Snow by Orhan Pamuk: A Book Review

(Note: Snow is the fifth of twelve books I've committed to read as part of the 1% Well-Read Challenge)

Why Snow?

Snow's author, Orhan Pamuk, is one of Turkey's most prominent writers and has sold over seven million books in seventy languages making him the country's best selling writer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 and has become the first Turkish citizen to receive the award.

His novels are about hope, confusion and loss, brought on by his characters' and community's struggle between Western and Eastern values. The English translation of Snow was published in 2004 and the New York Times listed it as one of its 10 best books in 2004.

OK, so I tell you all of this so that you will understand why I chose to continue to work my way through this book for two solid months. This was not a book that you can't put down...in fact, I put this book down more times than I can count. The main reason being, this book is work. I mean, it's like work on the scale that sometimes studying great works of literature can require.

I did not enjoy this book but I'm not sure it's the fault of the author. As I read and worked, I came to believe that the reason I was not enjoying this book is because I could not relate to the characters or their situation. In this book, I represent the West -- and much of the religious and political context of this book is foreign to me -- as you might expect since I'm not Turkish.

The story takes place in an Eastern border city of Turkey called Kars (kar means "snow" in Turkish) when, Ka, a political exile and a poet is returning to the city after having been gone for 12 years having sought asylum in Germany. Ka is complex -- since leaving Turkey, he has not been happy and has been unable to write poetry. Ka returns under the pretense of investigating the suicides of a number of young girls who have been asked to remove their head-scarves while attending school. But the real reason for his return is that an old college friend, Ipek, is said to have divorced her husband and Ka hopes to kindle a love affair, propose marriage and whisk her away to Germany, where they can live happily ever after.

Ka enters Kars in the midst of a huge snowstorm which completely cuts the city off from the rest of the world for the duration of the book -- the phone lines are down, the streets are impassable -- and no one can arrive or leave the city. The city itself is poor and impoverished with a tremendous amount of conflict regarding the secular values of the State and Islamist fundamentalists. There are many political and ethnic groups which makes it tough to follow at times. But, I imagine, if you were a Turk you would grasp all of that quite easily. The book follows Ka through his investigations, through his attempts at winning Ipek's love, through his furious poetry writing (he writes 12 poems during his visit there); through a revolutionary military coup that he is drawn into, and through his personal peaks and valleys of happiness and despair.

Ka is not a hero and he is not even likable sometimes -- he often becomes whiny and meek in trying to persuade Ipek to leave with him; he often lies and doesn't stay true to his word and he ultimately causes the death of some innocent people as a result of his actions. And, the story is not told by Ka, but by a friend of Ka's (named Orhan!) who is an author researching Ka's poems written in Kars and re-tracing the history of Ka's trip there.

So, there are lots of reasons why this book was difficult to read. However, this book was an impressive work of fiction and I felt it was worthy of my struggle. And, I enjoy it more now, having researched the context a bit and learning more about the author and modern Turkey. The author, himself, has been criminally-charged by the state of Turkey and put on trial for speaking out against Turkey's treatment of the Kurds. He was released from prosecution in 2006 and now teaches at Columbia University.

Reading Snow, and making my way through it, is probably one of the main reasons why I decided to participate in the 1% Well-Read Challenge. Sure, it's easier to read books that I enjoy and can relate to, but how much growing am I really doing? Snow took me out of my complacent, American suburban life and threw me into the conflict and confusion of modern day Turkey -- where conflict exists within households and among friends over political, religious and ethnic issues and where the path to happiness and freedom is not always easy to find.

There were parts of the book that were very enjoyable -- mainly, the idea that Ka is finding God in the snow that is covering the city; that Ka feels divinely inspired at a moment's notice to find a place to write down his poems that just "come to him" from somewhere outside of himself; that Ka is an artist; and that Ka is seeking happiness and discussing it's pursuit and how he might define it. This caused me often to stop reading and reflect; and I suppose a little introspection is never a bad thing...

This book, along with Turkish history and culture, could have been a semester's long course at a University and I would be honored to take the course. And, if I ever see Mr. Pamuk's name on a lecture series down the road, I would love to hear him speak one day.

If you want to read a more masterful review, check out Margaret Atwood's from the New York
Times Book Review here.

And, if you're interested, this is a poignant excerpt from Orhan Pamuk's Nobel lecture which, I believe, reveals his core belief behind his writing...

What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kin ... Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world–and I can identify with them easily–succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West–a world with which I can identify with the same ease–nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.

—Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Lecture (translation by Maureen Freely)

Next up in the 1% Well-Read Challenge is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. See you then.

The Count of Monte Cristo -- Book Review

This month for the 1% Well-Read Challenge, I was working my way through Snow by Orhan Pamuk when I became completely captured by The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas which is also on my list for this year...

The Count of Monte Cristo is over 1,000 pages long and I knew I was going to need at least two months lead time to get through it, so I began in June hoping to end by July. I had ordered it from Audible to listen to the audiobook and it has been an incredible recording and narrative.

OK, so, why I did not know that this amazing story existed, I will never know. I have read two other Dumas works...The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask, both which were made into movies. I was an English minor in college and if I hadn't read many works of literature, I was at least aware of them... My only guess as to why this book was never assigned in school is because of its length? But, boy oh boy, when I get a really good book like this one, I don't even notice the length...or the laundry... Now that it's over, I wish it had been 2,000 pages...

