Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Rating: 4 Stars

2017 Booker Prize

When I first heard of this book it vaguely struck me as something unsavory, and I felt a stab of indignation on behalf of the 16^th President. Hadn’t the poor man done enough; hadn’t he suffered enough? I calmed down after realizing my brain-fumble – not Lincoln in the Bordello; it was ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’. Duh.

In Tibetan Buddhism, bardo is the intermediate stage between life and death. The author conceived the idea for this novel when he learned that President Lincoln had paid several visits to a crypt in Georgetown, to hold the body of his recently deceased son. The story revolves around the untimely demise of twelve year old Willy Lincoln and the transitional phase of the boy’s bewildered spirit – uncertain as to whether he should stay behind with his father or move on to whatever realm of being awaits him.

The book is a quirky amalgam of actual historical documents, ingenious creative elements, and, word-crafting. While some of his literary experiments seem a little labored, others work very successfully. The writer deals gently with the grieving president in anguish over the loss of his child. The Lincoln we see here is the Lincoln vindicated by history and immortalized in popular culture – a very human man under extraordinary circumstances, shouldering an immense burden to the best of his abilities.

Considering that the subject is both moving and macabre, there is a surprising amount of humor here. The levity comes from the host of wraiths who are malingering in the cemetery, believing that this denial of the obvious shows their strength of character. These shades are a boisterous, bawdy, and, talkative bunch. They have a lot to get off their chest, and they think they have many reasons to hang tough. Three in particular befriend the little Lincoln and try to help him migrate to the next plane of existence because the bardo is a dangerous place for the young ones.

“…to be a child and to love one’s life enough to desire to stay here is, in this place, a terrible sin, worthy of the most severe punishment.”

The reasons for this are never made clear. Actually, the author does not give much detail, depth, or, clarity to the Great Beyond. He shies away from anything approaching actual religion, spirituality, mysticism, or, the occult. That doesn’t affect the book negatively, because oddly enough this story is more about life than death.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Rating: 4 & ½ Stars

2014 Booker Prize

If I had done my usual due diligence before picking up this book, I would have discovered that this was yet another book about World War II. Not just about the Second World War, but a story about Japanese POWs. Then I would have avoided it; because reading ‘Unbroken’ was traumatizing enough, and why would I go through something like that again? But that would have been my loss.

Flanagan’s TNRTTDN is in equal parts ravishing and heart-breaking. The crux of the larger narrative is the building of the Burma Railway in 1943 – a construction feat engineered by the Empire of Japan, on the backs of forced labor and under the most savage conditions. The human cost of the Death Railway, as it was otherwise known, was horrific: an estimated 102,000 people – 90,000 civilian laborers and 12,000 Allied prisoners perished in the effort. The deaths were due partly to tropical illnesses; but overwhelmingly, the ultimate reason was the barbarous indifference of Japan to human life and suffering.

On a more intimate scale, the story is about the Australian POWs – those who succumb to the Death Railway, as well as its survivors. Flanagan, whose own father was one of the Australian survivors, has invested the historical narrative with depth of research and poignant humanity. The toll of building the railway is explored through the perspective of different POWs; as well as through the eyes of their embattled Japanese tormentors – men who were tasked with performing the impossible and who would give no quarter because they belonged to a time and culture where clemency was equated with weakness.

But TNRTTDN is also a love story. The novel’s protagonist is Dorrigo Evans – a senior medical officer at the Burma Railway who later becomes a renowned surgeon. Evans seems to have a charmed life in many respects. As an officer, he was not subject to the same privations as the other prisoners at the labor camp, and afterward he’s, quite rightly, hailed as a hero. But the public éclat that’s lavished upon him, and the good fortune of having family and friends leave no impression upon Dorrigo, obsessed as he is with the woman who got away, the love of his life – Amy Mulvaney.

One of the motifs of this book is the vastness of human history – the bewildering force of circumstances beyond our control that shape the destinies of nations and individuals. The other is the inexorable sweep of time in erasing all events, men, and man-made things. What may remain is memory. Remembrance is important – hence the seemingly endless stream of books that exhume old wars and past injustices. We remember our history so that we do not repeat its mistakes. But cling too desperately to the past, and we lose our happiness in the present. Few books I’ve read have expounded this as eloquently as ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Stars: 3 & ½

2013 Booker Prize

Eleanor Catton’s ‘The Luminaries’ is a multi-faceted dazzler – historical fiction; mystery; whimsical romance; and with a touch of the paranormal thrown in for some extra effect. Yet this olio somehow works without any clumsiness.

The story is set in 19^th. century New Zealand. Walter Moody, newly arrived from England, comes to the west coast town of Hokitika with an intention to try his luck in its goldfields. But his entrance coincides with recent events that have upturned the little town: Emery Staines, Hokitika’s wealthiest man, is missing and presumed dead; Anna Wetherell, a favorite town prostitute; appears to have made an unsuccessful attempt to take her own life; Crosbie Wells, a local hermit, has died under mysterious circumstances; and, Alistair Lauderback, an ambitious politician, is being blackmailed. What this quartet has in common is their mutual acquaintance with the sinister Francis Carver, and his accomplice, the equally devious Lydia Greenway.

