My mother is very interested in Kentucky history and literature. A couple of months ago, the local library hosted an event which featured an actress performing a monologue based on the life of Mary Settles, the last Shaker at the Pleasant Hill Village. Although I had visited Shakertown as a child and I remember owning a doll from there that had a smiling face on one end and a frown on the other end. It's hard to explain and I don't have the actual doll for a picture and I do not recommend doing a search for "Naughty nice doll" on Google images, because even with safe search on, I got some pretty weird hits.
I didn't know much about the Shakers before the dialogue. I knew that "Simple Gifts" and "How Can I Keep from Singing" were Shaker hymns, that they had sent aid to Ireland during the potato famine, and that their name came from movements in their worship services. The monologue was enlightening, since it told both the story of Mary Settles (who was abandoned by her husband at Shakertown) and the history of the Pleasant Hill village, as well as the overall history and beliefs. The monologue painted them in a very positive light, pointing out that they were very progressive on social issues like race relations and equality for women and that they also took in orphans. The Shakers required celibacy from their members and didn't allow private property for full members. In a nutshell, it was a very Utopian society that's lasted for a surprisingly long time. Mary Settles died in 1923 and was the last of the Kentucky Shakers, but there is still an active village in Maine with three members (and yes, there's a website.
I'm not going to go into Shaker history or beliefs very much, since I don't know enough to really discuss it and even if I did, there's so much to discuss. I recommend a little research, though, because it is fascinating and I plan to do more eventually.
The Believers gave a much less favorable view of the Shakers. It takes place in the late 1700's and early 1800's and is the story of Rebbecca Fowler who marries Richard Cooper, the son of her neighbors. Rebbecca and Richard had been friends since childhood and Richard's parents were slightly more prosperous than Rebbecca's family. Richard is a serious, devout, hard-working man and when they marry, his parents give them some of their property to build their house and start a farm, as well as two slaves, Sampson and Cassie, along with their daughter, Jency.
The first few months of their marriage are idyllic, but then their first child is stillborn, which is devastating to both of them. While trying to cope with his grief, Richard attends a revival and decides to follow one of the ministers to form a new settlement. As Rebbecca is getting used to this change, a few Shaker missionaries arrive and Richard decides to join the Shakers. Rebbecca, believing that her place is with her husband, follows him, albeit with misgivings.
The Believers takes a long, hard look at the realities of the Shaker environment. While most of the full members are very devout, they're nowhere near perfect. There is pride and ambition, as well as the difficulties that come with forcing a group of people to live in close quarters. The women in Rebbecca's "family" (actual families are separated and divided into church families, where the children are raised separately and the men and women are segregated) formed a fairly tight bond, but there was also significant conflict among the women. A lot of them chafed at various aspects of the religion. Giles did a wonderful job of showing the problems encountered when a large group of self-sufficient adults are suddenly forced into a highly disciplined environment.
The one problem I had with the book is that it was very much a product of its time. The slaves played a significant role in the book and Giles's treatment of them was probably progressive for when it was written (1957), but reading a book about an extremely racist time written in a very racist time... Well, I believe Giles did her best to portray the slaves positively, but the slaves, especially Jency, still came off an inferiors who needed someone to guide and care for them.
In spite of the problems, I enjoyed it. I also found out that The Believers is the third book in the series. I plan to read the rest of the series as well as doing more research on the Shakers. I'd also love to visit Shakertown over the holidays, since some of the events on their website look amazing.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Alcestis by Katharine Beutner
I've been slacking off recently with reading and blogging. I'm not really sure whether it's a result of things being slightly more hectic than usual or the fact that I can't seem to get into the books I've been trying to read lately. Either way, here I am with a finished book.
Alcestis is a retelling of the play by Euripides with a feminist twist. In Greek mythology, Alcestis was married to King Admetus who offended Artemis by failing to sacrifice to her following the wedding. She filled Admetus's bed with snakes, but Apollo stepped in and allowed Admetus to avoid death if someone would volunteer to take his place. No one did, so Alcestis stepped forward. After that, Heracles rescued her from Hades and she and Admetus apparently lived happily ever after.
Despite having taken a classical literature course, I've never read the actual play. Like The Penelopiad, it really motivates me to go back and read more classical literature. In fact, one of my goals for 2012 (and one I may start early) is to dedicate some time to reading The Great Books of the Western World, since I recently discovered that my library has all of them. I also plan to work on a more comprehensive reading list to cover books that I should have read ages ago.
