Louis Arata's Blog, page 5

The Top Ten Books (I've Read) in 2019

My goal each year is to read 50 books. Without any tremendous effort on my part, I completed 77 books in 2019. The majority of them were compelling, and many were delightful. Only one or two were a complete waste of time.
It is a little more challenging this year to select the Top Ten, so I am also including an Honorable Mention section for those books which still wowed me.
TOP TEN
A Gentleman in MoscowAmor Towles
My mother-in-law recommended this one; she hasn’t read much in the past few years, so for her to rave about the excellent writing piqued my interest. Towles’ story of Count Rostov, who is confined to a fancy hotel after the Russian revolution, may not sound like a terribly engaging story, but don’t be fooled. Rostov is charming as he creates a new life under limited circumstances. Throughout, he never loses his decorum, and he even discovers deep friendships and familial love. 

How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?N.K. Jemisin
Every single story in this science fiction/fantasy collection made me exclaim, “I wish I’d thought of that!” Jemisin’s inventiveness is matched by the precision with which she tells each story. Not one word is wasted. The stories address intersections of race, gender, and sexuality within fantastical environments, yet each world is readily recognizable. My personal favorite is “Red Dirt Witch,” which unveils the arc of racism over time and how future generations fight for justice.


Thoreau: A LifeLaura Dassow Walls
Henry David Thoreau fascinates me. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve read Walden, and I’ve read a few bios. Walls’ work stands hands-and-shoulders above the others. Through careful analysis of Thoreau’s journals and published works, Walls places him in the historical context of his times. His time at Walden Pond is covered, of course, but there is so much more to his life than those two years. By the time I reached the end of the book – and of Thoreau’s life – I experienced such grief over saying goodbye to a friend.

The Hate U GiveAngie Thomas
I read several young adult/teen novels this year, and they were all amazing, but Thomas’s novel took my breath away. Starr Carter and her friend, Khalil, are pulled over by a white cop. Even though Khalil complies with the officer’s instructions, the cop still shoots and kills him. What follows is the awakening of Starr’s political consciousness, in particular how pervasive racism is within society, and how she gains the courage to stand up to it. It is a story rich with complex characters and situations.

 Between the World and MeTa-Nehisis Coates
A mandatory read: for what it says and for how it is written. Coates writes a letter to his teenage son about his own experiences of being perpetually policed in society because he is Black. He addresses the constant threat against the body: police shootings, lynchings, and all manner of oppression. Coates writes with fire. I read the book twice because I had to run to keep up. The images are bleak but necessary to face if racism is to be rectified.


 The Book of JoyThe Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
Joy is not simply happiness; it is a cultivated sense of appreciation and empathy. It is a practice to be developed. And if two immensely compassionate individuals – Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama – can rise above their troublesome times to learn how to practice joy, then that means I can as well. Their bubbly friendship is delightful to witness, and their personal examples are inspiring. 

 Salvage the BonesJesmyn Ward
I confess I debated whether to include Ward’s novel in my top ten. The story is so heart-wrenching that I often had to take a break from it. Fourteen-year-old Esch and her three brothers must prepare their home for Hurricane Katrina, while their hard-drinking father is often cold and distant. And Esch is hiding the fact that she is pregnant. What unfolds is gripping and grueling. Ward’s prose – rich in metaphor and poetry – is what kept me going. That, and Esch’s own courage in facing an uncertain future.


A Man Called OveFredrik Backman
Another recommendation from my mother-in-law, who kept pestering me: “Have you finished it yet? Don’t you just love the old coot and the stray cat?” Backman’s novel is about a curmudgeon with a strict set of rules to live by. Against his will, Ove is forced to interact with the young family that has moved in next door. A masterful lesson in empathy in that you should never assume you know why a person acts the way that they do.


 The Handmaid’s TaleMargaret Atwood
Gripping, haunting, depressing. It should be speculative fiction, but instead it shines a spotlight on a disturbingly recognizable culture of patriarchy. Atwood carefully constructs each element of this dystopian world so that the events unfold to a foregone conclusion. In other words, given the fundamentalist principles at work, society can only look like this. Atwood recently published a sequel, The Testaments, which is on my to-read list.


From Baghdad, With LoveJay Kopelman
A marine, a dog, a rescue. What could have been a sentimentally sappy book proves to be a poignant and thrilling story of humanity at its best: we come together to help those in need. Kopelman does not shy away from the physical and psychic horror of war: IED, mortars, and firefights. And in the midst of this turmoil, he discovers that a puppy who helps produce a profound transformation in this no-nonsense Marine. Redemption comes in many forms.