Twelve concerned citizens of Hokitika share the information they possess with Moody; determined to find justice for the victims and absolve themselves of any role they might have unwittingly played in the tragic events.

While Ms. Catton employs a slightly modified (thank God!) version of the Victorian style of expression, the most striking aspect of this novel is in its elaborate organization of character and apportioning of timeline according to astrological principles. If you have ever dabbled in the zodiac, this book will probably offer you an extra element of enjoyment. If that’s really not your thing, the character chart may seem superfluous and the titles won’t make much sense. But the book still will; so don’t worry about it.

The bare skeleton of the plot is simple enough. The intricacy lies in how deftly the actions and their consequences are interlaced. The author retains her audience’s interests by switching between past and present; revealing only tantalizing glimpses of the plot at a time; and from multiple perspectives to boot. At 800 plus pages, this is the longest book to have ever won a Booker prize. And yet despite its voluminous might, any reader who expects events to be neatly resolved and the tale to come to a tidy finish will be disappointed. Yes, justice (both the poetic and legal kind) is served, but much is left to our inference. The answers are there; but you should have been paying attention. Or just read it all over again. Go ahead, I dare you.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Rating: 4 Stars

2000 Booker Prize

This isn’t a feel good book. Never mind; it has other things going for it.

For starters there is its technical virtuosity. Atwood has taken an outmoded literary device – the epistolary novel - and imbued it with a savage new life. While the novel is certainly open to feminist interpretations, the author’s approach is iconoclastic in its demolition of fondly-held notions of family, religion, and marriage. That makes for a prickly, uncomfortable read; but artistes’ integrity lies is in staying true to their vision, not in pandering to the fickle caprices of the audience.

The plot is like a matryoshka doll, apparently nesting several stories within the main frame. The narrative opens in the 1940s, ‘ten days after the war ended’. Iris Chase hears of the tragic death of her younger sister, Laura, in a car accident. We learn over the course of the novel that Laura has achieved posthumous fame with the publication of the scandalous (for its time) book, ‘The Blind Assassin’. Iris, several years later, though physically frail, is indomitable and clear-minded in her old age as she never was in her youth. Part of the story is her recollection of her life as she writes it down for an estranged grandchild.

Part of it are also excerpts from ‘The Blind Assassin’ - a story of a young society woman involved with a man on the wrong side of the law, though his crime is never made explicit. The couple meet in various different locations each having their own reasons for being very careful. The word ‘love’ is not mentioned in their trysts, and they are often cruel or callous; yet, their need for one another, even if not always tender, is genuine and palpable.

The third story is the science-fiction tale with which the young man entertains his lover – a fantasy world of oppressive social stratification, sexual deviancy, and a perverted religion based on sacrificial rituals. Even under these unconducive circumstances, there are two unlikely people who fall in love seeking a redemption from the sordid reality of their lives.

Each story is engrossing enough on its own. Atwood’s ingenuity lies in her one-woman enactment of the triple Moirai in spinning the narrative; keeping the skeins from unraveling; and, swiftly and ruthlessly tying the threads together for a truly brilliant yarn.

“…All she has left is the picture. Also the story of it.

The picture is of happiness, the story not. Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there’s no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Rating: 4 Stars

1928 Pulitzer Prize Winner

“…soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

On July 20, 1714, an ancient bridge collapses, and five travelers plunge to their doom. The tragedy is witnessed by a Franciscan missionary who is so profoundly moved by the incident that he sets out to seek meaning behind the victims’ sudden deaths.

Starting from this premise, the novel opens with the inquiry into the lives of three of the main characters. Whether it’s a sad woman frantically nurturing her relationship with the daughter who spurns her; or, a brother in anguish over his irreparable loss; or, a caring mentor attempting to help his stricken protégée - the common thread in their lives is love, flawed, yet still sublime.

Thornton Wilder’s classic novel is based loosely on real life characters, and the titular bridge was inspired by a famed Peruvian bridge that spanned the Apurímac River. Wilder’s technique was greatly influenced by his study of classic French literature. The lucid style though emotionally detached is nevertheless deeply compassionate, and his character portraits are indelible. A passage that lingers in the memory is the description of the Archbishop of Lima:

“Between the rolls of flesh that surrounded them looked out two black eyes speaking discomfort, kindliness and wit. A curious and eager soul was imprisoned in all this lard…the distress of remorse was less poignant than the distress of fasting and he was presently found deliberating over the secret messages that a certain roast sends to the certain salad that will follow it. And to punish himself he led an exemplary life in every other respect.”

Though Wilder did not visit Peru until 1941 he is able to evoke the sensibility that we associate with Latin American authors. Like them he too mines the heart for its mysteries. Though Father Juniper attempts to tabulate human virtue and thus make sense of tragedy, the author is graceful in highlighting the impenetrability of cosmic design. 