Anyway, I freely admit that I went into this novel at a disadvantage. I can't compare the novel to the original play, which is a shame since there seems to be a lot of interesting critique surrounding it.
What I can say is that I liked it. As expected, it was a pretty big deviation from the generally accepted views of Greek mythology. The male characters generally didn't fare favorably in the novel and were either undeveloped or definitely negative, ranging from abusive to cowardly to almost blundering. They absolutely weren't portrayed as heroic. I think there's something to the fact that the few "good" male characters are the ones who aren't really explored, which obviously makes you wonder if we just don't know enough about them to think poorly of them.
The women are fascinating, however. The story starts with the birth of Alcestis and the death of her mother. After that, she forms a close relationship with her older sister, Hippothoe and views her oldest sister, Pisidice, with confusion. Early on, Hippothoe dies due to her asthma and, more importantly, in Alcestis's view, Apollo's failure to intervene. Her search for Hippothoe in Hades becomes a driving force later in the book. After Hippothoe's death, Pisidice and Alcestis seem to reach an understanding, but their relationship is cut short when Pisidice marries. Pelias remarries and his wife, Philomache, plays a brief but important role until Alcestis is married.
After Alcestis' death, both Hades and Persephone play an important role, for different reasons. Persephone has always been, for me, someone who was just there and played a footnote in Greek mythology. Basically, "by the way, Hades kidnapped Persephone, Demeter got angry and caused winter, Zeus demanded she be returned, but she ate pomegranate seeds, so now we have seasons. The end, now let's move on to the important stuff," so it was really interesting to see how Beutner developed not only Persephone, but her relationship with Hades, her history, and her treatment of Alcestis.
I feel like I'm at a bit of a disadvantage for not having read the play and in hindsight, I wish I had. It would have given me more insight into what Beutner was doing with the characters. As it stands now, this is probably going to go on my "reread" list once I've really done a better study of Greek mythology.
Alcestis is a retelling of the play by Euripides with a feminist twist. In Greek mythology, Alcestis was married to King Admetus who offended Artemis by failing to sacrifice to her following the wedding. She filled Admetus's bed with snakes, but Apollo stepped in and allowed Admetus to avoid death if someone would volunteer to take his place. No one did, so Alcestis stepped forward. After that, Heracles rescued her from Hades and she and Admetus apparently lived happily ever after.
Despite having taken a classical literature course, I've never read the actual play. Like The Penelopiad, it really motivates me to go back and read more classical literature. In fact, one of my goals for 2012 (and one I may start early) is to dedicate some time to reading The Great Books of the Western World, since I recently discovered that my library has all of them. I also plan to work on a more comprehensive reading list to cover books that I should have read ages ago.
Anyway, I freely admit that I went into this novel at a disadvantage. I can't compare the novel to the original play, which is a shame since there seems to be a lot of interesting critique surrounding it.
What I can say is that I liked it. As expected, it was a pretty big deviation from the generally accepted views of Greek mythology. The male characters generally didn't fare favorably in the novel and were either undeveloped or definitely negative, ranging from abusive to cowardly to almost blundering. They absolutely weren't portrayed as heroic. I think there's something to the fact that the few "good" male characters are the ones who aren't really explored, which obviously makes you wonder if we just don't know enough about them to think poorly of them.
The women are fascinating, however. The story starts with the birth of Alcestis and the death of her mother. After that, she forms a close relationship with her older sister, Hippothoe and views her oldest sister, Pisidice, with confusion. Early on, Hippothoe dies due to her asthma and, more importantly, in Alcestis's view, Apollo's failure to intervene. Her search for Hippothoe in Hades becomes a driving force later in the book. After Hippothoe's death, Pisidice and Alcestis seem to reach an understanding, but their relationship is cut short when Pisidice marries. Pelias remarries and his wife, Philomache, plays a brief but important role until Alcestis is married.
After Alcestis' death, both Hades and Persephone play an important role, for different reasons. Persephone has always been, for me, someone who was just there and played a footnote in Greek mythology. Basically, "by the way, Hades kidnapped Persephone, Demeter got angry and caused winter, Zeus demanded she be returned, but she ate pomegranate seeds, so now we have seasons. The end, now let's move on to the important stuff," so it was really interesting to see how Beutner developed not only Persephone, but her relationship with Hades, her history, and her treatment of Alcestis.