The story is set in France, Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean between 1815-1838. On the eve of his betrothal, our main character Edmund Dantés, is wrongly accused of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment -- all caused by the combination of actions of three men who, acting in their own self interests, have little concern that they've ended the career, marriage and life of an innocent man. The book concerns itself with the suffering and hope of Edmund who is whisked away to a dungeon where he spends the next fourteen years in isolation while the men who placed him there live on in the real world, becoming successful through less-than honorable practices...

I really don't want to tell you what happens at all because you MUST read it. It's written as an adventure story and deals with hope, justice, vengeance, love, mercy and death...all good elements of a great novel.

IMHO, this book is in a league of its own. It's one of the greatest novels I've ever read. And my sister and my husband both agree.

I highly recommend the audiobook which I was also able to find at the library on CD for my husband...it's over 53 hours of listening but the narrator does a great job of acting the voices and pronouncing all of the foreign names....the characters are all interwoven and connected throughout the plot which is also made easier to follow by the audiobook.

I didn't have trouble with this at all, but should you be the type that gets confused by who is whom...wikipedia has a character chart here...

What can I say other than it was a GREAT GREAT book. Please let me know if you have read it or if you read it as a result of this review; I'd like to hear if you agree. I also found out that the novel has been adapted to many screen versions, including several films, numerous TV series and an anime series. It has been estimated that this story has been filmed once every eighteen months from 1920 on...and even had a TV miniseries in 1998 starring Gérard Depardieu...

I guess I've been living under a rock...a rock the size of the island of Monte Cristo....

Next month, I'll tell you about Snow by Orhan Pamuk...

Editor's Note: The accented "e"s of this post would not be possible without Gina of Threads of a Tatting Goddess, to whom my written French is forever grateful...

Deep River by Shusaku Endo

This book review is my third one as part of the 1% Well-Read Challenge where I am reading one book per month from the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list...

This book is written by critically acclaimed Japanese author Shusaku Endo with translation by Van G. Gessel.

This book is about a group of Japanese tourists who travel to Hindu's Holy City of Varanasi and the River Ganges. As the group witnesses tremendous displays of religiousity, spirituality and faith, the reader is privy to each character's internal dialogue and how each person psychologically processes the experience-- either finding or failing to find their own faith.

Isobe is grieving for his dead wife whom he ignored his whole life; Kiguchi is haunted by his memories of The Road to Death in the jungles of Burma during WWII; and Numada is recovering from a serious illness and has found great strength from his relationships with animals. But, it is the last two characters, Otsu and Mitsuko, who are my favorites...

Mitsuko, is a cynical young woman who lacks a spiritual compass yet is smart enough to grapple with her internal emptiness and search for meaning within her unhappy life -- though in a very selfish way. Mitsuko and Otsu first cross paths in College where Mitsuko notices him for his determination to do good and pursue his path to God, though he is cast as a nerd and socially backward. Mituko toys with him, and on the dare of her mean friends, Otsu becomes the brunt of a cruel and harsh joke set out to debase him and rock him from his sense of "goodness".

They both leave college, Mitsuko goes on searching for something to fill the void within herself and Otsu goes on to a seminary to attempt to become a Catholic Priest -- when he ultimately fails to be accepted to official religious life by the Catholics, the Buddhists, and the Hindu monks -- because he refuses to accept ONE relgious path at the exclusion of all others -- he ends up serving the poor and being poor himself -- the ultimate imitator of Christ on earth - and Mitsuko can't help but seek him out over and over again throughout the novel-- to tempt him, to revile him, to spit upon him, and yes, ultimately, in order to love herself.

The reader is taken on a spiritual journey as the characters make their pilgrimage to the Holy City of Varanasi and we are left to our own internal inquiry as the author builds a critique of modern society -- a society that seems to lack moral substance and is headed nowhere.

I can't tell you much more than that without giving it away. But this book is powerfully written and the reader's course is well-plotted so that we, too, are on a religious pilgrimage, if we allow ourselves the debate.

Shusaku Endo is a prize-winning Japanese writer and one of his novels, Silence, about two Jesuit missionaries who travel to Japan in the 17th century, is being made into a movie by Martin Scorsese for release in 2010. Evidently, Mr. Scorsese was also moved by Shusaku Endo's work. I commend him for shunning the big-explosion, mass-movie appeal of the spiritually-shallow modern blockbuster, and deciding to produce and direct a movie that deals with the journey of mankind to find God. Mr. Scorsese understands that this one may not pack the movie theaters like Spiderman but says, "this one is done for the heart." Bravo!

I recommend this book highly and will definitely be reading other books by Shusaku Endo. My book for June in the 1% Well-Read Challenge is Snow by Orhan Pamuk.

Gone With The Wind -- Book Review

Oh my. If you have never read this book...or haven't read it in a very long time, treat yourself and immerse yourself in its almost 1,000 pages! I confess that I took this with me on Spring Break and did little else but read -- this book made me stay up late and wake up early -- couldn't put it down, until it was done...and then, of course, I was so sad to see it finish.

Written by Margaret Mitchell and published in 1936, this is an epic story of love, war and survival set in Georgia during the Civil War. Scarlett is so unbelievably appealing to me because she is bold, cunning, ruthless and fearless AND so is Rhett Butler. It is probably one of the greatest love stories of all time, and even more appealing because it is full of tempest, and passion, rage and danger. As a couple they are evenly matched and the unpredictability of their actions and words, leaves you constantly shocked or disappointed -- but trust me, these two happened to the world -- the world didn't happen to them. And, suffice it to say, they evoke A TON of emotion in the reader -- even if you know the story, the book is worth the read again and again! Three months after being published, the book had sold one million copies and just one year later, the novel won the Pulitzer prize. To say it was a tour de force is an understatement.