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Rating: 3 & ½ Stars

2012 National Book Award Winner

Erdrich’s powerful coming of age novel is set on a Native American reservation in North Dakota. The narrator, Joe Coutts, tells the reader of his thirteenth summer when his mother is brutally attacked and nearly killed. Joe watches as his hitherto safe family life disintegrates before his eyes when she slips away into a depression that seems irrevocable.

There are striking parallels between ‘The Round House’ and that all-time American classic, 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. The book however has been infused with the author’s own themes.  Chief among them is Joe’s shattered innocence. Erdrich’s account of the complex emotional lives of teenaged boys is compelling…and unsettling. Joe and his three friends, Cappy, Angus, and Zack - free of over-protective parents - smoke, drink, and engage in behavior that spans the spectrum from thoughtless to bone-chillingly dangerous. Yet they are a likable bunch of kids - fiercely loyal to one another, funny, protective of the ones they care about, angry at a world that is toothless in the face of evil, and genuine in their love or lust. They do not so much grow up, as have their childhood wrenched away from them in a series of excruciating incidents.

More tender is the intimate picture of family life drawn with intuitive sensitivity. Having grown up the center his parents’ lives, Joe is left bereft and confused when his mother retreats from her husband and son, seemingly beyond reach in her isolation. Joe’s father carefully tries to rebuild their broken world while trying to elicit the truth of the attack from her.

Erdrich opens a window into a world where blood quantum is used to determine a person’s status as Indian, where people are both in the mainstream as well as immersed in their heritage, and the old wounds of racial injustice and exploitation still strike a raw nerve. It’s interesting that the author, who is herself, like her characters, Native American, does not use that term when speaking of her people. The preferred word is Indian, and her descriptions of life on the Reservation evoke a culture that is American, minus the stereotypes.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Rating: 4 Stars

William Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983

Some books are a rite of passage. We trudge through them cursing the educators who deemed that they should be ‘required reading’; that our academic experience would somehow be incomplete without them. Under this duress, the book inspires fear and loathing, rather than instilling a love of the best there is in literature. It’s with great relief that we turn the final page, submit that last essay, and vow to never pick up that wretched thing ever again. Yet years later, the book continues to haunt, etched forever in our memory. Lord of the Flies is beautiful, ugly, and deeply disturbing; or as my thirteen-year old opined, “There was something seriously wrong with this guy.”

In the aftermath of a nuclear war, a plane transporting an unnamed number of English school-boys crashes on an uninhabited island in the Pacific. The boys range in ages from adolescents to kindergartners. They make tentative plans for their immediate survival while awaiting a rescue. Their ill-formed attempts at establishing a functioning society crumbles in the tug of war between the conflicting impulses of civilization versus savagery.

One reading makes clear why this book is beloved of English teachers everywhere – the abundance of themes, the simple yet sophisticated language, and characters that are universal archetypes. It’s a book that tantalizes with symbolism, and tempts the reader to assay imaginative interpretations.

However, I confess that this book appeals to me at its most basic level – as a riveting tale that has the blood pounding in your veins, and your nails chewed to shreds as you try to guess what’s coming next. As a story-teller, Golding ranks with the best. Where one may find room for argument is perhaps, in his seemingly dark take on human nature. As one of the book’s characters is prone to exclaim, “What’s grown-ups going to say?” The more painful question is, what would adults do that would be any different?

This is the crux of the intertwining themes. Golding was a school-master with a visceral understanding of the school-boys’ mentality. Though the clinical detachment of his tone is chilling, it is not so much misanthropy, as a potent warning of mankind’s proclivity for degeneracy. As he said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech,

“…We need more humanity, more care, more love. There are those who expect a political system to produce that; and others who expect the love to produce the system. My own faith is that the truth of the future lies between the two and we shall behave humanly and a bit humanely, stumbling along, haphazardly generous and gallant, foolishly and meanly wise until the rape of our planet is seen to be the preposterous folly that it is.”

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes



Rating : 4 Stars

2011 Booker Prize

Julian Barnes’ latest book is a slender one, a little over a 150 pages. Don’t let its size fool you; it has all the density of a black hole.

The narrator, Tony Webster, is edging slightly past the point that can still be truthfully called middle age. Still, he is at peace with that, more or less; because as he says in his defense, he’s a ‘peaceable’ man. He’s experienced friendship, love, loss, marriage, fatherhood, divorce, career, retirement – the whole kit and caboodle. Whatever uneasy thoughts he might have about death are eclipsed by a recurring fear of Alzheimer’s – that great erosion of the mind.

The problem of memory is one seared into our consciousness when a series of events force Tony to re-evaluate everything he thought he knew, about himself and his loved ones. As one exasperated ex-girlfriend tells him over and over again – ‘you don’t get it and you never will’. I would like to say there’s a twist at the end, but it would be more accurate to state that the story’s arc is as sinuous as memory can be, when it is at its most capricious and self-inventing.

“…what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.”

