30 Days of Book Talk discussion
Day 12: A Book You Would Recommend to a Foreigner to Help Understand Your Country
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Oooooo that’s a good question and a hard one to answer. I need to go back to the other topics too, this week has been bananas but I’m going to have think about this. I feel like one of King has a short story or two that might work.
When one looks at all those borders expanding or contracting through history one gets the feeling that perhaps countries are ideas? But nations are more concrete, I think. Because they as a whole, form one living organism, with a collective unconscious or a hive mind of sorts. Though if you ask most people they’d say it’s the other way around. So I don’t really know which is correct. What I’m trying to get to, is that we as a nation, including people who live in lands separated from Iran, some of whom no longer even speak persian, which used to be the common language among all the people who had and have their own dialects and languages, have exactly one such book. This book is called Shahnameh or the book of kings.
It is very, very densely layered and rich, but on the surface you’d think you are reading stories and tales. It’s written in poetry. The most beautiful masterpiece in the entire persian language and our language has had many masterpieces. I’m not being boastful, it’s something that’s acknowledged by linguists and many others. i would definitely recommend reading it with a teacher. The problem is that there are so few teachers left who could teach it as it should be taught. The reason we, the afghans, the tajiks, and the Uzbeks still speak Farsi, the Kurds still speak Kurdish and, as some of the scholars of the collective countries believe, even the Azari’s of the Azerbaijan speak Turkish, is because of this beautiful book. Otherwise, after all the centuries of occupation by the Arabs we also would be speaking Arabic, as Egyptians, Iraqis, Moroccans, libyians, Syrians, the Lebanese and a few other nations nowadays do.
I hope it remains protected, read and alive as long as our form of homo sapiens should survive.
Mod
It is very, very densely layered and rich, but on the surface you’d think you are reading stories and tales. It’s written in poetry. The most beautiful masterpiece in the entire persian language and our language has had many masterpieces. I’m not being boastful, it’s something that’s acknowledged by linguists and many others. i would definitely recommend reading it with a teacher. The problem is that there are so few teachers left who could teach it as it should be taught. "
I would like to read it, though I'd have to do so in English translation and no doubt it loses a lot that way. I think my next big book challenge will involve epics and cultural touchstones from around the world.
Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship wrote: "Gogol wrote: "This book is called Shahnameh or the book of kings.It is very, very densely layered and rich, but on the surface you’d think you are reading stories and tales. It’s written in poetry..."
I wish here was a translation I could recommend. I’m afraid I don’t know of any that may stand out, though I’ll ask my teacher at our next session. We are sadly lacking in this respect. I wish some effort had been made to bring it to a wider spectrum of people in other forms.
Mockingbird does seem like an obvious answer to the question for the United States, but that doesn't make it wrong! The legacy of slavery and the still-enduring racism in this country are important things to grasp.Some other ones that are nearly as obvious that come to mind: The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
As I look at that list I note that none of them are exactly recent. For something with more of a 21st century perspective (if not setting), maybe The Underground Railroad, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Mod
Thank you! Are there any more modern works you would recommend?
Mod
All good recommendations, though I admit to being dubious of Uncle Tom's Cabin. I do plan to read it someday, but it certainly has the reputation of being more (very effective) op-ed piece than solid novel.
Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship wrote: "What book would you recommend to help someone from elsewhere understand your country: its culture, history, social issues, etc.? Is there one book that’s considered iconic, and if so, how well does..."I've been wanting to attempt to read a book set in each country too! Are you tracking your progress anywhere? I'd love to get some inspiration!
I'm also in the US, and I think I'd choose The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness or A People's History of the United States if nonfiction is allowed. The struggle of marginalized people is so central to the history of the country.
Janesville: An American Story is also a fascinating look at more recent economic history and its effects on the middle class.
Mod
Thanks! I am tracking my progress on the world books challenge - every 10 countries I update my list, with the latest being here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/.... I also have a shelf for it, though since you can't see the other shelves somebody else gave a book from that view, this may not be very useful.
And thanks for the recommendations! The only one I've read is The New Jim Crow, which was definitely an eye-opener.
Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship wrote: "Gogol wrote: "I wish here was a translation I could recommend. I’m afraid I don’t know of any that may stand out, though I’ll ask my teacher at our next session. We are sadly lacking in this respec..."Shahnameh is the One and only, I’m afraid, especially since it portrays all our shortcomings and foolishness as well as the brightest parts of our making. At times when I read a certain part, I feel as if it is describing this very point in time of our history! It’s eery how well ferdowsi knew us. Francis Ford Coppola has read it and felt moved by it. So the English version can’t be that bad. The Persian version though is life changing and enchanting.
