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The book is a quirky amalgam of actual historical documents, ingenious creative elements, and, word-crafting.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.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Rating: 3 & ½ Stars

One of the strengths of this book is its straightforward narrative. Published first in 1925, the story chronicles the experiences of a young American, Frederic Henry, caught in the thick of World War I. Lieutenant Henry (‘Tenente’) serves in the ambulance corps of the Italian army. The book is as much about love, as it is about war.

Frederic is half-hearted about the war, and in no mind for love when he first meets Catherine Barkley, an English nurse. Both his mind and heart are changed fairly soon, though Hemingway is more eloquent about Henry’s growing disillusionment with the seemingly endless campaign than he is in developing the relationship between Frederic and Catherine. The reader must infer their own reasons beyond what is stated in the book: that Catherine is beautiful, and ‘a grand girl’, and that she is lonely and grieving. In the despair of war, perhaps that is enough.

After the Battle of Caporetto and the ensuing Italian retreat, Henry finally decides that he will make ‘a separate peace’. He deserts the Italian army and pursues Catherine to Stresa. Catherine is by now pregnant with his child, and together, the two escape to Switzerland. There, they enjoy a blissful idyll, that alas, proves short-lived.

Hemingway seems to know what he’s talking about when he writes about war. Well, he should. ‘A Farewell to Arms’ is not autobiographical, but several incidents were based on the author’s own experiences in the Italian ambulance brigade, and being wounded during service. Many of the key characters were inspired by men and women he met during that period. Catherine Barkley was the fictional alter ego of a nurse called Agnes Von Kurowsky. The affair between Hemingway and Kurowsky did not end tragically, but came to a more mundane conclusion. While the character of Henry has a force and presence that rings true, Barkley is a fairly two-dimensional and insipid romantic lead. At the end of the book, there is not much we know about her, other than that she for no particular reason, makes Henry her raison d’être and has a tendency to fatuously state that things are ‘grand’ even when they very obviously are not.

But whatever the deficiencies in Hemingway’s take on love, he makes up for it with a perspective on war that is clear-eyed and authentic - its chaos, stupidity, madness, and the collateral damage it inflicts. Hemingway strips away any pretensions of glory in his account of people displaced, in the awarding of military ‘honors’, and the treatment of service personnel in wartime. His style of prose is minimal – terse yet effective. While his writing is unsentimental, his descriptions of natural landscapes are a thing of beauty in themselves; the immutable loveliness of nature stands serenely untouched by mankind’s self-destruction.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Rating: 4 Stars

It seems like the latest crop of fiction isn't discussed much on BTL in general and not at all this year. Chalk that down to wariness when it comes to trying anything new. When browsing through lists of ‘Best Books of 2014’, one title was ubiquitous – Anthony Doerr’s ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. Surely so many critics couldn't be wrong; turns out they weren’t. At the risk of recklessly slinging hyperbole – this book is a masterpiece.

With a plot spanning more than seventy years, the main action takes place around the epochal years of the Second World War. Though the narrative glides through many European scenes, the story is firmly anchored in the historic port city of St. Malo on the northwestern coast of France. Doerr’s description of St. Malo is cinematic in its detail. From its colorful past to its near annihilation during the liberation of France, the author vividly recreates a city that lingers in the imagination long after the last page has been turned.

Just as haunting are the characters that people the book: Marie-Laure LeBlanc, blind from early childhood; her devoted father – a skilled artisan and the principal locksmith at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris; her great-uncle Etienne a traumatized veteran of the First World War. Equally compelling are the German cast of characters – Werner Pfennig a young technical wizard forced to play a role that’s far distant from his childhood aspirations; his friend Frederick, gentle and honorable in a world that has no use for such qualities; his younger sister Jutta, who sees more than her years. All are pawns in the looming calamity that will engulf them.

Without the bizarreness of ‘magical realism’ – the plot of this historical novel is both magical and intensely real. A fabled and fatal gem that men lust to possess; treasures that must be safeguarded from the maw of war; innocence lost; strength discovered; heroism in unexpected places; and Time’s healing; the stuff of clichés…and classics.

It’s easy to rhapsodize over this novel; but it’s not easy reading though. The pace of the book is inexorably slow and a nihilistic sense of pessimism overhangs it.