Honorable Mention
Girls Write Now
Girls Write Now, Inc. mentors young women in the art of writing as a means of discovering their individual voices. This collection features young writers tackling racism, microaggression, issues of religion and face, and immigration. Other essays are expressions of pure joy and celebrations of personal heroes. Reading these essays reassured me that the upcoming generation of writers already exhibit immense talent.

The Disaster ArtistGreg Sestero
Sestero examines his complex friendship with writer/director/actor Tommy Wiseau, whose film, The Room, is a train-wreck of a production. Entertaining in a rubbernecking sort of way.

My Life in MiddlemarchRebecca Mead
There are books that you return to over the course of your life. For me, it’s Walden. For Mead, it’s George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Mead examines the themes in Eliot’s work, not only in what they say about society, but also what they personally mean to her. Part biography, part memoir, part literary analysis, My Life in Middlemarch focuses on how we are deeply affected by the books that we read.

Simon vs the Homo Sapien AgendaBecky Albertalli
Simon has a secret pen-pal at school, where they can discuss what it means to be gay. When a classmate threatens to out Simon, what follows is messy navigation of maintaining friendships, keeping your privacy, and claiming authority over your true identity. Albertalli’s tale has a lot of heart, and the ending had me grinning.

Spirits Eat Ripe PayapaBill Svelmoe
Reverently irreverent: Svelmoe’s novel of a Bible college drop-out who takes on a teaching position at a missionary compound focuses on the complex nature of faith. The author focuses on the individuality humanity of the characters, in that every single person has a story about coming to their faith. But never does the story drop into a holier-than-thou attitude. It is rich and funny and poignant. My only reservation is with the ending. While I understand why the story ends the way that it does, I found it a bit of a hard resolution.

Bud, Not BuddyChristopher Paul Curtis
Why have I not heard of this novel before? I want to tell everyone about it. Ten-year-old Bud is on a quest to locate his father. Along the way, his adventures bring him into contact with a wide variety of fascinating characters. Bud himself is sharp, witty, and resourceful, and he has his own rules to live by. I was not ready for this book to end, and I wish Curtis would write a sequel.

Emma Jane Austen
My wife and I have read all of Austen’s novels, but Emma was the one that took us the longest – somewhere around four years. What do you do with a novel in which you are not supposed to like the main character? Well, I decided to give Emma another go, and this time around I was charmed. I loved how Emma grew as a character across the course of the novel. Austen has a keen eye for presenting society rife with propriety, but none of her characters is infallible. Their quirks and charms make them richly human. 

The complete list of books:
Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Becky AlbertalliThe Book of Three, Lloyd AlexanderThe Black Cauldron, Lloyd AlexanderThe Castle of Llyr, Lloyd AlexanderTaran Wanderer, Lloyd AlexanderThe High King, Lloyd AlexanderDaughter of Fortune, Isabel AllendeThirteen Reasons Why, Jay AsherFoundation, Isaac AsimovThe Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret AtwoodEmma, Jane AustenA Man Called Ove, Fredrik BackmanThank You for My Service, Mat BestThe Martian Chronicles, Ray BradburyWindow, Amelia BrunskillIn Such Good Company, Carol BurnettDon’t Let Go, Harlan CobenThe Places that Scare You, Pema ChödrönBetween the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi CoatesBud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul CurtisThe Book of Joy, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond TutuThoreau: A Life, Laura Dassow WallsThe Best American Short Plays 2015-2016, William W. Demastes and John Patrick Bray, ed.The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily DickinsonGreat Movies IV, Roger EbertDaniel Deronda, George EliotApril Morning, Howard FastNorse Mythology, Neil GaimanGirls Write NowThe Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, Anissa GrayCrow Planet, Lyanda Lynn HauptDune, Frank HerbertThe Outsiders, S.E. HintonThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark HaddonAll by Myself, Alone, Mary Higgins ClarkThe Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, Mark HodderGhost-Writer, Michael HollingerWe Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, Wade Hudson, ed.Tales from Development Hell, David HughesThe Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, P.D. JamesHow Long ‘Til Black Future Month?, N.K. JemisinFrom Baghdad, with Love, Jay KopelmanCamber of Culdi, Katherine KurtzSaint Camber, Katherine KurtzCamber the Heretic, Katherine KurtzThe Harrowing of Gwynedd, Katherine KurtzTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John Le CarréPachinko, Min Jin LeeThe Fifth Child, Doris LessingSuperheroes!, Laurence MaslonSniper Elite, Rob MaylorMy Life in Middlemarch, Rebecca MeadDevil in a Blue Dress, Walter MosleyThe Lonesome Bodybuilder, Yukiko MotoyaFrankenstein in Baghdad, Ahmed NandawiFallout, Sara ParetskyShell Game, Sara ParetskyHaunted, James Patterson and James O. BornLaughing with Lucy, Madelyn Pugh DavisThe Godfather, Mario PuzoThe Westing Game, Ellen RaskinGrunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Mary RoachAlfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Stephen RebelloHenry and the Huckleberries, Sally SandfordScary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Alvin SchwartzThe Disaster Artist, Greg SesteroDoubt, John Patrick ShanleyThe Best American Comics 2013, Jeff Smith, ed.Life on Mars, Tracy K. SmithThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (play), Simon StephensSpirits Eat Ripe Papaya, Bill SvelmoeThe Hate U Give, Angie ThomasThe Power of Now, Ekhart TolleA Gentleman in Moscow, Amor TowlesSalvage the Bones, Jesmyn WardAnother Brooklyn, Jacqueline WoodsonA Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf

Book Review: Daniel Deronda

When you read Jane Austen, you can curl up in a comfy chair and sip tea. You can also do that with Dickens or Trollope. But not George Eliot.
Eliot requires you to sit upright, eyes forward, and pay attention! There is nothing cozy about her novels. Her work tends to edify rather than entertain. Her stories address serious themes through extensive critical examination, and even when there is humor, it is not terribly playful.
This may sound harsh, coming from a self-professed George Eliot fan. About twenty years ago, I could not get enough of her. I have read all her novels multiple times as well as several biographies. She definitely fascinates me.
Even so, her prose gets rather thick. I have just finished tackling Daniel Deronda, Eliot’s final novel (or more accurately, it tackled me). This is my third go-round for Deronda, which isn’t even one of my favorites. It certainly is not as readable as its predecessor, Middlemarch.
So, if the prose is thick, what compelled me to go back for a third helping? Perhaps I’ve finally reached an age where I can comprehend the layers of social analysis, or maybe I am merely pretending to be erudite and intelligent enough to understand what is going on.
Daniel Deronda follows parallel storylines. One involves Gwendolyn Harleth, a spoiled and headstrong young woman. When her family suffers an economic setback, she makes a mercenary marriage to Henleigh Grandcourt, a rich man. Given her determination, Gwendolyn believes she will be able to manipulate her husband as easily as she has other men. However, Grandcourt proves to be cold-hearted, and he takes cruel delight in controlling his spirited young wife. 
The second plot involves Daniel, who is helping a young Jewish singer find her brother. This takes him into the Jewish community, where he eventually locates Mordecai, who is dying of tuberculosis. Mordecai, a Zionist, believes that Daniel has been sent to him to be his pupil and successor in terms of establishing the Jewish nation. 
The first time I read the novel, I felt like I was reading two separate novels that had been jammed together. I could not understand how Gwendolyn’s tale related to Daniel’s immersion in Judaism. The second time I read it, I got a glimmer of understanding, which winked out as soon as it shone.
This time around, I finally understand how these parallel stories focus on redemption. Gwendolyn recognizes her sin in marrying Grandcourt for his money. She turns to Daniel for guidance. From their first encounter, she has idealized him as morality personified. Once she recognizes the depth of his compassion, she turns to him as a teacher to guide her through her difficult marriage. She wishes to rise above her selfish nature to become a better person.
Likewise, Mordecai fears his impending death, as his life’s work will come to nothing. On meeting Daniel, Mordecai experiences relief for his troubled soul. He recognizes that Daniel’s sympathy will preserve his mission to help the Jewish identity be an equal part of the world community, where all nations will come together to educate and reform the populace.
For both Mordecai and Gwendolyn, Daniel is the answer to their prayers.
Daniel, too, experiences redemption. He is at a crossroads in his life. A recent graduate, he has not yet decided what career to pursue. As the ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger, Daniel knows nothing of his past or parentage. When he finally does meet his mother, and thus learns of his Jewish heritage, he finds the purpose he has been longing for. Although he does not recant of his Christian upbringing, he does feel the calling to support his Jewish heritage.
Put away your
cell phones,
and pay attention!Daniel Deronda is unique as a Victorian novel, in that it shines a sympathetic light on the Jewish community in England. Other novels, such as Oliver Twist or Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, feature unfavorable caricatures of Jews, so for George Eliot to present a realistic portrayal of Judaism – in particular, Zionism – is rather remarkable.
Eliot’s prose is always rich and dense, but I confess to feeling beaten down by the preponderance of moral examination. No incident is too small to dissect as an example of the universal human experience. Many times I had to read passages more than once to make sure I understood the import.
My second complaint is that Daniel comes across as a moral template. Every action he takes is always proper, and all the characters (apart from Henleigh Grandcourt) hold him up as perfection. But Eliot knows that that would make a rather boring character, so she gives Daniel plenty of uncertainty and doubt. The problem is that the conflict is always internal. No one ever witnesses Daniel’s quandaries because he keeps it all to himself. It would have been more realistic if he exhibited a few questionable actions so that he doesn’t come across as goody-goody.
In the end, I do feel edified. I also feel exhausted. It took me 3 months to plow my way through the novel. I believe this will be my final go-round for Daniel Deronda. But certainly not the last George Eliot novel I will read.