In 1939, the movie was released starring Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh and went on to win 10 Academy Awards. Today, the movie is considered one of the most popular and greatest movies of all times and, when adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the highest-grossing film ever! This year marks the 70th Anniversary of the release of the film in Atlanta, and the film is being restored for release on DVD sometime this year. Four hours long, this film is magnificent and true to the book, down to many of the famous lines.

Rhett Butler to Scarlett when she asks him to kiss her: "No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

Scarlett, when Rhett proposes that they marry: "It's fun for men -- though God knows why. I never could understand it. But all a woman gets out of it is something to eat and a lot of work and having to put up with a man's foolishness -- and a baby every year."

And Rhett, in response: "I said you'd had bad luck and what you've just said proves it. You've been married to a boy and to an old man. And into the bargain I'll bet your mother told you that women must bear 'these things' because of the compensating joys of motherhood. Well, that's all wrong. Why not try marrying a fine young man who has a bad reputation and way with women? It'll be fun"


But one of the most delightful parts of the book is the relationship between Mammy (Scarlett's nursemaid) and Rhett and the red petticoat. You can read the whole scenario here, if you want. And, Hattie McDaniel who played Mammy in the movie was the first African American to win an Academy Award and it was for Best Supporting Actress.

When Margaret Mitchell was asked what Gone with the Wind was about she said, "if the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't."

Scarlett, when faced with starvation: "As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

It's a must read. Just don't plan on doing much else while you're reading it.

Next up for me in the 1% Well-Read Challenge is Deep River by Shusaku Endo.

The Old Man and The Sea -- A Book Review

Many of you know that I participate in the 1% Well-Read Challenge and that we have just kicked off another year. That means that by the end of this year, I should be 2% well-read -- actually, I think I'll be about 10% if I include all the books I've ever read on the list outside of the challenge.

Anyhoo. This month I'm delighted to tell you about this little gem of a read by Ernest Hemingway. If you read it in school, I urge you to read it again.

The messages are many. The prose is simple and direct. The story captures and captivates you.

It's only 125 pages and takes only a few hours to read. I read the whole thing on the bus trip up to New York last week, while looking up every now-and-again to say to Jim and Jack, "You've got to read this. It's such a great story!

The book starts out with the old man who has fished his whole life on a skiff in the Gulf and he has gone 84 days without catching a fish.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. p. 10

In the first 40 days, a boy had been with him but the boy's parents had said that the old man was salao -- the worst kind of unlucky -- and pulled the boy to another boat. It made the boy sad to see the old man working alone and so he continues to help him and, is truly, the man's one true friend. The boy loves and cares for the man who has taught him to fish.

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women , nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. p. 25

The middle of the book takes place at sea, when the old man, alone, hooks the largest marlin he has ever seen in his life.

Now is the time to think of only one thing. That which I was born for. p. 40

It's larger than his boat and stronger than the old man, so the old man uses his wits, his knowledge of fish and the sea, and his will -- to perservere against the huge, beautiful fish over three days and two nights at sea, alone, with only two small bottles of water and a fish to eat.

I wish I had the boy. p. 45

He has tremendous respect for the marlin...

You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who. p. 92
But a man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Page 103
...and I will stop there. What happens next is poetic. But in case you haven't read it, I won't spoil it.

And my favorite line... To hell with luck, I'll bring the luck with me.

I couldn't put it down. A gem. Jim and Jack are both going to read it too.

Next up is Gone With the Wind...which I'm clap-my-hands excited about. I'm taking it with me next week when we go to Florida to visit my father. I expect a heck of a good read...and, of course, we'll have to re-watch the movie...

1% Well-Read Challenge -- Old List/New List

OK, now that I've finished the 1% Well-Read Challenge from last year, it's time to publish my list for the next. But first, here's how I would break down the books I read this past year:

MUST Reads:
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Dracula by Bram Stoker

Wonderful Read; Highly Recommend
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Possession by A.S.Byatt
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Liked it; glad I read it; Won't Read Again
Black Dahlia by Jalmes Ellroy
Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

Sorry I Read this at all...
City of God by E.L.Doctorow
A Bend in the River by V.S.Naipaul

And here's my list for 2009-2010; in no particular order...

1. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemriovsky
4. Silk by Alessandro Baricco
5. Snow by Orhan Pamuk
6. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
7. Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
8. Indigo by Marina Warner
9. A Day in Spring by Ciril Kosmac
10. Deep River by Shusaku Endo
11. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams
12. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur Clarke
13. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

First is The Old Man and the Sea. In April I plan to read Gone With the Wind in order to coincide with the 70th Anniversary of the Showing of the film in Atlanta.

Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt -- A Book Review

Well, Possession is not necessarily an easy read nor is it a typical love story...It is, however, a beautifully well-written, wonderful novel that I would definitely read again.

The story begins in the Reading Room of the London Library where the main character, Roland Mitchell, as a postdoctoral research assistant at London University, is conducting research on a famous Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash. Inside the thick, black book covered with dust, Roland finds two letters written by Randolph Henry Ash that are affectionate and imply an interest in another woman that is clearly not the poet's wife. Roland "steals" the letters and begins his obsession with solving the mystery of who the woman was and what was the nature of their relationship.

Very early in the story, Roland finds that the woman to whom the letters were written was another Victorian poet, Christabel LaMott. Following the Christabel clue, Roland is led to the work of contemporary researcher Maud Bailey and together the two of them spend most of the novel, tracking down clues and uncovering the hidden history between the two poets.