“It strikes Werner just then as wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colorful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world – what pretensions humans have! Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them?”

Yet consider this:

“What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible.”

If the book is slow, it’s the slowness of crescendo; and novels that discuss war, and omit despair and futility skirt the truth. This book is ultimately not about the pointlessness of human endeavor, but the resilience of the human spirit that seeks out invisible light.

Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore

Rating: 3 & 1/2 Stars


Perhaps not everyone will be regaled by the rough misogyny and the superfluity of raunchy humor that's so pervasive in Christopher Moore's Sacré Bleu. The book does offer other compensations however.

For one, the setting is enthralling - late Nineteenth Century Paris set afire with the artistic talents of the Impressionist Painters. The major painters of the day all make at the very least a cameo appearance in the novel, and sometimes much more than a cameo. The book itself is an alluring mélange of historical fact and surreal fiction. Of the two major protagonists in the book, one is Henri Toulouse-Lautrec - the French aristocrat-artist - who zestfully immersed himself in Paris's sexy underbelly. The other is Lucien Lessard, Moore's fictitious baker turned painter. Together, the pair try to unravel the mystery of the apparent suicide of their friend, Vincent van Gogh. The clues lead them on the trail of the sinister 'Colorman', and his elusive companion.


One of the charms of this book for me was the many photos of the great artwork under discussion. That; and the author's intellectual athleticism. I enjoyed his effortless vaults from art history to Greek and Gaelic mythology; and all the better when he takes the reader along for the ride instead of floundering at the sidelines.


And while the bitch-goddess persona exercises a certain fascination on the imagination, in this context it's also a nod to that very French dictum - cherchéz la femme.

Shogun by James Clavell



Rating: 4 Stars

The last book I read that was as exciting as James Clavell’s ‘Shogun’ was…well, it was that other Clavell book I read. Like Tai-Pan, this book is also inspired by historical events. The story’s protagonist is based on  an English navigator,William Adams,  who became a trusted advisor to the 17^th. Century Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu.

At the start of the seventeenth century, John Blackthorn, the English Pilot-Major of the Dutch ship, the ‘Erasmus’ finds himself and his surviving crew run aground on Japanese shores. While Blackthorn finds himself desperately trying to succor assistance from his hosts, he has to keep at bay the Portuguese merchant marines who have already carved a niche in trading with Japan, and will jealously guard their hegemony at all costs. Adding to the complications, Blackthorn has to rely on the interpreting skills of fanatical Jesuit priests, the rare few Europeans who have learnt the Japanese language in their self-anointed mission to convert the heathens of the world to the Catholic faith.

The Japanese daimyos (feudal lords) and the samurai warriors Blackthorn encounters are little impressed with Western claims to empire-building. They are however very interested in the concept of naval warfare and how it could tip the balance in their favor in their own power struggles. It is either the Europeans’ rotten luck or golden opportunity, depending on how you look at it, that they become embroiled in a game of thrones where many heads will roll before the outcome is settled.

Clavell is a master story-teller. I’ve not come across many other writers who have his unique combination of sophisticated plot, intelligent synthesis of history and fiction, engaging characterization, and blood-tingling action. But reader beware, ‘Shogun’ is no easy-reading treat. It’s neither for the faint-hearted, nor for those with attention-deficit handicaps. There are stomach-turning descriptions of violence; and countless names, vendettas, and historical events to keep in mind. The book is marginally excellent and would have been more so, if Clavell had trimmed it by a third and provided a glossary for reference. It’s saying a lot that despite these flaws, ‘Shogun’ stands head and shoulders above much of contemporary fiction.

 ‘Civilization’ is after only a matter of perspective. Blackthorn may be confounded by the Japanese alacrity to shed blood at the least provocation; the Japanese are puzzled by the sectarian differences within the Christian religion, and by much of Christian theology. Each race is understandably horrified and disgusted by the cuisine and sanitation habits of the other. But in the end, as in Tai-Pan, here too, Clavell proves dear old Kipling wrong – East and West shall meet, and it is their mutual destiny to be repelled, fascinated, and ultimately enriched by the contact.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows



Rating: 3 Stars

The epistolary form of writing is pretty much obsolete now. That in itself lends this book a quaint novelty. Written by the aunt-niece team of Shaffer and Barrows, it was the maiden effort of Shaffer, whose niece stepped in to add the final touches once the former became too ill to finish her book.