Barnes style is lovely…and refreshing. Just as we accustom ourselves to his elegant, cerebral manner of expression, he jabs us into alertness with needle-sharp humor, and efficiently placed profanity. When we think we’ve got to know a character fairly well, we’re shocked that the same person had it in them to lash out viciously, albeit in hurt and rage, spilling words that splash like hot acid. Yet, why should we be surprised at all; the book vividly brings home the impossibility of knowing another, when we do not know ourselves. That makes it all the more gratifying when our narrator, defying his ex's opinion of his cognitive abilities, finally ‘gets it’.

Once Barnes received the Booker, which some felt was long overdue, there was the inevitable gossip about the book's merit. I came across two others that were also on the 2011 shortlist – ‘The Sisters Brothers’, which I really enjoyed; and, ‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ which I tossed aside in boredom after having got partway through the book (if imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery, Yann Martel must be quite flattered). Not every Booker winner of the past has had my unqualified enthusiasm, but this time, I would say that the honor given to Barnes was richly deserved.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole



Rating: 3 Stars

1981 Pulitzer Prize Winner

Some books are a delight to read while still retaining literary credibility. There are others that may be a challenge, but in the final analysis prove rewarding. Then there are those that are nothing less than a test in endurance. I would classify ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ under the third category.

Ignatius Reilly is a preposterous ego-maniac with delusions of grandeur, subject to bouts of acute gastrointestinal distress. Possessing an education he doesn’t know what to do with, he rants against the failings of society and expands on his own superiority in journals and pompous theses. Nagged by his much-put-upon mother who is also his enabler, he manages to get first one job than another, where he manages to dissipate more of his time, while giving every employer misguided enough to employ him reasons to regret their decision. He’s obsessed with Myrna Minkoff who may be his true love/nemesis, and is at any rate the only one who seems to have a fairly good handle on the psychological problems assailing him. Will Ignatius, and the myriad other characters the book introduces us to, meet their duly deserved deliverance or come-uppance as it may be? You’ll have to stick around till the end to find out.

This book almost never saw the light of day. A copy of the manuscript was discovered by the author’s mother after his unfortunate suicide in 1969. Thanks to her untiring efforts, the book was finally published in 1980, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981.

The Pulitzer Prize…that had me going “Must have been a lean year for fiction" a few pages into the narrative. Despite being unable to warm up to this book, and its gargantuan protagonist, the idea of it winning a Pulitzer is not wholly inconceivable once you’ve waded through its full length. For one thing, the book is set in 1960s New Orleans, and the language has such a twang of authenticity that it has us paying attention even when we don’t want to. Toole effectively captures that New Orleans drawl that lazily lops off the last consonant of most words. The portrayal of African Americans is free of condescension. In fact, though the people populating the novel are by and large loud and disagreeable, they are vibrantly alive. It’s astonishing how much personality he’s able to imbue in each character even in the briefest encounter.

I can hardly blame the editors who initially took a pass on this book; it has the kind of quality that will appeal strictly to literary types, and that’s a limited audience. It seems to have only the vaguest outline of a plot at the outset, and throughout has a tendency to ramble from one tedious scene to another. But the story comes together convincingly at the conclusion. It ended well, and left me glad that it had ended.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez



Rating: 4 Stars

[Translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982

My few experiences with South American writing have left me both fascinated and apprehensive. I have been especially curious about Columbian-born Gabriel Garcia Marquez, among the most pre-eminent of Latin American novelists. I decided to first test the waters by gingerly swirling a toe around some of his lighter books, before taking the plunge into his more acclaimed works. Chronicle of a Death Foretold happened to fit the bill perfectly.

Part detective story and part investigative journalism; this slim novella still packs a mighty wallop. It’s partly based on events from the author’s life, though altered for fiction. In the very first page, we learn that the narrator is looking back into a murder that took place in his town some twenty-seven years ago. He meets and speaks with his fellow townspeople, most of them family and friends, or neighbors of many years standing. They have all played a role in the events that took place on the fateful day, by what they did and what they didn’t.

There is not a lot of suspense to the story, but I’ll try not to give anything away. A wedding precedes the murder, and the murder coincides with the Bishop’s fleeting visit to the town. Both the wedding and the Bishop’s visit have a great bearing on the death. Intertwined with the killing are themes of ‘returned’ brides and family honor; with many memorable characters, including matrons who prophesy that certain young women would be good wives because ‘they’ve been raised to suffer’. As seems to be the case often in South American fiction, there is love and lust - unwieldy, unpredictable, and completely beyond the bounds of reason and etiquette.

The story proceeds backward, tracing each and every incident that leads to the final, shattering climax. The description of the actual murder is horrifyingly graphic. Marquez is remorseless in the details, and the reader is so entranced by the compelling narrative that we can only behold, mesmerized, the tragedy that unfolds before our eyes. So it must have been with the townsfolk. One thing that is made painstakingly obvious is that there were several occasions to avert this misfortune, yet each of those opportunities went to waste; and that raises poignant questions about human nature and predestination.