Book Review: The Great Movies IV

Roger Ebert loves cinema. He is known for his incisive movie reviews and for the thumbs-up rating that he and Gene Siskel shared on their TV show.
When I first started reading Ebert’s reviews, I often felt in over my head. His love for foreign cinema and art films were at odds with my own popcorn movie tendencies.
Then I came across his review for an action movie. I thought it was Terminator II: Judgment Day, but since looking up the review on his website (www.rogerebert.com), I see that wasn’t the film. In any case, he reviewed an action movie in a surprisingly positive light. He praised its entertainment value. Certainly not high cinema, but it was something worth watching.
After that, I began to notice how Ebert’s love of cinema straddles all genres and styles. He isn’t wed to a particular type. His appreciation covers any well-made film, where he exhibits a keen eye for reading the scenes – noting how lighting affects the mood or how the placement of the camera conveys a specific message to the viewer. Likewise, he recognizes the power that actors bring to types of roles. He can write about how someone like Cary Grant evolved as an actor across the course of his career.
Ebert also recognizes how directors develop themes across their body of work. He is able to link an early feature with a later one, catching how certain images may crop up more than once. He is remarkably canny at reading across films so that they speak to one another.
A few years ago, I read a collection of movie essays by Harlan Ellison. While Ellison had plenty of important things to say, I felt bludgeoned by his tone. It was like being trapped in a corner at a cocktail party as some blowhard expounds on his theory of everything, and you can’t get a word in edgewise. By the time I finished the book, I was exhausted.
Not so with Ebert’s. His style almost sounds casual, but he certainly knows his stuff. He may have strong opinions about films (check out Your Movie Sucks, his collection of reviews about movies that suck), but he never holds up his views as the final word. I suspect that he enjoyed hearing what other people had to say about film. Cinema was always open for discussion.
Ebert began writing a series of essays for The Sun-Times in which he revisited films from the perspective of how they operate as cinema. These essays are collected in his The Great Movies series. He is clear that these are not necessarily the “greatest” films; rather, they are movies that operate as marvelous examples of why films work the way they do. The films are entertaining and informative, and they can instruct the viewer on how to engage with cinema on multiple levels.
The Great Movies IV features the last set of essays that Ebert wrote for the series. He covers movies such as

Badlands
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Diary of a Country Priest
Make Way for Tomorrow
The Match Factory Girl
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Rio Bravo
Spirited Away

And many more.


Also, check out  www.rogertebert.com  for more of Ebert’s reviews. The site now features a variety of reviewers who engage with film with as much passion as Roger Ebert.

Book Review: Between the World and Me

I had to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me twice, because the first time I was running to keep up. The second time, to digest what I was reading.
The first time, the fire of Coates’ language tore through me as it illuminated his analysis of the American culture that perpetuates systemic racism.
I had to read it twice, because I am part of the culture that Coates identifies as believing myself to be White.
Because I am a middle-aged man who has benefited and prospered because of White privilege.
Because I am desperate to understand where our country started from and how it continues to perpetrate systemic racism at its core.
Because I believe that Black Lives Matter, not because it is the cause du jour but because I cannot abide to participate in a society where imbalances – economic, sociologic, political, gender-oriented – are maintained as the status quo.
Because I am angry, and I can’t begin to comprehend the depth of anger and fear that People of Color experience on a visceral level, on a daily basis.
Because I have never experienced prejudice, except in response to my own ignorant actions.
Because I want our society to be inclusive, because all the myriad voices are our culture, and not simply which voices that those in Power permit to speak.
I read it twice because I am ignorant and don’t want to be ignorant anymore.
Because Coates is righteously enflamed, and because I need to pay attention.
Because the book matters.
Because Black lives matter.
Because Between the World and Me deserves to be read again and again.

Book Review: The Godfather

My sister had been a fan of novelist Tom Robbins. Recently, when I asked her which Robbins novel I should try out, she said, “First, you’d have to read it in the 1970’s.” In essence, she was telling me that a 21st Century reading of Tom Robbins would not afford me as much pleasure as it would have if I had read it in the 1970s.
In other words, books are a product of their time, some more so than others. For me, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather falls into that category.
I confess that I am coming very late to the party. I did not see Coppola’s films (Parts One and Two) until seven years ago (2012). Many scenes and quotes from the movies are already familiar to me as cultural memes, but seeing the whole saga proved to me what cinematic classics they are. Note: I have been warned not to bother with The Godfather, Part Three.

