both raised by their grandfather in an old slave cabin. In the 1940s David left for Baltimore, to find work in the shipyards, and after a few years, Henrietta and the children were able to join him.

However, by the late 1940s, Henrietta knew something wasn’t right. She felt a knot on her womb, and eventually went to Johns Hopkins. This was a huge step for Henrietta, as Johns Hopkins had a shady reputation among the poor black population of Baltimore. People believed that the hospital would snatch children off the street for use in medical experiments. However, it was the only option available to Henrietta.

Diagnosed with cervical cancer, Henrietta underwent treatment (radium tubes sewn into her vagina, followed by radiation treatments that scorched her skin). Initially, the doctors thought that the treatments were successful, but the tumors soon spread and Henrietta eventually died a very painful death from uremic poisoning (due to the tumors, she couldn’t pee, meaning the toxins built up in her body).

During the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, cell research was taking off. Henrietta’s doctor took a sample of her cancer cells. These cells became the first cells to be kept successfully alive in a laboratory. What’s more, they reproduced. The HeLa cell line, as it became known, is still used in medical research today. Henrietta’s cells have travelled the globe (and into space), and were used for research when developing the polio vaccine, in cancer research, and in cloning.

However. And this is a huge however. Neither Henrietta nor her family ever knew that her cells had been “harvested” for research purposes. When her grown children finally heard that their mother’s cells were immortal, they were outraged. And it reinforced the idea that Johns Hopkins was the enemy.

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot tells Henrietta’s story through her children’s search for understanding. Skloot had long been fascinated by Henrietta Lacks, ever since she had heard a brief mention of her in a community college class taken as a high schooler. Skloot spent years researching Henrietta Lacks, and convincing her children that she meant no harm in digging into their mother’s past.

While the book focuses on the people (the Lacks family, as well as the doctors and researchers involved), it raises excellent questions about medical ethics. Besides Henrietta’s story, it touches on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and other individuals who have been unwitting victims of scientific research. It also ventures into the murky area of who owns cells.

This is a fascinating book, as it provides a look into how the scientific study of cells brought about both good (scientific advances) and bad (the trauma and misunderstanding brought upon a family who knew nothing about what happened to Henrietta’s cells).

unbound2smaller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

While Henrietta certainly didn’t intend to become a medical pioneer, that’s what ended up happening with her cells. Her contribution to science and history is enormous, and she definitely deserves her spot in the Women Unbound Reading Challenge.

This Book is Overdue!

3 March 2010

this book is overdue

This Book is Overdue!
Marilyn Johnson
February 2010
288 pages

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FTC: Aren’t you bored, yet? I know I am. I bought this one, too.

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When I’m behind on my reviews I have a tendency to glom on to someone else’s post and say things like:

Andi wrote a kick-ass review of this book, and I agree with everything she said. So go read her review, because I don’t know what else to say.

She may think she’s a slacker, but I think I’ve out-slacked her.

And to assuage my guilt over the lameness of this non-review, I’m going to give away my copy of the book, because I know there are many of you out there lusting after it. All you have to do is pinky swear that you’ve read Andi’s review. Really, I should be giving this book to my local librarians to read (god knows our library system needs some inspiration), but since they all seem to have the personality of a dishrag (I kid you not…if you don’t believe me, just visit the Morro Bay branch, it’s at 625 Harbor St. Or visit the website. It’s pretty indicative of how lackluster the whole system is.) I’m not feeling like sharing. With them. I’d rather this book went to someone who will love it and appreciate it. So pinky swear and maybe you’ll be the lucky winner. I’ll let you all know this weekend.

Fault Lines

27 February 2010

Fault Lines
Nancy Huston
October 2008
320 pages

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FTC Awareness Project: I bought this one. I also bought the last book I posted about, The Year of the Flood. I’m so sorry, but I forgot all about you when I wrote that post. You may think you’re unforgettable, but well, you’re not.

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First of all, I just have to mention how creepy the spine of this book is. You see those eyes on the cover? Well, one of them stares at you from the spine. I finally had to turn the book the other way…every time I looked at it, it startled me.

Fault Lines is told in four parts, each section narrated by a child. It starts with Sol, a self-proclaimed highly intelligent child (although I’m convinced he’ll grow up to be a serial killer…he has some disturbing internet habits). Sol is baffled by tense family dynamics. His father Randall has a difficult relationship with his (Randall’s) demanding mother, Sadie, yet a warm relationship with his adored grandmother, Erra. Then we go back in time to Randall’s childhood, where we learn more about the driven and difficult Sadie. From there, the story shifts to Sadie’s childhood. Sadie is being raised by her strict grandparents. She adores her beautiful, but distant, mother and is ecstatic when she is finally able to live with her. However, as she lives with her mother she gradually becomes aware of her mother’s secrets. Finally, with Erra’s story we learn the truth of her childhood. And we realize that the secret from Erra’s childhood has impacted the lives of Erra, Sadie, Randall and Sol.