I feel like I'm at a bit of a disadvantage for not having read the play and in hindsight, I wish I had. It would have given me more insight into what Beutner was doing with the characters. As it stands now, this is probably going to go on my "reread" list once I've really done a better study of Greek mythology.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Marget Atwood
I'm always fascinated by retellings of existing stories, especially when the story is told from the perspective of a minor character. When I heard about The Myths series, "where some of the world's most respected authors re-tell myths in a manner of their own choosing," I was intrigued. Marget Atwood's The Penelopiad seemed like a great starting point.
I had initially expected the novel to be set in a modern time, based on one of the descriptions I read, and part of it is. Penelope is the main narrator and the novel opens with a dead Penelope reflecting on her life. The chorus is composed of the twelve maids who were hung by Telemachus for being involve with suitors and insulting Penelope and Telemachus. (If you're rusty on the plot of The Odyssey, the relevant parts occur in Book 22. Odysseus and his son, Telmachus, kill the suitors while a god makes Penelope sleep. Odysseus summons his old nurse, Eurycleia, who tells him about the maids that have gone along with the suitors and insulted Penelope and Telemachus. He forces the maids to clean up after the slaughter and dispose of the bodies of the suitors, then tells Telemachus to kill them with a sword, but Telemachus decides to prolong their deaths and hang them from a ship.) In the introduction, Atwood says that she was "always haunted by the hanged maids" and so in her retelling of Penelope's story, Penelope is haunted as well.
I think it's fair to admit that when I read The Odyssey, the fate of the maids didn't really bother me. Or, more accurately, it didn't bother me any more than any other part of Odysseus's homecoming, including slaughtering all of Penelope's suitors and the mutilation and castration of Melanthius, the goatherd who served the suitors. When it was brought to my attention, the treatment of the maids did seem fairly brutal and sadistic (especially since, as Atwood points out in the novel, the maids probably weren't given a lot of choice by the suitors), but Book 22 is basically one big gorefest otherwise.
Atwood also focuses on other mythology, including the fact that Penelope was the cousin of Helen of Troy and that Helen's father helped Odysseus marry his niece, Penelope, in exchange for his role in preventing a war between Helen's suitors. Helen plays a significant part in the story and is an overall unsympathetic character. Atwood's treatment of Helen seems a bit hypocritical, but I suppose that there's only so much room to revise characters and between making Penelope more proactive and less oblivious and portraying the maids as sympathetic, a sympathetic Helen just wasn't an option.
Using the maids as a chorus helps to make them more sympathetic, especially when their side of the story is given alongside Penelope's. In some cases, the technique does a great job of putting Penelope's side of things into perspective. For instance, Penelope seems very sympathetic when she talks about how Helen ruined her life by running away with Paris and causing the war that took Odysseus away. However, when the maid chorus follows and tells about how sleep is their only refuge from spending their days cleaning and working while being at the mercy of any man in the castle... Well, Penelope's problems seem bad, but not that bad. The fate of the maids also makes Penelope less sympathetic, since she was the one who instructed the maids to get close to the suitors to spy on them and her instructions led to their death. As much as Penelope grieves the maids and feels guilty about her role in their fate, she seems to have trouble seeing the maids as individuals rather than extensions of herself.
Atwood uses some interesting techniques in The Penelopaid, including the chorus of maids and a modern trial at the end of the novel, where the judge understandably a few issues with the fate of the maids, but refuses to pass judgment on Odysseus because he doesn't want to impose modern values on a hero from an ancient story, which is probably an interesting commentary on the fact that the fate of the maids is frequently ignored in modern discussions of The Odyssey.
Despite the subject matter, the book was a fast read and thought-provoking. I didn't necesarily agree Atwood on everything, but it definitely influenced my view of The Odyssey a bit. When I finally get around to rereading The Odyssey (and The Iliad...and The Aeneid...and, well, you get the picture), I'm curious as to how it will change my reactions and opinions of the overall work. Of course, I never found Odysseus to be terribly sympathetic, so I don't expect a major change.
I had initially expected the novel to be set in a modern time, based on one of the descriptions I read, and part of it is. Penelope is the main narrator and the novel opens with a dead Penelope reflecting on her life. The chorus is composed of the twelve maids who were hung by Telemachus for being involve with suitors and insulting Penelope and Telemachus. (If you're rusty on the plot of The Odyssey, the relevant parts occur in Book 22. Odysseus and his son, Telmachus, kill the suitors while a god makes Penelope sleep. Odysseus summons his old nurse, Eurycleia, who tells him about the maids that have gone along with the suitors and insulted Penelope and Telemachus. He forces the maids to clean up after the slaughter and dispose of the bodies of the suitors, then tells Telemachus to kill them with a sword, but Telemachus decides to prolong their deaths and hang them from a ship.) In the introduction, Atwood says that she was "always haunted by the hanged maids" and so in her retelling of Penelope's story, Penelope is haunted as well.