Every day I realize how blessed I am to live in our beautiful country. Here are the books I would recommend:1776 - a fascinating history of the war for independence from Britain
Little America: Incredible True Stories of Immigrants in America - as a second generation American, I am so proud of the success our family has enjoyed after our grandparents came here, not speaking a word of English.
How to Read the Constitution--and Why - all citizens should understand this document and the freedoms we have come to take for granted
American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970
Life: America the Beautiful: A Photographic Journey, Coast to Coast-and Beyond - gorgeous photos of the incredible and varied natural beauty contained in the United States.
Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service - I am such a huge fan of Gary Sinise, a successful actor who can't do enough for our military and their families.
Also an American, and I agree - that is a hard one. I think Huck Finn, Gatsby, and TKAM are all good suggestions. (I'm more dubious on Uncle Tom's Cabin. For one thing, it's not nearly as good a novel as the other three - I've read all of them.) I think I'm going to go non-fiction and suggest The Strange Career of Jim Crow by Jim Woodward, though.
The books I would recommend were actually written by a British author. 1 is on general history (The Will To Survive: A History Of Hungary), the other on a very sensitive and hot topic for Hungarians: the loss of more than half of the country's territories after WWI. Karolyie & Bethlen, Hungary: Makers of the Modern World, the Peace Conferences of 1919-23 and Their AftermarthUnfortunately, we still cannot see eye-to-eye with the world and with ourselves about it and admit that it was mostly our fault (the fault of the obtuse, selfish, blind politicians, whose counterparts are currently in charge... AGAIN!) and only partly the fault of circumstances. Present politicians still encourage the thinking of blaming everybody else, but ourselves for the mistakes we made, because it serves their purposes very well. :(
Anyway, the author used to be ambassador to Hungary and as I read this book, it was clear to me that he handled this topic very well: with deep understanding of our loss and yet he tried to present the circumstances in as unbiased a way as possible.
Mod
Those sound really interesting - I was hoping you would answer! :)
:)The last few days were very busy, that's why I could not keep up properly, but I got here eventually.
Melindam wrote: "The books I would recommend were actually written by a British author. 1 is on general history (The Will To Survive: A History Of Hungary), the other on a very sensitive and hot top..."I completely understand every single word you wrote here. First, we too have been suffering from the loss of ancient parts of Iran for more than Two hundred years now. We too cannot see eye to eye with the world or among ourselves.
And also the fault was 80 percent ours.
Also, interestingly enough some of the best and the greatest scientific books in the 19th and early 20th century about Iran’s geography, history, nature, customs, minerals and so on were written by the English, and published by Oxford. I never read them myself but I take the word of a highly credible source on this.
I will definitely add this one to my tbr list.
30 Days of Book Talk
Books mentioned in this topic
The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary (other topics)The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary (other topics)
The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary (other topics)
Karolyie & Bethlen, Hungary: Makers of the Modern World, the Peace Conferences of 1919-23 and Their Aftermarth (other topics)
The Strange Career of Jim Crow (other topics)
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I’m doing a challenge to read a book primarily set in each country in the world, so this is something I think about. Currently I’m at 175 out of 201, so chances are I’ve already read books from all your countries, but no country can truly be encapsulated in a single book, so I’m always looking for more!
Being from the U.S. though, I have a hard time answering this question from my own country. It’s huge and diverse and produces a lot of books. The book I currently list as my U.S. book for my challenge is All the King's Men, because it’s literary and deals with political and historical issues, but though it’s an excellent book I can’t exactly say that it represents much about my experience living in the country. I feel like the go-to answer here is To Kill a Mockingbird, which is also quite good and deals with social issues still current today, but I hate to go with the obvious answer.
To someone who really wants to understand social issues in the U.S., I’d probably recommend $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, which is a nonfiction book following some extremely poor Americans and explaining the policies that have led to this.
For fiction, I don’t read a lot of books set in the contemporary U.S. and those I do tend to focus on niche issues, so I’d probably have to go with something by Elizabeth Strout, probably Olive Kitteridge or Anything Is Possible. I'd probably have a better example if I read more contemporary literary fiction with a U.S. setting.