The author, A.S.Byatt, has created a mystery within history; not to mention, has written poems and diary entries that are true to Victorian minds and times. It's a heck of a good read -- and nothing is quite predictable. There are twists and turns to the story but they're not expected -- and this includes the romance (or lack thereof) of Maud and Roland.

I loved it. Some of my non-literature friends, may find the poetry laborious-- but I loved that I was on the hunt to uncover the Secret right along with the protagonists -- and that there were "secrets" within the poems that had yet to be discovered.

This book really makes you think about how the absence of information in history, leads us to draw conclusions based only on the history that is available -- and this "truth" can sometimes be far from what the real truth was at the time.

Maud and Roland are led to re-trace the paths of the two Victorian poets and find themselves in Whitby, England. Oh, did I get distracted here with the descriptions of the Jet brooches and buttons that were manufactured and hand-carved in this area during the Victorian period. It turns out that Whitby was located on a huge supply of Jet which was mined and used to carve into wonderful jewelry and accessories. Jet is often mistaken for glass but Jet is much lighter and will leave a brown smudge when drawn across a piece of unglazed porcelain.

My absolute favorite part of the book was the Postscript -- where the reader is given information that was never discovered by the characters in the book. It's a delightfully written, sunny and positive ending to a heck of a novel.

If you read it, or have read it, I'd love to know what you thought.

And, that my friends, completes my 1% Well-Read Challenge for 2008-2009. I can't wait to show you my list for this year. Maybe, you'll join us.

Next up for me is The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I was a teenager the last time I met up with the Old Man -- I'm thinking he probably has something new to teach me now that I'm 44.

The Black Dahlia -- Book Review

Officially, the 1% Well-Read Challenge has finished for 2008 -- I am finishing up my last book now and look forward to selecting my new list for 2009/10 sometime in the next week. Sign-ups for the next year are ongoing right now, so if you'd like to pick 10 books from the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list, you can be 1% more well-read too. (Note: A new list was published in the middle of last year's challenge -- I'm adopting the new list for 2009/10).

I've loved exercise of reading books I probably would never have picked up if not for the challenge...like, The Black Dahlia.

The Black Dahlia was published in 1987 and is a crime fiction based on the unsolved Hollywood murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947. It is a dark novel, portraying a corrupted time period in Hollywood's history when the crime fighters were oftentimes the crime dealers. The protagonist, Bucky Bleichert, is an ex-prize fighter and cop in the Los Angeles police department, who struggles to contain his fists and his sexuality at many times while trying to solve this sick and heinous murder crime. His mental overinvolvement in the case, the betrayals of his partner and others that he trusts to be superior, all give this story line lots of twists and turns.

If crime fiction and murder mysteries are your interest, this novel is extremely well-written and puts forth a heck of a tale -- if you can make it through the violence, sex and drugs. Unbelievable. Crime noir in every sense of the word.

I can appreciate the book, but it's just not my thing. It's just a little dark and pessimistic for this Rosy Sunshine. It gets even weirder at the end of the book, when James Ellroy, the author, in an Afterword, describes how the murder of his mother when he was 10 and the murder of Elizabeth Short conjoined for him in writing this novel. His mother was attractive and promiscuous and paralleled the life of Elizabeth Short in many ways...And she was brutally raped and murdered in 1958. Ellroy writes:

Her death corrupted my imagination. My reading focus turned to crime stories. My father bought me Jack Webb’s book The Badge for my eleventh birthday. It contained a piece on the Black Dahlia murder. Jean Hilliker [his mother] and Betty Short—one in transmogrification.

I could not openly grieve for Jean. I could grieve for Betty. I could divert the shame of incestuous lust to a safe lust-object. I could dismiss Jean with a child’s callous heart and grant a devotional love to Betty.

I don't want to spoil it for you but, oh boy, there is a lot to talk about. It would make a great book club book -- but not if your book club is faint of heart.

A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul -- A Book Review

This is my eighth book completed of the 1% Well-Read Challenge where we've chosen to read 10 books in 10 months from the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list. The challenge will run again next year -- I'll let you know when it's time to sign up. Many of the books on the list are literary award winners and/or considered to be significant for some major reason. I have enjoyed "sampling" the list this year and look forward to what's next...

I chose A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul because I had a vague recollection of reading another book by him, A House for Mr. Biswas, in a Contemporary Literature course in college. In order to be selected for the course reading, he would have been considered to be one of the great literary contributors of my era. I couldn't remember why so when I saw this book on the list...I chose it to see what it was about V.S. Naipaul that makes him so significant.

Mr. Naipaul won the Booker prize in 1971 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 for his work In a Free State but I'm sorry to say that I didn't like A Bend in the River. Naipaul is writing about an unnamed town in Africa post-colonialism during a period of Independence. The book is narrated by Salim who is an Indian Muslim and who has grown up in a cosmopolitan coastal town of Africa and moved to this interior town to become a merchant. He doesn't really identify as African or European and narrates the story from outside of it, as a mere observer. Frankly, his dis-passion, his third-personism and his willingness to be led along by outside events gets on my nerves.

Salim has few if any character traits that I like. He observes the rapid changes and the conflict between African values/customs to Imperialist with little emotion. He enters into an adulterous affair, eventually physically beating his lover and rejecting her without very little remorse. Events happen to Salim; he doesn't happen to them -- so I just didn't like him.

The story is really about what has happened to Africa after "independence" and the fact that they are really not independent. The new African leader has adopted imperialistic attitudes and the spirit and history of the African bush is being usurped by African mimicry of European ideals, education and commerce. I get the message of the book. In fact, ironically, the message for the entire book is contained in it's opening sentence...