I think it's fair to admit that when I read The Odyssey, the fate of the maids didn't really bother me. Or, more accurately, it didn't bother me any more than any other part of Odysseus's homecoming, including slaughtering all of Penelope's suitors and the mutilation and castration of Melanthius, the goatherd who served the suitors. When it was brought to my attention, the treatment of the maids did seem fairly brutal and sadistic (especially since, as Atwood points out in the novel, the maids probably weren't given a lot of choice by the suitors), but Book 22 is basically one big gorefest otherwise.
Atwood also focuses on other mythology, including the fact that Penelope was the cousin of Helen of Troy and that Helen's father helped Odysseus marry his niece, Penelope, in exchange for his role in preventing a war between Helen's suitors. Helen plays a significant part in the story and is an overall unsympathetic character. Atwood's treatment of Helen seems a bit hypocritical, but I suppose that there's only so much room to revise characters and between making Penelope more proactive and less oblivious and portraying the maids as sympathetic, a sympathetic Helen just wasn't an option.
Using the maids as a chorus helps to make them more sympathetic, especially when their side of the story is given alongside Penelope's. In some cases, the technique does a great job of putting Penelope's side of things into perspective. For instance, Penelope seems very sympathetic when she talks about how Helen ruined her life by running away with Paris and causing the war that took Odysseus away. However, when the maid chorus follows and tells about how sleep is their only refuge from spending their days cleaning and working while being at the mercy of any man in the castle... Well, Penelope's problems seem bad, but not that bad. The fate of the maids also makes Penelope less sympathetic, since she was the one who instructed the maids to get close to the suitors to spy on them and her instructions led to their death. As much as Penelope grieves the maids and feels guilty about her role in their fate, she seems to have trouble seeing the maids as individuals rather than extensions of herself.
Atwood uses some interesting techniques in The Penelopaid, including the chorus of maids and a modern trial at the end of the novel, where the judge understandably a few issues with the fate of the maids, but refuses to pass judgment on Odysseus because he doesn't want to impose modern values on a hero from an ancient story, which is probably an interesting commentary on the fact that the fate of the maids is frequently ignored in modern discussions of The Odyssey.
Despite the subject matter, the book was a fast read and thought-provoking. I didn't necesarily agree Atwood on everything, but it definitely influenced my view of The Odyssey a bit. When I finally get around to rereading The Odyssey (and The Iliad...and The Aeneid...and, well, you get the picture), I'm curious as to how it will change my reactions and opinions of the overall work. Of course, I never found Odysseus to be terribly sympathetic, so I don't expect a major change.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Tudor Secret by C.W. Gortner
I came across The Tudor Secret while I was browsing the library's new books. It's supposed to be a mystery set in Tudor England and since mysteries and historical fiction are two of my favorite lighter genres, I was intrigued.
The narrator is Brendan Prescott, a foundling taken in and raised in the household of the Duke of Northumberland. The most famous member of that family (or at least the only one that rang a bell for me) was his son, Robert Dudley, who was a longtime suitor of Elizabeth I. The Duke of Northumberland's youngest son, Guilford, was married to Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VII's younger sister, Mary. Jane was (arguably) queen of England for nine days between the death of Edward VI and the accession of Mary I.
Brendan comes to court in the last days of Edward VI to serve as a squire to Guilford and is recruited by William Cecil to help advance the interests of Elizabeth. For his part, Brendan is interested in both helping Elizabeth, who he meets briefly on his first night at court when Robert sends him to deliver a ring, and discovering his origins.
Certain parts of the book were easy to anticipate, since it did fall back on predictable tropes. A young man with no family history taken in by a powerful family (even as a lowly servant) and educated beyond his apparent class by a caring guardian? There's definitely more to that story. There were also a few predictable sequences. And, of course, if you don't know how the plot to place Jane Grey on the throne ends, you evidently weren't paying attention in history class.
In spite of all that, though, Gortner does a pretty good job not being too predictable. Even though Brendan's parentage becomes partially obvious by chapter seven, the exact identity of his parents was a twist...one that isn't even resolved by the end of the book.
Gortner left a few things unresolved, though the ending definitely didn't feel incomplete or rushed. When I read in the interview at the end of the book that this was going to be the first in a series of novels with Brendan as a spy, I was excited to read more.