The killers themselves come out as rather hapless; nor do they bear the burden of guilt alone, not when the whole town appears complicit in the crime. Each character is strikingly lifelike, even though for many it’s only a cameo appearance. By and large, Marquez eschews Magic Realism in the novel except in the final scene which has all the psychedelic vividness of a terrible dream.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Rating: 4 Stars

2001 Booker Prize

The conventional hero’s job is a difficult one, yet the job description is fairly simple. At any rate, it involves the using of one’s abilities to challenge the oppressor, and uphold the rights of the underdog. By this definition do some outlaws pass into legend, as in the case of Ned Kelly. ‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ is Peter Carey’s imaginative rendering of the life of Kelly, a figure as distinctly Australian as the didgeridoo, kangaroo, or kookaburra sitting on the old gum tree.

 

The story begins with the deportation of Kelly’s father from Ireland to Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania), one of Australia’s many penal settlements. The elder Kelly emerges from prison, vowing to never go back there again. That resolution is complicated by his marriage to Ellen Quinn, whose family is ever on the dodgy side of the law. His integrity genetically compromised, young Ned seems to find himself just once too often in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong company.

Initially reviled as a murderer and horse-thief, the tide of popular opinion turns in Kelly’s favor, and he wins public sympathy. His supporters are mostly underprivileged selectors who, like the Kelly family, are tired of having their lands seized and livestock impounded on trumped up charges, by a corrupt and vindictive legal system that was blatantly biased in favor of the wealthier land-holders.

“…And here is the thing about them men they was Australians they knew full well the terror of the unyielding law the historic memory of UNFAIRNESS were in their blood…In the hut at Faithfull’s Creek I seen proof that if a man could tell his true history to Australians he might be believed…”

Despite the title, this is not an accurate account of Kelly’s history, rather a fictionalized version of his life. One startling thing about the book is its jettisoning of grammatical diacritics. Without the reliable lifeline of well-placed commas and periods, the surprised reader is initially left flailing in the treacherous currents of Carey’s unpunctuated prose. It takes a certain chutzpah, but this a deliberate literary technique that smoothly echoes the character and tone of Ned Kelly’s historic Jerilderie Letter, his 8,000 word manifesto, outlining his grievances and demands. Lacking chapters, the book is divided into thirteen ‘parcels’, depicting the highlights of his life. As the narrator retelling his story to a daughter he may never see, Carey vividly recreates a Kelly who is both wily and artless; a reckless felon and a vulnerable boy; both semi-literate and eloquently persuasive.

The author could have probably dispensed with some of the fabricated insertions, such as the dysfunctional family situations that are ubiquitous features of the worst kind of talk-shows, and the most admired Greek tragedies. Carey does seem intent on drawing these parallels since he gives the poor dead outlaw an Oedipal streak a mile wide. Considering that Kelly is already a figure of mythical proportions in his native land, these embellishments seem uncalled for, as they don’t particularly add to the strength of the narrative. The ‘true history’ is riveting enough as it is.

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

Rating: 3 & ½ Stars

[Translated from the Turkish by Erdag M. Goknar]

Orhan Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006

“…Let it not be forgotten that in the Glorious Koran, ‘creator’ is one of the attributes of Allah. It is Allah who is creative… who brings that which is not into existence, who gives life to the lifeless. No one ought to compete with him. The greatest of sins is committed by painters who presume to do what He does, who claim to be as creative as He…”

This statement is the essential conflict of ‘My Name is Red’, Orhan Pamuk’s intricate tale of Art and murder in 16^th century Turkey under Ottoman rule. It’s a world where artistry is circumscribed by religious ideology, and where mad old painters aspire to blindness as the ultimate mark of Allah’s favor.

The world of these painters, or more correctly, miniaturists, is the centerpiece of the novel. They are anguished souls unable to unleash their true artistry, shackled to the traditions of the ‘old masters’, and forbidden to innovate. This last condition is proving especially cumbersome because the Ottoman Empire has become increasingly susceptible to the influence of European art with its dazzling use of perspective and seductive portraiture. But in the eyes of the imams, that way lies heresy and perdition. The painters are torn between artistic envy and their religious convictions.

Then a miniaturist, working on a book specially commissioned by the Sultan, is murdered. There are any number of suspects - from his rival-colleagues to the followers of a fundamentalist cleric. Summoned to solve the mystery is Black, an erstwhile artist and clerk. Black accepts, in order to ingratiate himself with the father of his beloved, Shekure. Black is a fool for love, but Shekure is a single mother living at the mercy of a patriarchal society. She has no intention of yoking her family’s fortunes to Black without carefully hedging her bets.

The book is gratifying, both as historical fiction as well as an intelligently crafted mystery. It proceeds at a leisurely stroll, and with the frequent scenic detours down the by lanes of Ottoman art, history, culture and philosophy, it is often an aesthetic delight, with many passages of surpassing beauty. The plot has mystery’s requisite tension, and the conclusion is satisfactory, if not highly suspenseful.