"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it."

I really felt like Salim was a man who was nothing. When the town that he had made his home for his whole life is turning violent and his business is taken away, Salim merely forfeits his past there and escapes. He even refuses to really help his faithful family servant who has been "family" to him. It's all very anti-Susan and what I believe in.

I'm sure I'm at error here. I mean, who says I must always have to relate to the main character? But with a topic that I know little about -- Africa's history post-independence -- I need a character that can make that history come to life for me. Salim just wasn't my man.

There is one thing I can appreciate about Mr. Naipaul. I appreciate that he is attempting to resurrect the history of the vanquished and the defeated; that he is exposing the fact that history is being written by the "winners" and that stories are being lost. I believe this is the reason his works are notable. I remember enjoying A House for Mr. Biswas much better.

I'll be reading both Possession by A.S. Byatt and listening to Black Dahlia on my Ipod for the next few weeks. The deadline is February 28. You can check out the list of all the books I've read in this challenge on the list in my sidebar and I hope you will join us next year.

On a more positive note, my book club just finished Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I loved that one and the recording from Audible was outstanding. It also has a great first line....

"The small boys came early to the hanging..." Pillars is a great epic read.

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

My mind is pensive today, reflecting on my trip to Texas to see Jim's family. I didn't get too much stitching done though I did finish one of those Fetching fingerless gloves before running out of yarn...Unlike the pattern suggests, I was not able to finish a pair with one skein of Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino Aran. I did bead a little on my November BJP and hope to work on it more today.

While I was gone, I read my November book for the 1% Well-Read Challenge and the story has haunted me for a few days. It was a rather short book of 180 or so pages and I was able to finish it in those early morning hours before the rest of the house woke up.

A Pale View of Hills was written by Kazuo Ishiguro whose family emigrated to Great Britain in 1960 when he was six years old. Ishiguro grew up and was educated in Britain and has achieved many literary awards for his fiction. A Pale View of Hills was his first novel and won the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Prize for the best first novel of 1982 . He later went on to write other award-winning novels including The Remains of the Day which was made famous to me by actors Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in the wonderful movie released in 1993. Though I have not yet read the book, I am eager to read it now that I finished A Pale View of Hills.

The book is a story about Etsuko, a Japanese woman who grew up in Nagasaki after the dropping of the atomic bomb. Etsuko marries a Japanese man and has a daughter, Keiko. Etsuko leaves her first husband, emigrates to Britain with an English serviceman who she later marries and with whom she has her second daughter, Niki. At the opening of the novel, Etsuko is widowed and middle-aged. Her daughter, Niki is visiting her after Keiko, the oldest daughter, has committed suicide by hanging herself in a London apartment.

The book does not have a typical beginning, middle and end but flows from present day through the dreams and memories of Etsuko's past while living one Summer in Nagasaki. Much of her memory deals with her friendship and infatuation with a woman named Sachiko and her odd, anti-social daughter, Mariko. There are many similarities between the lives of Sachiko and the lives of Etsuko and the reader is left to wonder whether the story of Sachiko and her daughter Mariko is actually the story of Etsuko and her daughter Keiko.

I like this sort of novel...the kind where memory blends indistinctly with experience, with dreams and with reality. One is never quite sure if Sachiko and her daughter Mariko are a metaphor for Etsuko and her oldest daughter Keiko...but I believe it to be so.

Sachiko's daughter Mariko is an unusual child who doesn't play with other children, doesn't go to school, and often runs away from her mother. Her mother is equally as odd in my opinion and often abandons her daughter for hours at a time to spend time with an American GI named "Frank". Emotionally, Sachiko does not act like much of a mother at all though she does manage to feed and clothe her daughter. The story gets very macabre when Sachiko drowns her daughter's kittens. Etsuko, who witnesses the incident, shows no emotion at all which is the first time when I realized this story is not linear and I began to wonder...what's really going on here??

There are a number of occasions where the girl Mariko runs away, and Sachiko, her mother, seems nonchalant about finding her. Instead, it is Etsuko who searches for her at different times throughout the novel. When she finds the girl, she is often afraid of Etsuko and keeps asking her why she is dragging a rope that is wrapped around her foot...Invariably, Etsuko says that somehow it's just a piece of rope that has gotten caught around her foot while she has been looking for the girl...It smacks of the macabre and is more than a little eerie since it is metaphorical for the rope that Etsuko's daughter uses to hang herself.

There is lots to think about with this book: the indirectness of the novel is very indicative of the Japanese way of speaking; the cultural changes that occured in Japan post-atom bomb are wonderfully portrayed in the characters of Nagasaki; the emotions of guilt and betrayal are hinted at and suggested only in the macabre dreams and memories of Etsuko --- It's really quite brilliantly written but not the kind of book you should pick up and put down -- it really should be read in one or two sittings for full effect.

I will definitely go on to read The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans by the same author since I'm now very curious about his style of writing. Next up on my list for the 1% Well-Read Challenge is A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul. V.S Naipaul has won the Nobel Prize for literature and is also an emigrant to Great Britain. Hmm.....

The English Patient: A Book Review

I know this is my second book review in two weeks, but I happened to finish this book the day after I finished Captain Corelli's Mandolin. You might wonder why, on a needlework blog, I talk about books. The answer is two-fold. One, I am participating in the 1% Well-Read Challenge where we are reading one book per month on the 1,001 Books To Read Before You Die List. And two, I suppose it's because reading is another love of my life and I'm often listening to books on my Ipod while I stitch.

Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize in 1993 for this novel, The English Patient. Ondaatje writes with beautifully constructed prose using lots of imagery and mystique. He writes in a revelatory style, believing that "truth" should be discovered by the reader but not told outright.

The entire story takes place in an abandoned hospital in Northern Italy during WWII where a 20 year old nurse, Hana is taking care of an "unknown" patient who has been burned beyond recognition but is presumed to be "English" due to his accent. Hana has lost both her father and her lover to the war and has become somewhat hardened to loss through watching hundreds of war-torn soldiers die in her arms. Her father was a burn victim and died alone and we are left to surmise that this may be one major reason she stays behind to care for the English Patient when the rest of the hospital staff evacuate the ruins of the bombed-out hospital. We're never quite sure what her motivation for staying is and someone else, having read this book, might have a completely different theory.

There are two other characters in the story. The first is Caravaggio, a friend of Hana's deceased father and notorious thief, now retired after losing both of his thumbs in a war-related incident. The second one is Kip, an India sapper working for the British army whose job it is to defuse bombs in the Italian countryside. So, there you have it. Four characters, one setting.

We are often transported out of this setting through the morphine-induced memories of the English Patient. Frankly, this is the best and most juicy part of the story. It is also the part that I remember most from the movie -- tales of English explorers in the Egyptian desert, an adulterous love affair, jealousy, airplane crashes - this part kind of has it all.

This book does not answer all questions and the ending kind of fades away, much like I presume that the life of the English Patient does as well. If you love a beautifully written book where the story is not spoon-fed but the reader is challenged to "find" the story, then you will love this book. If you don't like to be left with unanswered questions, then this book is likely to frustrate you.

I find I have to be prepared for this type of book by having the time to submerge myself in the story. It's not a book that you can pick up and put down. If you do, I believe the subtlety of the narrative will be lost on you and you won't be successful in discovering Ondaatje's story. I enjoyed this book very much but do have one regret. I listened to the story on my Ipod. In hindsight, I wish I had held and read the book, allowing me to reflect and review certain passages to fully absorb the story.

All in all, this is probably going to be one instance where I liked the movie better than the book. That's not to say, that I disliked the book. On the contrary, the book was captivating but it was the movie that brought this book to LIFE. Oftentimes, this book felt dreary probably due to the lack of clarity you feel in trying to piece together the story. The cinematography alone of this movie completely blows that feeling away; and conclusions are drawn in the movie script that bring clarity to the story. The movie isn't 100% true to the novel but, in this case, I think that's an advantage. The movie is most definitely on my Top 20 Favorites-of-All-Time List, I'm not sure the book makes it there.

If you'd like to read along, my next book is going to be A Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, the same author who wrote The Remains of the Day (which I LOVED!!).

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Berniere

I finally finished Captain Corelli's Mandolin for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. One thing you should know about me before you read this review is that historical fiction is probably one of my favorite genres. I particularly enjoy it when an author has done his homework and the historical context and setting for the novel is well-constructed.

This book has everything in it that I love. It has history, it has strong character development, it has great plot, lots of humour and love. Every color of love that exists in the world is in this novel -- paternal, filial, romantic, you name it! The heroes are larger than life and the villians are some of the most vile our planet has ever seen. It's good vs. evil, on a very human level, and it's fabulous!

The story is set in Cephallonia, an island in Greece that is occupied by the Italians, Germans and the British throughout WWII. The history in the book is told in the first person by "eyewitnesses" to the events which makes the copious amount of information both relatable and palatable. Captain Corelli is an Italian officer who billets himself in the home of the main protagonist, Pelagia, who is Greek and lives with her father, Dr. Iannis, the only physician on the island.

Pelagia's mom died of TB when she was very small and her father has raised her to be a critical thinker, an independent with a sharp mind. Captain Corelli's true passion is not war but is music and he is particularly gifted in singing and playing the mandolin. Though Pelagia begins the story hating the Italians, their occupation, and their Captain, her acidity is neutralized through Corelli's charm, humor and passion. She cannot help but love Captain Corelli and neither can the reader. He has integrity, leads through humor, and even though the Italians are occupying the Island, they are respectful, fun-loving and attempt to get along with the native Greeks.

Though this next excerpt is a bit crass, it remains one of the most delightful parts of the book for me:

His battery had a latrine known as 'La Scala' because he had a little opera club that shat together there at the same time every morning, sitting in a row on the wooden plank with their trousers about their ankles. He had two baritones, three tenors, a bass and a counter-tenor who was much mocked on account of havin g to sing all the women's parts, and the idea was that each man should expel either a turd or a fart during the crescendos, when they could not be heard above the singing. In this way the indignity of communal defacation was minimised, and the whole encampment would begin the day humming a rousing tune that they had heard wafting out of the heads.

The story is turned on it's ear when the Germans occupy the island after the Italians surrender to the Allies. The brutality and the betrayals inflicted on the people of the island by both the Germans and by the Greek insurrectionaries over the next decade is gut-wrenching. The author allows us to overcome these atrocities together with the characters we've grown to love and does a great job of painting every shade of moral character in the human condition.

I don't want to give too much away but this story completely enveloped me and I didn't want to put it down. Louis de Bernieres is a master at transporting the reader to another time and circumstance while evoking the raw emotions that are universal to the human race. I loved it. And, Captain Corelli, is an embrace-the-moment, passionate, romantic and funny man who endears himself to you and makes you laugh from his first appearance in the story until his last.

I can't wait to see the movie. Nicholas Cage plays Captain Corelli -- I think he was well-casted for the humour part but, the passionate and romantic part?? -- well, he wouldn't be my version of Captain Corelli...