I'm a fan of Tudor books, though I generally prefer to read stories set in the reign of Henry VIII. The Other Boleyn Girl was probably the catalyst, though I don't particularly care her books because I feel that she generally vilifies certain characters to an exaggerated extent resulting in very two dimensional characters. To give Gortner credit, I didn't particularly see that in this novel...with a couple of possible exceptions, but even then, I feel like there was at least some groundwork laid and some historical basis.
The Tudor Secret is hardly heavy fiction and isn't the sort of novel that leaves you thinking after you finish it, but it was interesting and seems to be fairly well-researched. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys Tudor fiction and wants an interesting read.
The narrator is Brendan Prescott, a foundling taken in and raised in the household of the Duke of Northumberland. The most famous member of that family (or at least the only one that rang a bell for me) was his son, Robert Dudley, who was a longtime suitor of Elizabeth I. The Duke of Northumberland's youngest son, Guilford, was married to Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VII's younger sister, Mary. Jane was (arguably) queen of England for nine days between the death of Edward VI and the accession of Mary I.
Brendan comes to court in the last days of Edward VI to serve as a squire to Guilford and is recruited by William Cecil to help advance the interests of Elizabeth. For his part, Brendan is interested in both helping Elizabeth, who he meets briefly on his first night at court when Robert sends him to deliver a ring, and discovering his origins.
Certain parts of the book were easy to anticipate, since it did fall back on predictable tropes. A young man with no family history taken in by a powerful family (even as a lowly servant) and educated beyond his apparent class by a caring guardian? There's definitely more to that story. There were also a few predictable sequences. And, of course, if you don't know how the plot to place Jane Grey on the throne ends, you evidently weren't paying attention in history class.
In spite of all that, though, Gortner does a pretty good job not being too predictable. Even though Brendan's parentage becomes partially obvious by chapter seven, the exact identity of his parents was a twist...one that isn't even resolved by the end of the book.
Gortner left a few things unresolved, though the ending definitely didn't feel incomplete or rushed. When I read in the interview at the end of the book that this was going to be the first in a series of novels with Brendan as a spy, I was excited to read more.
I'm a fan of Tudor books, though I generally prefer to read stories set in the reign of Henry VIII. The Other Boleyn Girl was probably the catalyst, though I don't particularly care her books because I feel that she generally vilifies certain characters to an exaggerated extent resulting in very two dimensional characters. To give Gortner credit, I didn't particularly see that in this novel...with a couple of possible exceptions, but even then, I feel like there was at least some groundwork laid and some historical basis.
The Tudor Secret is hardly heavy fiction and isn't the sort of novel that leaves you thinking after you finish it, but it was interesting and seems to be fairly well-researched. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys Tudor fiction and wants an interesting read.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Book Thief was reviewed by one of the book blogs I follow, though I'm ashamed to admit that I can't remember which blog. The review was positive, the concept sounded intriguing, and the library had a copy of it, so I checked it out.
If someone told you that a book was set in Nazi Germany and the narrator was Death, then you probably would assume that the book isn't going to end well for a lot of characters. Or go well at all, for that matter. That would be an accurate assumption and Death makes it very clear early on that several major characters aren't going to survive the story.
In fact, the novel starts with one death and one very bleak future. Death first encounters Liesel when he takes her younger brother. Her mother is taking the children to live with foster parents, Hans and Rosa, presumably because she is a Communist and expects to be taken into custody soon. Liesel's first book theft occurs when the grave digger's assistant drops The Grave Digger's Handbook after burying her brother. Liesel commits two more acts of book theft in the series, as well a few acts of normal theft. The normal theft brings her closer to her friend and neighbor, Rudy (who idolizes Jesse Owens to the point that he covered his body in charcoal and ran one hundred meters at the athletic field) and her book theft helps her grow closer to her foster father, the mayor's wife, a Jewish man hidden by her family, and many others.
The book's style is hit or miss, I think. In addition to the regular prose, Death interrupts the narrative frequently to add his commentary or explanation. It worked for me, though I'll admit that I did gloss over several of the bold sections. A few people seem to hate it, others seem to love it.
Interestingly enough, my main response to this book was "I really need to read Anne Frank's diary." The novel reminded me that while the German government was systemically killing millions of people, there were German citizens who didn't necessarily agree with the policies who were just trying to survive the war. Seeing people who either publicly disagreed with the government (at the beginning of the book, Liesel and her family are suffering because her foster father's painting business was failing because he repainted the door of a Jewish business that had been vandalized) or privately had doubts.