Where it falters is in setting and characterization. I would have expected more color and richer detail in descriptions of sixteenth century Istanbul, one of the most storied cities in the world. More disappointing is the characterization. It has the same flaws that may be leveled at miniature painting – lack of depth and perspective. The story is told through multiple viewpoints, but the characters frequently contradict themselves and indulge in so much double speak, that we have no idea who they are, or what they believe. They remain mostly a strange, amorphous bunch. The prevailing mood of characterization is an unabashed homoeroticism. Not a single youth escapes having an adoring adjective – ‘pretty’, ‘lovely’, ‘beautiful’- affixed to his person. The problem with a literary world where every male is assumed to be just a little bit gay is that it is at best a lop-sided, and at worst a falsified view of human nature. Literature becomes less Art and more artifice.

Turkey has long been at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and its struggle with cultural identity is evident in the novel. That is to say, Pamuk portrays it but seems unable to reconcile the differences. What the book offers is an exclusively Islamic worldview that fails to reaffirm the import of one of its most inspiring lines:

“Nothing is pure…To God belongs the East and the West. May he protect us from the will of the pure and the unadulterated.”

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Rating: 4 & 1/2 Stars

1961 Pulitzer Prize Winner

'Sakhi' Book Club March 2011 Pick

A Literary Classic has at least four elements – artistic quality, universal appeal, the ability to stand the test of time, and lasting relevance. That’s a textbook definition. ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ certainly has three of the four qualities. However, to say that it has stood the test of time might be a little premature, since it was published just about fifty years ago. Nevertheless, there is something so profound about this book, that we can confidently assert that it will be read for a long time to come. This is a masterpiece of values that are not merely enduring, but timeless.

Haper Lee’s book starts in the most innocuous way. The narrator, Scout (Jean Louise Finch), remembers the events of the onset of her ninth year. Growing up in America’s Depression Era in the Deep South, Scout witnesses the community of her small Alabama town, Maycomb. Her life is a sheltered one - a loving father; a protective elder brother who is her best friend and mentor; and, a housekeeper who tries to keep her in line. Her concerns are typically childlike – apprehension about school, her relationship with her best friend - Dill, and her terrified fascination of the reclusive Boo (Arthur) Radley, who has assumed the form of neighborhood bogeyman in the imagination of Maycomb’s children. Over the course of the next two summers, bigger worries loom on the horizon. Her lawyer father, Atticus Finch, takes on the case of a black man accused of raping a white woman. This agitates the otherwise peaceful little county. The Finch family faces the rancor of people’s objection to Atticus, who is the court-appointed defense: 

“…Atticus aims to defend him. That’s what I don’t like about it.”

Atticus Finch has no illusions about the world he lives in, but neither does he have any intention of letting justice be railroaded, without everyone at least getting to hear the real truth, ugly as it may be. The bitterness caused by the case, its aftermath, the climax, and the final catharsis are told in a serene, slightly detached tone that is far more effective than angry rants about injustice.

The story is enhanced by the complete absence of literary bombast. The characters speak in the colloquial, sometimes whimsical cadence that characterizes the best of the Literature of the South, from Mark Twain downwards. The simple but incandescent prose is further illumined by the humor that is such an integral part of this book. Lee’s comic sense and timing is akin to the twinkling of fireflies on a summer evening. Blink, and you’ve missed a glimmer of beauty.

This book preceded the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Fifty years after its publication, America can proudly claim to have made great strides in overcoming racial divides. After all, didn’t we just elect our first African-American/Biracial President? Progress certainly, but the United States is still a young country. It was not that long ago that Native Americans were driven from their territories, and marginalized in the very land of their birth. Not that long ago, that it was considered appropriate and necessary to exploit slave labor, or to inter Japanese-Americans on suspicion of their ethnicity. It took nearly a century after a devastating Civil War to recognize African Americans as full-fledged members of this country. The specter of racism has waned, not vanished. 

However, it's not merely in the political or social context that  ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ is as relevant today as when it was first published. While this may be a novel as quintessentially American as apple pie, its themes of compassion, tolerance, faith, family, and community are boundless; beyond the claims of a particular era or nation. We would all be better for a slice of this pie.

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

2010 National Book Award Winner

Rating: 3 & 1/2 Stars

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started Jaimy Gordon’s book. The racing world has never piqued my interest. But reading ‘Lord of Misrule’ is like biting into some rare, exotic fruit – a lush, sensual experience that leaves you craving more.

The story is set in Indian Mound Downs near Wheeling, West Virginia, and covers four races over the span of a year. The races at Indian Mounds are claiming races where any horse can be bought at a predetermined price. As much a part of the cast as the human characters, are the whimsically named horses – the Mahdi, Pelter, Little Spinoza, Lord of Misrule. More than anything, they exemplify the valor and tragedy of ‘the Sport of Kings’. The horses in these races are not thoroughbred stars; they are aging, injured beasts that still, somehow, summon the moxie to give a run for their money.