Next up for me is the English Patient by Michael Ondaatje which I've almost finished.

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Just like many of the characters within Truman Capote's novella, I have been swept away, infatuated and fallen in love with Holly Golightly. I believe that was intentional by the author which is what makes this little story so great.

At just over 100 pages, we enjoy her for such a short period of time before she flits out of our life again and the story ends. I feel as if Truman Capote treats the reader as just another enamored suitor of Miss Holiday Golightly.


Oh but, she's charming and unpredictable. And she delights the world (or irritates it) with her risky adventures and devil-may-care attitude. Her past is somewhat of a mystery when we meet her at 19 years of age and it's implied that she had rough times as a child.

But rather than writing another story of heroine-overcomes-bad-childhood, Capote glosses over her past and presents us with an ambitious and manipulative character who takes on the world in the most endearing way. Holly Golightly happens to the world and just when the world wants to box her in, she moves on, refusing to be pinned down. She lives true to her calling card which reads, "Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling".

In talking about her first husband (Doc) to the bartender (Joe Bell) she says...

"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."

The writing is delicious and the story has a rhythm which seduces you much in the same way that you become seduced by Holly herself. It's a irresistible story and I can see why it's considered such a classic.

Time and again while reading this story, I was struck by it's racy nature. Set in the 1940's, Holly is anything but pure and admittedly declares, "I am top banana in the shock department!"

The only piece of furniture she owns is a satin-tufted four-poster bed; she's free with her sexuality, and she has affairs with married men. Her language is anything but a lady's and contrasts strikingly with her beautifully-coifed and glamorous appearance.

I couldn't help but think how provocative this little book must have been for it's day. I'm looking forward to seeing how it was interpreted on screen since I have not yet seen the movie which Audrey Hepburn made so famous.

Since this is my fourth read for the 1% Well-Read Challenge, I'll be tackling Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres next. I have read one other novel by de Berniere's titled Birds Without Wings and it was an exceptional piece of historical fiction about the war for Turkish independence. I recommend it without reservation which leads me to select another one of his books to read next.

If you have read any of the books, I've mentioned in today's post or even written a review, I'd love to hear from you!

Breakfast at Tiffany's

I love this. I am immersed in a theme and I have Holly Golightly all around me.


I'm having so much fun planning and piecing my Breakfast at Tiffany's block. I was shooting to do it as part of August's Glitz and Glamour challenge at Crazy Quilting International but we're going away for the Labor Day holiday tomorrow so I'll have five days without internet access and will miss the deadline. That's OK, cuz Miss Holiday Golightly is traveling...


Now, if you'd read the book, you would get that pun. I'm also reading the story right now for the 1% Well-Read Challenge and loving every little quip -- the verbal banter is fabulous and Miss Golightly is a treat for the senses.


I'm planning a monochromatic color scheme for the block fabrics and I know that two large motifs will be the chandelier in Tiffany's window and Miss Golightly herself.


So I'm off to piece my block now so I have it to take with me on my trip. And look, I get to play with all of these beautiful embellishments in my favorite color...


I can't leave without sharing this excerpt from the book....

Holly Golightly in a conversation with Paul Varjak, the guy who lives upstairs:

"I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiles, and lets the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said. "Not that I give a hoot about jewelry. Diamonds, yes. But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky. They only look right on the really old girls. Maria Ouspenskaya. Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds: I can't wait. But that's not why I'm mad about Tiffany's. Listen. You know those days when you've got the mean reds?"

"Same as the blues?"

"No," she said slowly. "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is. You've had that feeling?"

"Quite often. Some people call it angst."

"All right. Angst. But what do you do about it?"

"Well, a drink helps."

"I've tried that. I've tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name..."

Dracula by Bram Stoker

As part of the 1% Well-Read Challenge, I have just finished reading Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time. What a phenomenal read and certainly worthy of being on the list of 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die.

The book was first published in 1897 and the picture to the right shows the first edition cover at the time. Stoker was of Irish heritage and his writings were very much influenced by American writer Walt Whitman with whom he corresponded many times.

I was curious to know if Stoker had created the Dracula persona and vampire myth only to find out that blood-sucking monsters and figures of the undead had existed in the folklore of many civilizations for centuries.

Early 18th century Europe was particularly fascinated with vampires and it was the short story, The Vampyre, published in 1819 that first introduced the idea of a charismatic and sophisticated Vampire who preyed on high-society. The Vampyre was written by John Polidori after three days trapped indoors with five other writers during "the year without a Summer", a year when Europe and America were undergoing a severe climate aberration which forced everyone to stay indoors. I found it very interesting that one of the other writers in attendance was Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein following this same weekend!

The book is written as a series of letters and journal entries from the viewpoint of a number of protagonists with an occasional newspaper entry to relay parts of the story when none of the narrators were present. I hadn't expected the book to be written this way but found that I enjoyed it very much. The book begins when an English solicitor, Jonathan Harker, travels to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania to provide support to the Count in purchasing a home in London. Bad things happen to Mr. Harker as he learns that he is imprisoned within the castle and he begins to learn of the evil nocturnal nature of the Count. He does escape without ever being bitten but upon making it back home, finds that the Count has "moved in" to his city. You see, that smart and cunning Count had made his way to England inside a cargo ship full of wooden boxes filled with Transylvanian earth. On arrival, the ship has no survivors and the boxes are delivered to the Count Dracula's new home. Dracula has arrived in his new "playpen" and the story starts to really build momentum.