There were some wonderful, life affirming points in the book that restored my faith in the human race...and then there were moments where I shared the characters' outrage and helplessness. (Rudy and Liesel, as children, seemed to have more than their fair share of this, since they not only had to deal with the normal childhood feelings of powerlessness, but also the policies of a totalitarian government and the inequities of poverty.) The end was both heart-breaking (I felt that certain characters really should have had a chance to survive, if only because they had earned it), but also optimistic. I cried a bit at the end and I might have cried more if I hadn't been in a waiting room at the time.
I would recommend this book, if only for the interesting style. I liked it, but it didn't resonate with me as much as certain other books.
If someone told you that a book was set in Nazi Germany and the narrator was Death, then you probably would assume that the book isn't going to end well for a lot of characters. Or go well at all, for that matter. That would be an accurate assumption and Death makes it very clear early on that several major characters aren't going to survive the story.
In fact, the novel starts with one death and one very bleak future. Death first encounters Liesel when he takes her younger brother. Her mother is taking the children to live with foster parents, Hans and Rosa, presumably because she is a Communist and expects to be taken into custody soon. Liesel's first book theft occurs when the grave digger's assistant drops The Grave Digger's Handbook after burying her brother. Liesel commits two more acts of book theft in the series, as well a few acts of normal theft. The normal theft brings her closer to her friend and neighbor, Rudy (who idolizes Jesse Owens to the point that he covered his body in charcoal and ran one hundred meters at the athletic field) and her book theft helps her grow closer to her foster father, the mayor's wife, a Jewish man hidden by her family, and many others.
The book's style is hit or miss, I think. In addition to the regular prose, Death interrupts the narrative frequently to add his commentary or explanation. It worked for me, though I'll admit that I did gloss over several of the bold sections. A few people seem to hate it, others seem to love it.
Interestingly enough, my main response to this book was "I really need to read Anne Frank's diary." The novel reminded me that while the German government was systemically killing millions of people, there were German citizens who didn't necessarily agree with the policies who were just trying to survive the war. Seeing people who either publicly disagreed with the government (at the beginning of the book, Liesel and her family are suffering because her foster father's painting business was failing because he repainted the door of a Jewish business that had been vandalized) or privately had doubts.
There were some wonderful, life affirming points in the book that restored my faith in the human race...and then there were moments where I shared the characters' outrage and helplessness. (Rudy and Liesel, as children, seemed to have more than their fair share of this, since they not only had to deal with the normal childhood feelings of powerlessness, but also the policies of a totalitarian government and the inequities of poverty.) The end was both heart-breaking (I felt that certain characters really should have had a chance to survive, if only because they had earned it), but also optimistic. I cried a bit at the end and I might have cried more if I hadn't been in a waiting room at the time.
I would recommend this book, if only for the interesting style. I liked it, but it didn't resonate with me as much as certain other books.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
I've seen a couple of book blogs that discussed the closing of Borders. It's a little sad to me, since I have some good memories of going there. However, I don't think this is an indicator of the future of bookstores or printed books. I think that Borders failed because of various poor business decisions, including their inability to adapt first to selling books online and later to ebooks.
That said, today's entry is somewhat Borders-related, since I picked up The Cellist of Sarajevo after seeing it recommended by a Borders employee. I'm glad I did.
It's somewhat based on true events, including the cellist. The novel is set during the Siege of Sarajevo and features the loosely related stories of four characters The most obvious is the cellist, based on Vedran Smailović who played Albioni's Adiago in G for twenty-two days to honor the twenty-two people killed by mortar shells while they were buying bread. The cellist in the novel does the same.
The second character is Arrow, a young woman who was formerly on her university's sharp shooting team and was recruited by the army to defend Sarajevo from "the men on the hills." Her perspective on the conflict and her reason for using a nom de geurre is fascinating and shows her difficulties reconciling the person she was with who she has become:
The third character is Dragan, an older man who works at a bakery. His wife and teenage son have escaped to Italy and he is trying to get to the bakery where he works in order to eat. While he is trying to avoid snipers and shellings, he meets up with a friend of his wife. He tries to avoid her initially, because he meeting people from his pre-war life dredges up too many memories. Out of all the characters, Dragan seems to wrestle most with reconciling what Sarajevo was and what it has become.
Finally, the character I found most fascinating was Keenan. I've flagged several passages in the novel and most of them deal with him. Overall, Keenan is a survivor. His entire day is spent trying to make it to a brewery in order to get water for his family and his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Ritovoski. Mrs. Ritovoski survived World War II, though she lost her husband at 25. Early on in the conflict, when she raised concerns over how bad things would get, Keenan told her "I will help you." Later, when it becomes difficult to get water, she comes back with her water containers and reminded him of her promise. She insists on using containers without handles, despite the extra work this creates for Keenan and his efforts to convince her to use other containers, to the point of offering her his own larger containers to use.