Puzo’s novel has been on my To-Read list for a long while. Fortunately, enough time has passed since watching the films that I did not feel saddled with Brando’s raspy voice in my head every time I read Vito Corleone’s lines. In fact, there was enough distance so that I could treat The Godfather as a novel that was not directly related to a film.
And here’s my response: I found the novel decidedly uneven. What definitely works are the depictions of the mafia machinations throughout capitalist America. The power, the loyalty, and the vengeance tying together the Five Families in New York are the compelling web on which the story of the Corleone family is woven.
What did not work is the surprising amount of redundancy in the storytelling. Puzo never quite catches on that he is belaboring a point.
So, at the risk of belaboring my point …
Johnny Fontane is a famous singer who has recently lost his singing voice. He has a history of womanizing and is divorced but still has a loving relationship with his first wife, Ginny. In a single chapter, Puzo describes the nature of Johnny and Ginny’s relationship:

“Did he still want her [Ginny], he asked himself, and the answer was no…. But they were no longer enemies.”
 “Neither one of them wanted to renew their old marriage.”
 “Ginny had the guest bedroom made up for him. It was understood that he would not share her room, that they would not live as man and wife. They could never have that relationship again.”
 

Okay, I get it: Johnny and Ginny have a platonic relationship now, primarily focused on raising their two daughters. There is affection but no longer any romance.
Other plot elements or characteristics that Puzo punches repeatedly are Michael Corleone’s broken jaw  and Sonny Corleone’s Cupid-shaped face (not to mention his remarkable sexual endowment).
Puzo’s repetition of these elements never succeeds in deepening the characters but rather comes across as convenient shorthand for physical traits. I caught on that Sonny’s Cupid-shaped face belies his inherent violence. But Puzo also gives plenty of examples of Sonny’s hot-temper so that he does not have to remind the reader again and again of those Cupid-shaped features.
"Keep your dogs close,
but your felines closer."Likewise, with Michael’s broken jaw. It is a scar that marks a dividing line in his life, and his evident indifference to how it affects his appearance tells the reader something about his character’s development. But Puzo addresses the need for the operation in a number of scenes, and in every case, Michael turns it down. Even after Michael's wife convinces him to have the reconstructive surgery, there is a subsequent flashback scene to a pre-operation Michael refusing any treatment.
Puzo spends a significant portion of the novel on secondary characters, probably to give the scope of the mafia’s hold in society. As a result, The Godfather has an episodic feel to it. It is divided into nine books/sections, each of which focuses on one part of the overall story. 
Unfortunately, this approach dilutes the story of the three most intriguing characters: Vito Corleone, Michael, and Tom Hagen. The Godfather himself has a mystique, due to his pervasive presence throughout the novel – the far-reaching power that he wields – so that when he does show up on the pages, you get a sense of an aging man who is witnessing the transition of the generations.
His youngest son, Michael, has the most compelling story arc: from college student to Mafia Don, whereas the “adopted” son, Tom Hagen, who is not Sicilian (another point that Puzo belabors without resolution), could have been explored in more depth.
Ultimately, I got very bored by the end of the novel, and that was primarily due to the redundancies. Maybe this is the case of a book that is a product of its time period versus a movie that is a timeless classic.

Book Review: Dune

Plenty of people love cilantro, but I’m not one of them. I don’t hate it; it’s that when I do encounter it in a recipe, there’s usually too much of it. A little cilantro goes a long way for me.
That’s kind of how I feel about Frank Herbert’s Dune.  