The plot’s momentum is generated by a series of letters exchanged between the main players. Thirty-something writer, Juliet Ashton is casting about for ideas for her next book in Post-War Britain, when she strikes up an accidental correspondence with members of a book-club in Guernsey, a British island off the coast off Normandy. Initially, she is drawn to the GL&PPPS by a shared love of books; but soon she’s intrigued by the island’s recent occupation by German forces during the war, and its impact on the lives of the islanders.

The book is an easy-reading charmer. There is more than a splash of L.M. Montgomery to the writing; with its independent-minded yet feminine heroine, the quirky cast of supporting characters, and sudden unlooked-for romance. Yet, the historical research in the book would do credit to an academic, and adds heft to what would otherwise have been an enjoyable, yet quite ordinary work of fiction.

However, with all due respect to veterans, haven’t there been enough books about WW II? That’s meant to be a rhetorical question. Let’s be resigned to the fact that, that particular cash cow is far from being milked dry.

The Secret River by Kate Grenville

Rating: 4 Stars

‘The Secret River’ was not intended to be fiction. Author Kate Grenville was researching her own ancestry and the early settlers of Australia for a possible work of nonfiction when that idea germinated into something else. Many of Australia’s initial settlers did not come to that land voluntarily. They were, to put it euphemistically, His Majesty’s ‘guests’ – meaning that they had been prison convicts in England who were exiled to the remoter outposts of the British Empire for crimes ranging from poaching to piracy.

The Secret River’s protagonist William Thornhill lands in New South Wales in 1806 for committing larceny against his employer. He is luckier than many others in some respects. He arrives in the new land penniless, but with his spunky wife, Sal, into whose custody he is remanded for one year. Life for the Thornhills is difficult in the new land, but it wasn’t much easier in the old one either. Slowly, Thornhill realizes that he may achieve in the colony what would have been impossible back home. He is determined to shoulder his way into prosperity. There is only one obstacle – the country’s original inhabitants, who see no reason why they shoud ‘b..... off’ on any one’s say so.

There is between the Aboriginals and the white settlers a chasm of non-understanding that makes the eventual outcome as inevitable as it is tragic. The ‘good’ settlers treat the Aboriginals with condescension laced with unease. The ‘bad’ ones use the racial tension as a pretext to commit the worst kind of atrocities. However, Grenville’s sensitive treatment of the hostilities is even-handed. Habituated as they are to a hunter-gatherer existence, the Aboriginals seem maddeningly oblivious to the concept that the fruit of other men’s labors are not theirs for the taking; that in the eyes of the enraged farmers, that is theft. Yet, when violence erupts it’s a cruelly mismatched contest that cleaves our sympathy to one side.

Grenville makes the Australian wilderness come alive in the imagination with her luminous prose. Beautifully written, yet with a gritty rawness that makes no attempt to gloss over the harsh edges of reality. I would consider the book’s greatest strength its characterization. William Thornhill especially, is depicted with a compassion and depth similar to Pearl Buck’s Wang Lung. Whatever Thornhill may lack in wisdom or empathy, he makes up for with his doughtiness and dogged persistence. Like the Aboriginals, he too has nowhere else to go; and like them, he is also fighting for his own survival and that of his family.

“A man’s heart was a deep pocket he might turn out and be amazed at what he found there.”

The winner of the 2006 Commonwealth Prize, this is an evocatively written book of quiet passion. Territorial aggression and blood-letting are the unfortunate foundations of our shared history. While it may be impossible to set right the wrongs of the past, the least that can be done is remember that some have paid a heavy price for the success of others.

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.”

The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch

[Translated from the German by Lee Chadeayne]

Rating: 3 Stars 

In ‘The Hangman’s Daughter’, Oliver Potzsch has come up with an intriguing new hero, Jakob Kuisl, the torturer and executioner of Schongau in 17^th. Century Bavaria. This is a well-researched and entertaining blend of history and mystery, layered with details that bring a convincing verisimilitude to the story. 