Despite risking his life to get water for his family and a neighbor he doesn't particularly like, Keenan isn't selfless. He's been affected by the conflict and his primary, if not only, goal is survival. At certain points, he realizes this and he may not like that trait, but it's there. For instance:
The novel itself is powerfully written and through small tasks like getting food and drinkable water, it conveys how difficult life for the people in Sarajevo. Galloway doesn't focus on the details or ideology of the conflict, which makes the work all the more powerful since the people who are suffering most don't care about the why. Regardless of whether the war is just, the people are still forced to risk their lives while crossing streets watched by snipers, just to get enough water to last a few days.
Despite the fairly dark subject matter of the novel, I found it much less depressing than, say, The Vagrants. Possibly because, unlike the characters in The Vagrants, the characters didn't feel as beaten down. Also, the characters seemed to have more hope and it didn't feel quite so futile.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and I would whole-heartedly recommend it.
That said, today's entry is somewhat Borders-related, since I picked up The Cellist of Sarajevo after seeing it recommended by a Borders employee. I'm glad I did.
It's somewhat based on true events, including the cellist. The novel is set during the Siege of Sarajevo and features the loosely related stories of four characters The most obvious is the cellist, based on Vedran Smailović who played Albioni's Adiago in G for twenty-two days to honor the twenty-two people killed by mortar shells while they were buying bread. The cellist in the novel does the same.
The second character is Arrow, a young woman who was formerly on her university's sharp shooting team and was recruited by the army to defend Sarajevo from "the men on the hills." Her perspective on the conflict and her reason for using a nom de geurre is fascinating and shows her difficulties reconciling the person she was with who she has become:
From the first time she picked up a rifle to kill she has called herself Arrow. There are some who continue to call her by her former name. She ignores them. If they persist, she tells them that her name is Arrow now. No one argues. No one questions what she must do. Everyone does something to stay alive. But if they were to press her, she would say, "I am Arrow because I hate them. The woman you knew hated nobody."
The third character is Dragan, an older man who works at a bakery. His wife and teenage son have escaped to Italy and he is trying to get to the bakery where he works in order to eat. While he is trying to avoid snipers and shellings, he meets up with a friend of his wife. He tries to avoid her initially, because he meeting people from his pre-war life dredges up too many memories. Out of all the characters, Dragan seems to wrestle most with reconciling what Sarajevo was and what it has become.
Finally, the character I found most fascinating was Keenan. I've flagged several passages in the novel and most of them deal with him. Overall, Keenan is a survivor. His entire day is spent trying to make it to a brewery in order to get water for his family and his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Ritovoski. Mrs. Ritovoski survived World War II, though she lost her husband at 25. Early on in the conflict, when she raised concerns over how bad things would get, Keenan told her "I will help you." Later, when it becomes difficult to get water, she comes back with her water containers and reminded him of her promise. She insists on using containers without handles, despite the extra work this creates for Keenan and his efforts to convince her to use other containers, to the point of offering her his own larger containers to use.
Despite risking his life to get water for his family and a neighbor he doesn't particularly like, Keenan isn't selfless. He's been affected by the conflict and his primary, if not only, goal is survival. At certain points, he realizes this and he may not like that trait, but it's there. For instance:
There are those who ran away as soon as the shells fell, their instinct for self-preservation stronger than their sense of altruism or civic duty. There are those who didn't run, who are now covered in the blood of the wounded, and they work with a myopic urgency to help those who can be saved, and to remove those who can't to whatever awaits then next. Then there's the third type, the group Keenan falls into. They stand, mouths gaping, and watch as others run or help. he's surprised he didn't run, isn't part of the first group, and he wishes he were part of the second.
The novel itself is powerfully written and through small tasks like getting food and drinkable water, it conveys how difficult life for the people in Sarajevo. Galloway doesn't focus on the details or ideology of the conflict, which makes the work all the more powerful since the people who are suffering most don't care about the why. Regardless of whether the war is just, the people are still forced to risk their lives while crossing streets watched by snipers, just to get enough water to last a few days.