If you are not familiar with the story, Dune follows the tale of Paul Atreides, the duke’s 15-year-old son, on the arid world of Arrakis. The planet is so devoid of surface water that its indigenous people wear stillsuits which capture the moisture from their own bodies and cleanses it so they can drink it. Arrakis is known for its mélange, a curious spice that augments mental capacities. 
After a political coup, Paul and his mother are abandoned on the surface of Arrakis. They are rescued by Fremen, one of the indigenous tribes. Paul, whose training has focused on both combat skills and mental computations, finds that the spice has enhanced his ability to foresee all possible futures. It is not long before the Fremen proclaim him their destined prophet, and Paul ascends to leadership of the tribe. His intention is to lead the Fremen in battle against the Emperor, as well as to exact revenge on Vladimir Harkonnen, who is responsible for the death of Paul’s father.
Dune is sci-fi’s answer to Tolkien. Frank Herbert has fashioned a world as detailed as Middle-Earth. The story addresses issues of philosophy, religion, mysticism, ecology, culture, and social hierarchy. The characters wrangle with deep spiritual issues and political machinations. 
I was going to call it
Spice World, but that title
was taken by a 1990's movieI can’t help but be impressed by what Herbert has crafted. Arrakis and its inhabitants are very real. The socio-political and ecological structures are nuanced. There is good and bad among its peoples, but also plenty of gray areas as well. Paul rises to power, but at what expense? Herbert layers his story so that the characters evolve, and no situation feels predestined, no matter how many futures Paul can imagine.
So, why is Dune like cilantro? 
I don’t fault Herbert’s imagined worlds; they are fascinating. I found the plot intriguing and compelling. I enjoyed how information was passed on to the reader, in particular how details unfolded. 
What I did have problem with was Frank Herbert’s writing style. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m not sure how to pinpoint the issues, other than to say that characters spoke in very portentous voices. All the individuals had a stiffness to them (except for Gurney Halleck). Their emotional reserve kept me, the reader, at a distance. Even though Herbert reveals the thoughts of individual characters, I never really felt any emotional connection with them. 
The story is written from an omniscient point-of-view: the author can reveal whoever’s POV that serves the purpose of the plot. You also get glimpses into their internal monologues. This happens so repeatedly that the story sometimes comes to a halt. Every conversation is analyzed by its participants. Everyone questions why someone said something and how they should respond. Every single conversation!
I appreciate character insight, but not at the expense of the pace. Dune is richly indulgent, and I am willing to sink into its tale. But I found myself getting bored by how long it took for events to unfold. By Part Three: “Prophet”, I was ready for the end. And yet it is in this section that all the pieces of the story come together in a masterful manner. Alas, Mr Herbert, I lost stamina to continue.
I’m glad I made it to the end, though I doubt I will continue with any of the sequels. The writing style of Dune is simply not to my taste, though I can fully appreciate why others adore it. It is a masterpiece, albeit comprised of cilantro (or mélange). May all the spice fans thoroughly enjoy it.

Book Review: Spirits Eat Ripe Papaya

Reverently irreverent: Spirits Eat Ripe Papaya follows the adventures of Philip Andrews, a Protestant missionary in the Philippines. 
Philip, a Bible college drop-out, hopes to regain his professional standing and perhaps to grow up a bit by taking a teaching position at a missionary compound in Ilusan. With his long hair, he is sometimes mistaken for a female and sometimes for Jesus. The other members of the compound welcome him to their community, inviting him to traveling dinner, swimming at the water-hole, and playing volleyball games. Also, there are nightly prayer services and faith-based movie nights. 
Philip has suffered a crisis of faith, in that he no longer feels worthy of God’s love, but he hopes to improve relations with the Almighty. At first, he is tentative about joining this community, but he is remarkably adept at Evangelicalese, the proscribed “language” of missionary culture, which helps him to fit in. Over the course of the story, he learns the nuanced depths of his own faith.
He teaches 7thand 8thgraders, many of whom are more fluent in the Bible than he is, but he excels at moderating discussions that push the boundaries, often encouraging his students to think beyond the standard rhetoric on religious topics.
I admit that I am not terribly familiar with Evangelical culture, so I was expecting a certain amount of holier-than-thou behavior. Instead, Svelmoe focuses on the individual humanity of the characters. Everyone has a story about coming to the faith, and in some cases, they are more than a little comical, but all are deeply felt spiritual awakenings.
Svelmoe juggles a wide cast with deft characterizations. There are the older sisters whose mother mistakes Philip for Jesus. There is the linguist with his private stash of Bob Dylan record albums. There is Sally, the somberly precocious student who becomes Philip’s most loyal friend.
And throughout there are comic escapades and poignant revelations – from a misplaced golf ball and an angry bull, a three-legged dog and the discovery of a new Filipino tribe, and a boyish overnight camping trip that gets a bit out of hand. And there is finding love.
The novel starts a little slowly, what with introducing a wide number of characters, but over time, it is like sinking into a deliciously cool swimming-hole and floating in the midst of tropical beauty. Svelmoe paints a temptingly appealing version of Paradise. The question becomes whether Philip is the apple or the apple-eater.
My only problem with the story is the ending. I appreciate how Svelmoe leads us to this conclusion – and there is a sense of inevitability about it – yet I found it a bit of a hard resolution. Given the amount of affection and growth that occurs over the course of the story, it feels like everything comes full circle, with characters ending up where they started. Not precisely, but close. I was hoping for a few more champions at the end. Perhaps Svelmoe's depiction is more realistic, in the end.
Despite this one reservation, I thoroughly enjoyed Spirits Eat Ripe Papaya. Philip’s spiritual journey reveals that the best sort of reverence is one that is touched with affection for our human limitations and talents. Philip's story inspires me to locate the tropical paradise of faith that surrounds me.