Pinning their desperate hopes on them are a motley assortment of hustlers and dreamers – Tommy Hansel who believes that his horse is going to be the one to beat all odds; Maggie Koderer, seduced by the glib Tommy has fallen into a life she knows nothing about; Medicine Ed, the elderly trainer, who is looking for the windfall that will purchase him a home; Two-Tie, the race financier whose family values might well be the ruin of him; and Joe Dale Bigg, a race track Mafiosi. With characters named Two-Tie, Biggy and Gyp, you know you ain’t in suburbia anymore.

Ultimately though, this book beguiles with its startlingly original language that in one fell, gorgeous swoop transports us into the seedy, raunchy, sinister glamor of the horse-racing world. The picturesque language catches the rhythms of each character’s personality. We see them from the inside out, each in their own fragile little world of improbable chimeras. Gordon has managed to evoke a world so potent that it lingers in the memory long after the last page has been turned.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Rating: 3 & 1/2 Stars

1992  Booker Prize

February’s Holy Grail was a good romance that I couldn’t scoff at. Mission accomplished. There’s very little of the ridiculous in Ondaatje’s intense and haunting novel of doomed passion. 

At the tail end of the Second World War, a young nurse, Hana, and her sole patient are locked away from the rest of the world in a crumbling monastery in the hills north of Florence in Italy. Not only is the Villa San Girolamo in ruins, its previous German occupants have booby-trapped it to blow sky-high with one unsuspecting act. But Hana’s patient cannot be moved, and Hana refuses to leave him. Into their lives wander two other men: David Caravaggio, a friend from Hana’s past, and Kirpal Singh – Kip – a young Sikh soldier with the British army. The power of this book lies in the lyrical beauty of its language, and the fleshing out of these four wounded souls against the backdrop of a brutal and dehumanizing war.

The story does not proceed in any linear fashion, and the reader is caught in the undertow of the protagonists' flickering memories and emotions. Each has their story to tell. Hana, the youngest of the four has seen the specter of death too often in her brief career tending to the wounded and the dying. Caravaggio, a charismatic thief, has been compelled during the course of the war into playing a far more shadowy and dangerous role, and has paid dearly for it. Kip, the sapper, has an instinct for finding and defusing bombs and mines. But his work has him living life on the edge, alert for danger from any direction and keeping the world at a distance, finding safety only in himself.

The most intriguing is the man known as the English Patient, to whom Hana devotes all her care. Dying and in an agony that can be palliated only with morphine, he still seems intensely alive, a compendium of erudition, who bears his pain with dignity, with patience. Nobody knows if he is even English, only that he might be, but then, he might be so many things. He is a man who owes his allegiance only to the undulating sands of the desert:

“The desert could not be claimed or owned – it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names long before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East. Its caravans, those strange rambling feasts and cultures, left nothing behind, not an ember. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith… Fire and sand. We left the harbours of oasis. The places water came to and touched…Erase the family name! Erase nations! I was taught such things by the desert.”

He has been severely burned in an airplane accident in the deserts of Africa, and has barely made it alive to the hospitals of Italy. The army, ever on the look-out for enemy spies, grills him without much success. He gives no satisfactory answer to their questions, but slowly reveals his secrets to his companions at the villa. The secrets of his life, and of the forbidden passion for a woman that has destroyed them both. The sensuous language of this book encompasses both the anatomy of desire and the landscape of longing. Love must lie somewhere between the two.

The 1996 movie, ‘The English Patient’ was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and won nine, including Best Picture. Good as this book was, I confess that I found the film version far more moving. There are some things that are better portrayed than written about.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Rating: 3 & ½ Stars

2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

            For better or worse, certain things have come to define America – its foreign policy, Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Hollywood Movies, and of course, Music. Few things are more quintessentially American than Elvis, Rock and Roll, Jazz, Blues, Rap…the list goes on.

            Most of the main characters in Jennifer Egan’s captivating novel have connections to the music industry. The other thing they have in common is connection to one another. The world depicted in ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ is a small one, despite occasionally zigzagging across different continents, and careening boldly over diverse time-periods of the protagonists’ lives. Chance encounters and random characters traipse through the story, creating ripple effects where one person is separated from another only by a few degrees of difference.

            The two main connecting links are introduced early in the novel. There’s a friable quality to the troubled Sasha who leaves an indelible imprint at the first meeting. She has worked for twelve years for Bennie Salazar, ex punk-rocker and more recently, record executive for ‘Sow’s Ear Records’. Unlike the intriguing Sasha, Bennie makes a far less favorable impression. He is wallowing in a warm bath of shameful memories and private humiliations, and the unsuspecting reader is deluged by wave after wave of squirm-inducing recollections. Sasha and Bennie, each in their own way, are seeking deliverance, mostly from themselves. On them, as on everyone else in this novel, Time works its mysterious, ineluctable alchemy.

            Egan’s nimble, innovative story-telling effortlessly spears our attention from the get-go. Her vivid vignettes anchor the ensemble of characters, so that each feels like a crucial piece of a jigsaw puzzle, rather than a mere cameo appearance. As their individual lives converge, diverge, and overlap onto each other’s, together, they form a richly colorful montage of different experiences and perspectives.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Rating: 4 Stars

2010 Booker Prize

One thing has to be said for Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’ – she knows how to capture our attention. The initial meeting with the protagonist, Thomas Cromwell, grabs you by the collar, yanks you into the story, and keeps you immersed in 16^th. Century England till the very end.