Despite the fairly dark subject matter of the novel, I found it much less depressing than, say, The Vagrants. Possibly because, unlike the characters in The Vagrants, the characters didn't feel as beaten down. Also, the characters seemed to have more hope and it didn't feel quite so futile.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and I would whole-heartedly recommend it.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
I have to say that the East and Southeast Asian Challenge is really working out for me. I picked up Please Look After Mom since it was both set in South Korea and originally published in Korean. My goal is to read a book from as many countries included in the challenge as possible.
Please Look After Mom begins with a family trying to find their missing mother. She was visiting her children in Seoul when she was separated from her husband while trying to get on a subway then disappeared. The story unfolds from the perspective of multiple family members, including the older daughter, the oldest son, and the woman's husband.
The novel itself was interesting for a couple of reasons, both because it used multiple perspectives and in some cases, was written in second person. There were also a few elements of magical realism which added to the confusion of what had actually happened to So-Nyo (the mother). Interestingly enough, the novel focuses less on finding So-Nyo and more on revealing who she is.
Early on, it becomes fairly obvious that So-Nyo's identity has been swallowed up by her family, even from the time she was young. In the opening paragraphs, it's revealed that her family is even unclear about her birthdate. The children had grown up believing that it was July 24, 1938, but then her husband corrects the children and tells them she was born in 1936, but parents didn't register their children for a few years before making their existence official due to the high infant mortality rate. The family also has trouble finding a current photo of her since she had started to avoid pictures and the only suitable one was from a family photo taken years earlier. Even her name makes her seem almost disposable, since the reader discovers later that So-Nyo means "Little Girl" and her sister was named Tae-Nyo or "Big Girl."
Even though the family is searching for their mother for the entire story, the story of the search frequently takes a backseat to the family's memories. Throughout the novel, we learn that So-Nyo was selfless and valued her family above all, though her children and husband don't always see it that way and dismiss her sacrifices both big and small.
Throughout the novel, the family also has to come to terms with the fact that So-Nyo was getting older and her health and mental state were declining. This results in a lot of guilt, since her family ignored the signs and instead got angry or frustrated at her for...well, basically, for not being Mom.
I think that the story will really strike a chord for a lot of people, especially anyone who has watched a family member get older and deal with the limitations of age. It's easy to get angry at the children and her husband for failing to recognize that she was sick and needed help, but they generally meant well and truly cared for their mother. It's just difficult for anyone to watch a family member change from the person you remembered. And, once you're forced to come to terms with the fact that the changes aren't the person's fault, it's equally hard to look back on the times you were less than patient or not as sympathetic as you could have been.
Please Look After Mom begins with a family trying to find their missing mother. She was visiting her children in Seoul when she was separated from her husband while trying to get on a subway then disappeared. The story unfolds from the perspective of multiple family members, including the older daughter, the oldest son, and the woman's husband.
The novel itself was interesting for a couple of reasons, both because it used multiple perspectives and in some cases, was written in second person. There were also a few elements of magical realism which added to the confusion of what had actually happened to So-Nyo (the mother). Interestingly enough, the novel focuses less on finding So-Nyo and more on revealing who she is.
Early on, it becomes fairly obvious that So-Nyo's identity has been swallowed up by her family, even from the time she was young. In the opening paragraphs, it's revealed that her family is even unclear about her birthdate. The children had grown up believing that it was July 24, 1938, but then her husband corrects the children and tells them she was born in 1936, but parents didn't register their children for a few years before making their existence official due to the high infant mortality rate. The family also has trouble finding a current photo of her since she had started to avoid pictures and the only suitable one was from a family photo taken years earlier. Even her name makes her seem almost disposable, since the reader discovers later that So-Nyo means "Little Girl" and her sister was named Tae-Nyo or "Big Girl."
Even though the family is searching for their mother for the entire story, the story of the search frequently takes a backseat to the family's memories. Throughout the novel, we learn that So-Nyo was selfless and valued her family above all, though her children and husband don't always see it that way and dismiss her sacrifices both big and small.
Throughout the novel, the family also has to come to terms with the fact that So-Nyo was getting older and her health and mental state were declining. This results in a lot of guilt, since her family ignored the signs and instead got angry or frustrated at her for...well, basically, for not being Mom.
I think that the story will really strike a chord for a lot of people, especially anyone who has watched a family member get older and deal with the limitations of age. It's easy to get angry at the children and her husband for failing to recognize that she was sick and needed help, but they generally meant well and truly cared for their mother. It's just difficult for anyone to watch a family member change from the person you remembered. And, once you're forced to come to terms with the fact that the changes aren't the person's fault, it's equally hard to look back on the times you were less than patient or not as sympathetic as you could have been.
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