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables

My mother-in-law and I have a running competition over who has seen the musical Les Miserablesthe most times. She is ahead by 2 or 3 times, so I try to up my score by stating that I’ve read the complete novel 3 times. The judge (my mother-in-law) rules that as inadmissible. 
"There is a castle on a cloud ..."The first time I read it was my freshman year in high school. It was an abridged version, and I thought Jean Valjean’s name was pronounced “Gene Val-Gene.”
After graduating from college – and before I’d seen the musical – I read the complete novel. I was absolutely blown away.
If you haven’t read Victor Hugo’s novel, you need to prepare for a massive undertaking. It is loooong. And it isn’t even long because the plot is that immense. Rather, it is long because he analyzes everything . He goes off on tangents, he philosophizes, he moralizes, he spews and spouts history. He cudgels the reader into submission with the breadth of his immense knowledge.
Imagine being cornered at a party by an enthusiastically energetic and charismatic talker. They talk and talk and talk, and at first you’re engaged, but over time you grow a little bored and you can’t wait for them to end their story. And the speaker keeps going off on tangents, and just when you think they have lost the thread of the story, they come back to it, and you’re trapped until the end … which isn’t really an end, because it segues into another tale. "I have a few things to say."
The first two times, I was willing to endure the gross excess. The third time, I found it tedious. By the time I finished, I told myself, “Never again. I’m done. I don’t need to go through this again. I have nothing to prove.”
Then, a month ago, I saw the musical again, and it sparked my interest in the novel. So, I downloaded a copy to my phone. The book is so immense that my Kindle reader can’t even tell me how many pages are left. Instead, it tells me how many hoursit will take (somewhere around 40).
I got through the opening section with Bishop Myriel (aka Monseigneur Bienvenu), the benevolent bishop who saves Jean Valjean from arrest and rewards him with two candlesticks, with which he has purchased Valjean’s soul for God.
I also go through Jean Valjean’s torment after his near-arrest, where he shreds his yellow ticket of parole and embarks on life under a new name.
And I got to Fantine’s love story with Felix Tholomyes, and … that’s where I gave up.
Footnotes not includedI couldn’t take it anymore. Hugo expounds on the romance of Fantine and Tholomyes (who will abandon her without ever knowing that she is pregnant). It is not a terribly fascinating romance, but rather a philosophical essay on the concept of romance, with loads of historical names pepper throughout.

Perhaps footnotes would be helpful.
But if an edition of Les Miserableswere to include footnotes, the book would be five times longer. The modern reader is going to be unfamiliar with all the names and events Hugo refers to.
What struck me during this attempt at reading Les Miserableswas how significant the novel has been for me. After college, I went through an extensive 19thCentury phase, where I devoured Dickens, Eliot, Austen, Tolstoy, and Melville. All those authors have had a significant impact on me, but Hugo’s expansiveness inspired me the most. For all the lengthy novels that I have read, none compares to Les Miserablesin terms of abundance. It is high drama,tragedy, and comedy, and it shovels historical compost all over you in the hope that wisdom will germinate.
Victor Hugo inspires me to bring everything I’ve got to my writing, so I am often tempted to shoe-horn every conceivable detail into my stories. I would love to overwhelm my readers with the rich details of an imagined world, but the truth is I have grown to appreciate even more the precision in writing. When a single word will do, why belavor a point with five?
I wish I had the patience to endure Les Miserablesagain, but the truth is I’ve carried this load before. I don’t need to pick it up again. And whenever I consider reading an abridged version, I feel like I would be cheating.
For the foreseeable future, I will stick with the musical, whose run time of 3 ½ hours is a bargain compared to my Kindle’s 40+ hours.

Book Review: The Window

Jess and Anna are twins. Anna is outgoing, Jess is not. 
When Anna falls to her death from her bedroom window, Jess is lost. She cannot figure out why her sister was sneaking out at night. As she endeavors to uncover the details of that final night, Jess discovers that she did not know her sister as well as she believed. No one else – including the girls’ parents – seem to want to uncover the truth, but Jess persists until all is revealed.
Amelia Brunskill’s novel, The Window, raises interesting questions about how well we know the ones we love. Even the closest siblings may hide aspects of themselves as a way of protecting the rest of the family. Jess’s quest to learn why her sister was sneaking from the house forces her to step outside her own comfort zone. In the act of rounding up clues, Jess must learn how to interact socially with her peers and with adults. She has plenty of smarts, but comprehending social cues does not appear to be her specialty. 