Dracula begins to "feed" on the aristocracy and the story builds in crescendo until the final showdown which occurs back in Transylvania. It's a brilliantly written story with the all-male vampire hunters who vow to love and protect their women; the women who are preyed upon by Dracula; and Dracula himself, who through pure evil and cunning, outwits and outsmarts the hunters down to the very last pages.

There's quite a bit of sexism and paternalism in the novel which you might expect for the time period but Stoker's mastery of the horror story transports you into some fairly frightful and gruesome scenes. It's quite impressive and I can see how significantly this work has influenced the horror genre in the 20th century in film, literature and stage.

I loved it, I highly recommend it but think it may be best read during the period at the end of October during All Hallow's Eve or Halloween.

Next up is to watch Francis Ford Coppola's movie version released in 1992. I know my husband has seen it many times and I've read that it's the closest version to the book ever released. I'll let you know.

Next up on my list for the Challenge in the month of August is Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. Won't you join me?

To God or Not to God

In the month of June, for the 1% Well-Read Challenge, I read City of God by E.L.Doctorow.

A National Bestseller, it was on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list and the critics raved that it was "exquisite", "superb" and "the crowning achievement of E.L. Doctorow's career"...

I tried to like it. I think I "got it" but frankly, this book was a lot of work. It wasn't an easy read and the content grapples with science, organized religion and the presence and manifestation of God in history, in society and in individuals. At the end of the day, how does society reconcile our lives, our history with our faith and belief in God. Or is faith in God cyclical subject to the demands and/or misuse of the masses? OK, pretty heavy stuff right?

The book is laid out kind of like the Bible with many narrators and perspectives represented. Like the Bible, the book flows from one section to the next without connectivity to each other. The prose is often in the form of songs, correspondence, memoirs, biographies and scientific theories. At the end, the reader is left to interpret the content and to draw their own conclusions.

Over time, there are many characters whose perspectives re-appear, most-notably the main narrator who is a writer penning the biography of a priest who eventually leaves the church to marry a widowed-rabbi. There are theologians, holocaust survivors, filmmakers, scientists and war veterans. Debra Spincic listened to this book on tape which might make it easier to follow which character is speaking...

To me, the best part of the book comes at the very end when the ex-priest gives a "sermon" at his wedding reception. It's an exquisite piece of writing. The book is an impressive compilation of material and I won't be surprised when it shows up in modern lit courses on college campuses all over the States.

But, having just finished another book (The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell) that engaged the same topic as this novel, I felt the format of City of God was tiresome for the reader. Conversely, The Sparrow marries the scientific, religious and philosophical debates in a much more compelling and riveting way. The Sparrow kept me glued to the pages and thinking for weeks afterward. In this work, Ms. Russell took you to the highest mountains with God and to the lowest points of despair. And like City of God, you are left free to interpret where your faith lies...

Read The Sparrow and leave City of God on the shelf.

P.S. If you do read The Sparrow, drop me a note...I'd love to know what you thought of it!

The Age of Innocence: A Review

I believe that The Age of Innocence analyzes the life choices, change and risks of exercising a gentleman’s freedom in setting his life’s course with those of women. Sounds boring, I know, but this book is anything but…

Set in 1920, Newland Archer is everything a young man could hope for; wealthy, educated, articulate and engaged to a beautiful young lady from an aristocratic, respectable family. His life is all planned out for him. Yet, he longs for more. He is intellectually hungry and likes nothing more than free expression and company where a free exchange of ideas is valued and welcome. Unfortunately, the old New York society into which he was born and in which he lives is full of convention and niceties and maintaining decorum such that life progresses predictably and the status quo is maintained. Newcomers and new ideas are not welcome and most often are squashed by the ruling “establishment”.

Enter Countess Olenska, his betrothed’s wayward cousin, who has left her husband in Europe amidst some scandal claiming her husband was abusive, and has returned to her family in New York for shelter and guidance. After meeting Countess Olenska, Newland Archer finds a passion for her through stimulating conversations, through exchange of ideas and argument. She challenges his conventions and surprises him with her unpredictable words. He sees the potential for a fulfilling, passionate lifelong companion who he can truly feel one with…where he would never again feel alone.

By contrast, his betrothed and his eventual wife, May Welland, is the innocent and guileless product of the social system in which he lives.

“he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it…”

He didn’t see how, if May were trained to be innocent, guileless and ignorant, how could she navigate her life without total dependence on him. And this subjugation and subordination was detestable. He tests May by exposing her to travel, culture and intellectual pursuits, but she falls from interest in them and refuses to rise to be Newland’s intellectual equal thus losing her opportunity to become his true love.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the verbal gymnastics that Newland Archer, May Welland and Countess Olenska participated in throughout the novel. I appreciated Newland’s desire for his ultimate freedom, yet given the constraints of his and the Countess’ social positions, neither would ever be free, even if they acted on their impulses. It is Countess Olenska that understands this, for even though she was made a “free” choice in leaving her abusive husband, social customs did not allow her back into society as a “free” woman and her daily life was forever affected by her choice.

Likewise, the power of the social customs of the day and the power of the establishment are what ultimately keep Newland married to May and having children, living a contented and “successful” marriage. I enjoyed the ending and Newland finally seeing the realization of the intellectual freedom he had been seeking through his son and the next generation. He also has the opportunity to re-open his relationship with Countess Olenska? What do you think he did? I won’t tell but it’s a smashingly good read all around.

Thanks to Allison Aller for letting me know that there is a movie and that it is full of delicious eye candy and the costumes are divine. I'm off to NetFlix...

This month I'm reading, City of God by E.L.Doctorow, continuing my second month in the 1% Well-Read Challenge.