‘Wolf Hall’ is a book that wears its scholarship lightly. However, it is one that is better appreciated with an intense curiosity, rather than a vague interest in the Tudor Period; particularly the reign of Henry VIII. That happens to be the story’s setting. The monarch of England is dissatisfied with his current marriage to Katherine of Aragon, both because it has failed to produce a male heir to a throne, and because he is infatuated with Anne Boleyn, who has apparently told the King something along the lines of “not a thing till I get that ring”.  

But we’re talking about 16^th. Century Europe which is in the thrall of the Catholic Church. Divorce is taboo, and annulment by papal consent, though possible in other cases, will not be considered here. Why? Because Queen Katherine of Aragon is the aunt of King Charles V of Spain, who just happens to be the Holy Roman Emperor, and whose feathers the Pope dare not ruffle. King Charles the V is moved by more than mere family sentiment – if Henry’s marriage to Katherine is annulled, their only child, Mary, would be removed from the line of succession. For all practical purposes, Charles V would obviously rather have his cousin on the throne of England. 

What options does King Henry have? This is a period of religious restlessness and social turmoil. Martin Luther’s Protestantism is spreading throughout Europe, despite the Church’s attempts to squash it with its full and brutal might. The translation of the Bible into English is giving access to every Englishman who might want to interpret the Lord’s word for himself. And that certainly can’t be allowed to happen.

Ultimately, England’s break with the Catholic Church, which was a turning point in European history had less to do with religion, and was more a pursuit of passion, a pursuit of politics.

The King’s man, who job it is to make the impossible possible is Thomas Cromwell. In an age of frivolous gentlemen, all jockeying to be the trusted adviser of a vain, fickle-minded King, Cromwell stands out as a man of substance. Coming from a humble background that he won’t be bothered to either conceal or improve upon, Cromwell comes across a pragmatic, ruthlessly competent man, with a long memory for both friends and enemies.

The book’s most striking aspect is the characterization of the enigmatic Cromwell who plays the game, with all cards held close to his chest. No less compelling are the other luminaries in the book – conniving Anne Boleyn; irascible Duke of Norlfolk; fanatical Thomas More; volatile King Henry, who nevertheless wins our liking; and, the charismatic, brilliant Wolsey. 

Wolsey is both Cromwell’s friend and his mentor. The two men have much in common, but with one crucial difference - Cromwell succeeds where Wolsey could not. He succeeds a little too well. As his eminence grows, so does his ambition, or, is it the other way around? By the end of the book, the dauntless Cromwell has started soaring a little too close to the sun on waxen wings. The reader can only wait with foreboding for the promised sequel.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

Rating: 4 & 1/2 Stars 

1932 Pulitzer Prize Winner

Pearl Buck was Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938

Published in 1931, ‘The Good Earth’ won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for its author, Pearl S. Buck, who later went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

When we first meet Wang Lung, the book’s hero, we see him as an eager yet nervous young bridegroom, who diffidently approaches the debauched House of Hwang, to collect his bride from one of their many female slaves. The book takes us to a full circle of Wang’s life.

Neither saint nor sinner, as good as many, and better than some, Wang is a riveting hero – a peasant farmer with a fire in his belly. A fearlessly hard worker, where some would merely dream, he forges his ambitions into reality through dint of perseverance, and yes, some luck. A proud father of three sons, and a reluctant father to a daughter he comes to cherish above all others; and, though not born a gentleman, he is at his best a gentle man, who surrenders neither his integrity nor his humanity even in the direst of times.

Unlike Wang, O-lan, the former slave who becomes his wife, remains enigmatic till the end of the book - a silent woman whose speech can be startlingly effective. Haunted by a Past that she rarely shares with anyone, taking no joy in herself, and finally faithlessly betrayed, O-lan is a painful figure. She is nevertheless a sympathetic character, not a pitiful one. She can move Wang to alternating bouts of pride of possession, gratitude, guilt, kindness, and cruelty, but alas, not to love.

Wang’s heart isn’t his own to give. Despite occasionally heeding his fleeting infatuations, despite his changing fortunes, and in spite of his innately restless social climbing, Wang can never be distracted for too long from his one abiding love, the land. It calls him home when he wanders away, heals his sickness of heart and spirit, absorbs the labor he pours into it, and blesses his fierce love with a bountiful prosperity. It is the silent witness to the brief passion play that is a man’s existence, before finally enfolding him into its all-forgiving embrace.

Ms. Buck’s writing has the austere and simple elegance of Chinese Brush Painting. There are no literary pyrotechnics, and we don’t miss them. An American born in China, she has the rare gift of writing about an alien culture without a trace of condescension. Whether she is describing the abundance of food seen by a man on the verge of starvation, the contrast between the lives of the rich and the poor, or the devastation of famine on an impoverished people, she manages to bridge the cultural and national divides in a tale that is poignantly universal.