While the story itself was interesting, the narrators’ voices were awfully mature at times. I could’ve done without Sol…although his narration does set up the story, since he knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t know what. I think Sadie was captured the best, with her insecurities and her struggle to be “good.” And this is ironic, because I actually liked Sadie’s adult character the least. But I certainly felt like I understood her the best after hearing everyone’s point of view.

This is an interesting way to tell a story, with interconnected narrators who are all children. However, considering the author’s style, I’m not 100% convinced it was the best way for her to go.

The Year of the Flood

24 February 2010

year of the flood

The Year of the Flood
Margaret Atwood
September 2009
448 pages

This is the follow up to Oryx and Crake, although really, it’s not necessary to have read O&C to understand and enjoy YotF. They share a dystopian world, and most of the same characters, but the focus is entirely different.

YotF is the story of God’s Gardeners, a hippy-like cult that eschews the modern world with all of its processed foods and technology and emphasis on wealth and materialism. It focuses on two women who spent part of their lives as Gardeners, Toby and Ren. Although a plague has killed off most of the world, Toby and Ren have both survived. Toby has barricaded herself in the spa she managed, and Ren is locked inside Scales and Tails, a club where she was a trapeze dancer. YotF goes back in time to tell both women’s stories, from the time they found themselves part of God’s Gardeners, up to the Waterless Flood, when the world began to die around them.

So how do the two books compare? Well, they’re both great stories in their own rights, but I prefer O&C. Maybe it’s because at that point, the world was new to me. Atwood certainly doesn’t spend time re-explaining things, but she does spend a lot of time creating the God’s Gardeners, complete with songs and sermons from their leader, Adam One. And honestly, I just wasn’t that into those parts of the book. But Toby and Ren’s stories were compelling, and as usual with her dystopian novels, Atwood succeeds in a creating a creepy not-impossible future.

She also left the ending open enough to continue with this world…I wonder if she’ll be writing more about Toby and Ren and the Snowman and the Crakers.

Keeping the Feast

22 February 2010

keeping the feast

Keeping the Feast
Paula Butturini
February 2010
272 pages

I received this book from the publisher (thank you Riverhead Books) as part of a TLC Reading Series. It was awesome (both the book, and the fact that it was free…hey, I‘m not proud).

To be honest, I was a little leery going into this one…the subtitle is “One Couple’s Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy” and I was a little nervous that I was going to get one of those “we had faith and we persevered” mushy stories that just happened to be set in Italy. ‘Cause, you know, I don’t do faith makes everything okay stories. Luckily for me, that’s not the case for this book. Butturini uses memories of food to frame a story of both life in Europe and depression. Both Butturini and her husband, John Tagliabue, grew up in big Italian clans and food was (and is) an integral part of their lives. Although the couple’s grandparents had all immigrated to the US, Butturini and Tagliabue both ended up back in Italy working as foreign correspondents. They met and fell in love in Rome, and eventually decided to marry. However, Tagliabue’s job took them away from their beloved Italy to Warsaw, Poland. While based in Poland, their world was rocked by two violent events. First, Butturini was beaten by Czechoslovak riot police while on assignment. Then, less than a month after their wedding, Tagliabue was shot while in Romania. His wounds were severe and his recovery slow. And then, he slowly slid into depression. Butturini skillfully weaves all of this together, along with what it‘s like to live and eat in Europe.

Despite the seemingly downward spiral of their lives, Butturini does not focus exclusively on the bad. Each chapter begins with a memory of food, usually from her childhood. She relates the role food played in her family, and shares many childhood memories. She talks about the delights of shopping for food in Rome, and the frustrations of shopping for food in Poland. She talks of the simple meals she prepares, and how, after her daughter was born, the joy of helping her to discover new tastes and textures.

And lest you think it’s all about food and depression, it’s also a brilliant tale of living abroad. Since I’m a sucker for travel memoirs, this was perhaps my favorite part of the book, particularly the stories of shopping in the Campo dei Fiori. When I was in Rome in 2005 (for only a week) we rented an apartment right off of the Campo. So it was fun to read about places I had been. Here are two scenes from the square, one after the market has ended, the other late at night:

100 1042 224x300 Keeping the Feast

100 0731 224x300 Keeping the Feast

Okay, back to the book. The other bonus is that Butturini can write. Well, duh, you say, she IS a journalist. Well, I’m here to tell you not every person who has lived overseas is qualified to write about it. I’ve read some dreadful accounts…some poorly written, some boring, some full of “my life is great and I’m going to keep writing books to capitalize on my initial success” (and yes, that’s a dig at a certain writer living in Tuscany). I think Butturini strikes a great balance. This story is an intimate look at how a family copes with depression, but it also contains multiple love stories. There’s Butturini’s love of her husband and their families, her love of Italy, her love of her heritage, and her love of food.

And I’m realizing that it’s difficult to describe this book coherently. Trust me when I say that Butturini’s book is NOT as muddled as my attempts to share my thoughts about it are. Check out Paula Butturini’s website for a better description of how the book came about.

Butturini will be stopping by Books on the Brain tonight (5pm PST) to answer questions. I’ll be at work (BOO!), but you should drop in and see what she has to say. And tell her she should write a cookbook!