I had trouble getting traction with the story. It starts with Anna’s death, which should have grabbed my attention. Instead, I found myself puzzling over Jess’s reaction. Certainly, she is troubled by her sister’s death, but there seems to be an emotional disconnect between her and her parents. 
In the midst of the emotional turmoil, there is also the necessity of introducing the supporting cast of characters. Being the shy one, Jess has very little interaction with Anna’s friends, so it takes her time to figure out who is who. As a result, the first quarter of the novel focuses on set-up rather than providing much insight into who Jess is.
Brunskill’s judicious use of short chapters keeps the story’s pace moving, so that the pieces start fitting together without plot feeling disjointed or interrupted. She also intersperses Jess’s narrative with Anna’s thoughts about the final weeks of her life. Anna’s story provides details on the mystery as well as a sense of who she was as a person, but to be honest, I probably would have preferred Jess’s interpretation of her sister’s character rather than a “ghostly” voice narrating interstitial chapters. 
For me, what keeps the story moving is Jess’s social awakening. She develops friendships; she joins the track team and discovers she actually enjoys running; she experiences her first crush. These events held my interest much more than the mystery behind Anna’s death.
The ending was satisfactory but not terribly surprising. Some of the characters involved had played such a peripheral part that I did not feel a lot of emotional engagement in the climax, which is a shame, since I was curious to see how Jess would handle herself.
The title itself – The Window– in many ways sums up my reaction to the novel. It is not a terribly compelling title, though I can appreciate the symbolism. A window can provide a view of another world or another life; it can also represent the passage from one realm into another. Overall, the novel left me a little wanting for a more unexpected view.

Book Review: The Handmaid's Tale

Sometimes it is difficult to review a novel that has so overwhelmed me that I cannot easily articulate my reactions. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is one of them.
In a dystopian future, a religiously totalitarian regime has overthrown the U.S. government and established the Republic of Gilead. Society is immediately restructured into a biblical patriarchy, in which women lose all individual rights and many are forced into sexual servitude.
As a result of an environmental catastrophe, the birth rate has dropped to practically nil. The few women who still have healthy reproductive systems are forcibly assigned to the ruling class of men, with the intention that they will bear children. The narrator, Offred, does not see herself as a concubine but as a vagina on two legs. 
The Handmaid’s Tale is similar to 1984 and Brave New World, in that it critiques and even satirizes existing societal structures by playing out their logical conclusions. As a work of speculative fiction, it actually analyzes where we are rather than predicting where we will end up, as science fiction might do.
It took me some time to get into The Handmaid’s Tale, solely because the storyline is so disturbing. Atwood hits all the right buttons to stir up the reader’s uneasiness. The world she describes is recognizable, albeit skewed by religious fundamentalism. For example, the red uniforms of the Handmaids are reminiscent of a nun’s habit as well as a hijab. There is a classist hierarchy, and there is food rationing. There are public hangings, and there are mandatory gatherings for religious services. Atwood carefully constructs each element of this rigid world so that unfolds to a foregone conclusion. In other words, given the fundamentalist principles at work, society can only look like this.
About halfway through the novel, I could no longer set it down. I had to know how it would turn out. Atwood excels at layering imagery throughout the narrative. Offred, the narrator, frequently mentions cigarettes, which are now forbidden to Handmaids. Offred’s recollection of smoking has a wistful quality, which suggests the insubstantiality of smoke. Memory also works like this: it swirls around the mind yet remains intangible, until it drifts away into oblivion.
Offred is not the narrator’s name but rather a designator that she is the possession of a particular Commander: Of Fred. The reader never learns the narrator’s true name, which underscores her loss of personal identity. One possible significance of the name Offred is that she is “offered” to the Commander. But I wondered if it also represented the narrator’s desire to be separate from her position as a Handmaid – that she was a form of rebel who was Off Red, or not connected to the red uniforms that all Handmaids wear.
Atwood’s use of symbolism can be disturbingly satirical. Each month, during the Ceremony, the Commander attempts to impregnate the Handmaid, who lies with her head in between the Wife’s legs; in essence, she is merely a conduit between husband and wife. Offred notes the sterile, puritanical nature of sex as an act, given that all the participants remain discreetly clothed throughout. In other words, sex is solely about procreation and has nothing to do with love. 
The novel ends with a suitably ambiguous resolution, which can either suggest hope or utter failure for the future. The fact that Atwoood can osentibly leave the reader hanging and yet feel “satisfied” with where the story ends shows another aspect of her talent as a storyteller.
I have not seen either the 1990 movie version or the current TV series. To be honest, though I am curious about them, right now I want to hold onto what Atwood has created. I will continue to puzzle out my reactions to this brilliantly written novel, and I suspect I will return to it, just as I have to 1984 or Brave New World for a vision of who we are and what we might become.