The delicate-minded reader should beware. Potzsch is unsparing in relating the specifics of the executioner’s trade. The first chapter in particular is electrifying. However, the violence is not gratuitous; it is an essential element of this book. We are talking about the bad old days when the city executioners were encouraged to be as inventive as possible when it came to the matter of extracting confessions. Once the accused had broken down and confessed under torture, then even more ingenious methods were concocted for their death – beheading, drowning, hanging, being broken on the wheel. The whole town would turn up to witness the execution. It was like the county fair – the event of the season that nobody wanted to miss.

In these cruel times, the enigmatic and complex Jakob Kuisl, a man with a healer’s instincts, is instead forced to practice the trade that he was born into. The penalty for being a conscientious protestor would be banishment and possible penury, not a viable option for a family-man. His fellow townsmen, who don’t hesitate to approach him for medical assistance, otherwise shun him and his family, and treat them like virtual outcasts. 

His quandary in this book is that the bodies of brutally murdered orphans are turning up, and Martha Stechlin, the town midwife is being accused of witchcraft and murder. The villagers are in a mounting hysteria, and the town council wants a speedy investigation, confession, and execution, before the mob starts an uncontrollable witch-hunt. This would be a repeat of something that had happened fairly recently in Schongau’s history. Kuisl doesn’t for a moment believe that Martha is either a murderess or a witch, but unless he can find incontrovertible proof of her innocence, he is soon going to have to inflict a great amount of pain on a woman whom he likes and respects. Helping him in his mission are his daughter, Magadalena, and the town physician, Simon Fronweiser; that is, when they are not too distracted by each other.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and you don’t have to look much further than the author’s afterword for evidence of that. Oliver Potzsch is a descendant of the famous Kuisl dynasty of Bavaria, whose executioner’s sword was displayed in the Schongau museum till the 1970s, when it was stolen and never recovered. In writing this book, he was aided by the meticulous research and genealogical records of other family members who took pride and interest in their unusual background.

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.

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.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

     


'Sakhi' Book Club Nov. 2010 Pick

             Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a mesmerizing tale of love, misunderstanding, betrayal and remorse. Beyond all that, it’s a story of enduring female friendship.

            At the tender age of seven Lily is united in what is meant to be an eternal bond of love with her laotong, Snow Flower. Their new relationship is translated for English readers as ‘old sames’, which can be interpreted to be soul mates. This relationship is of the until-death-do-us-part kind. The novel clearly delineates men’s world and women’s world, which can never be one and the same. (It is left to us to understand by inference that a man can never be a woman’s kindred spirit.) Both Lily and Snow Flower grow up to marry, move away, and raise families, but never allow themselves to drift apart.

            In the 19^th century Chinese culture that the author places her novel in, a woman’s life is one of sorrow. Unwanted from birth, regarded as a burden upon the household, a girl can redeem herself only through marriage, and producing a son (preferably many sons). Even then, she is at the mercy of her mother-in-law who has the final say in domestic matters. To ensure as satisfactory a marriage as possible, a young woman has to present to her future in-laws a pair of ‘golden lilies’, dainty child-sized feet. To achieve this feat of podiatric wonder, girl children had their feet bound in a process that could be fatal, and was always excruciating. Foot binding resulted in broken toes, restricted movement, and often precipitated osteoporosis. Even when successful, what was achieved was a pair of deformed little stumps that would probably not satisfy any modern foot fetishist.

            In Lily’s case, her perfect ‘golden lilies’ gain her entry into a higher social standing, a kind-hearted husband, and tolerable in-laws. She was the luckier of the two laotongs. As the two young women settle into lives very different from one another, their friendship shows some signs of strain though they are still true to their bond. That’s until the growing chasm in their lives shatters under a misunderstanding that unleashes Lily’s hurt, and subsequently, her ferocious anger.

            Lisa See anchors her story in the heart of Chinese culture and tradition. Though foot binding is thankfully a thing of the past, certain traditions still endure. The story’s protagonists communicate with each other through nushu, a script exclusively developed and used by women, though now the Chinese government is apparently trying to preserve this unique part of their linguistic history.

            While reading about another country’s social mores, the reader is fascinated and/or repelled by customs and values that are alien to his own, but the purpose and the power of fiction are to transcend these divisive barriers. It would be a rare woman who couldn’t identify in some way with either Lily or Snow Flower.