Shantaram

Hello !!!

It has been ages since my last post but be assured that I am still plodding along. I'll get back to the list soon. Today's entry is on Shantaram (2003), by Gregory David Roberts . I read the back exerpt and was hooked.

So Greg was sentenced to 19 years in prison for armed robberies in Australia. He escaped and spent 10 years in Bombay where he established a free medical clinic and worked for the mafia. He was then recaptured and served the rest of his sentence.

The book is about the seedy sides of Bombay: slums, opium dens, prostitution, etc. I'm too curious, will it turn out to be an outsider writing shit about a country he thinks he knows but doesn't? Will Greg treat Bombay with a conscientious respect, i.e. attempt to understand local ways of living? Or will this be dirty Orientalism in the vein of what Edward Said condemned? 

At any rate, I want to read this ! I just hope the writing is bearable.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, 2006, by Muriel Barbery.

It is with a heavy heart I start this post on the best book I've read in a very long time. I wish the book was longer. I will miss the characters. Two people, a 54 year old concierge, Renée Michel, and a twelve year old girl who lives in the building, Paloma Josse, both deliberately conceal their intelligence and sensitivity from others. The chapters alternate from the journal entry of one to the diary of the other, giving readers two perspectives on class consciousness, art, literature and the everyday. Eventually, with the help of a new tenant, Japanese business man Kakuro Ozu, Renée and Paloma recognize one another as kindred souls.

An excerpt from Paloma's diary provides an idea of their internal dialogue (p. 158): 

Personally I think grammar is a way to attain beauty. When you speak, or read, or write, you can tell if you've said or read or written a fine sentence. You can recognize a well-turned phrase or an elegant style.  But when you are applying the rules of grammar skillfully, you ascend to another level of the beauty of language. When you use grammar you peel back the layers, to see how it is all put together, see it quite naked, in a way. And that's where it becomes wonderful, because you say to yourself, "Look how well-made this is, how well-constructed it is! How solid and ingenious, rich and subtle!"

Writing as a craft is a familiar concept, but somehow this adjective, "solid," combined with "How," as a declaration of startling wonder, struck me. I saw more clearly how an expert of language may experience literature, how a sentence can be immediately satisfying or offensive in the way a that with a glance, one knows if a room is tidy or a mess. But further, this description of "solid" turns writing into a sturdy, concrete, visible object, be it in the metaphoric form of architecture or machine.

From Renée's journal (p.248):

Literature for example, serves a pragmatic purpose. Like any form of Art, literature's mission is to make the fulfillment of our essential duties more bearable. For a creature like man, who must forge his destiny by means of thought and reflexivity, the knowledge gained from this will perforce be unbearably lucid. We know that we are beasts who have this weapon for survival, and that we are not gods creating a world with our own thoughts, and something has to make our own wisdom bearable, something has to save us from the woeful eternal fever of biological destiny.

Therefore, we have invented Art: our animal selves have devised another way to ensure the survival of our species.

Renée and Paloma's entries complement each other. Together, they offer a definition of Art, how to experience and savor it, and they persuade us that we need Art to live.

I pick this entry from Paloma's diary to illustrate what by their definition -- the recognition of purpose and meaning in the fleeting -- can serve as Art:

Diane Badoise was completely thrown out of joint when she twisted hr ankle, making weird angles with her knees, her arms and her head, and to top it off, her ponytail sticking out horizontally like that -- and I immediately thought of the Bacon in the bathroom. For a very brief moment she looked like a disjointed rag doll, her body completely contorted and, for a few thousandths of a second, Diane Badoise looked like a full-length portrait by Bacon. From that impression to the consideration that the thing in the bathroom has been there all these years just so now I could fully appreciate her bizarre contortions, there is only a short step.

Good to A Fault: The Sinister Thread of Charity

Good to A Fault by Marina Endicott, 2008. Giller Prize Finalist.

I read this a couple of months ago and so this review is from memory, a dangerous vantage point, I admit; however, the alternative is to forget this book, like the others I've neglected to blog about.

Clara Purdy is a forty-three year old, unmarried, single woman. One day her car hits another that is loaded with a family of six: two young parents, two children, a baby, and a grandmother. The Pell family is poor and are en route to find work in another town. After the accident, the mother is hospitalized, and it is later discovered that she has cancer.

Clara feels guilty and invites the family to live with her temporarily. Almost immediately she rearranges her life, work, and home to accommodate these strangers, and it is apparent that she loves it. The husband can't deal with the stress or his wife's illness and runs off. Clara keeps the children and grandmother, and as the mother undergoes treatment, the arrangement becomes more permanent.

I won't tell more plot but will ruminate. I remember being fascinated by Clara, at once pitying her needing so badly to live another woman's life, and then, rooting for her, wanting her to be happy. Yes, it was a book hinging on one event that changed people's lives, of strangers colliding and somehow filling the needs of each other; but, the most arresting thread of this book was charity -- the giving and receiving of money and help, and the social obligations and expectations resulting from a transaction that is seemingly benevolent. It is this theme that struck me and while reading, I would sometimes be furious at the Pell family's ungratefulness, while at other times I was maddened by Clara's expectation of gratitude, and almost bordering on manipulative actions.

Worth reading. Most Giller Prize associated books are generally decent.

Dime Store Magic

It is with hesitation that I post about the next book, Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong (2004), because it is "junk food". I have hangups about reading books not on the list and/or fluff pieces that have little to no possibility of inspiring me in some way, either to think about another facet of life, or understand the human condition from another perspective. (And yes, I am thinking about Twilight too) I know. It's messed. A person should read what they read, right?

With that meandering done, let me go on about how much I enjoy books on witches, especially ones set in modern day. Dime Store Magic and Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell are books that describe supernatural worlds co-existing with the human one, and this seems to make magic real.

Paige Winterbourne, age twenty-three, is the leader of the American Coven of Witches, a group comprising mostly of the Elders, three or four matronly women who wish to keep low profiles. Paige is the guardian of a teenaged witch who is sought after by the latter's father, a sorcerer and leader of a powerful cabal. Over the centuries, witches and sorcerers have become enemies, but one young male sorcerer, son of another powerful cabal leader, comes to Paige's aid as her lawyer. You see, its a legal custody battle between Paige and the teen's father. What can I say. Is it worth it to say more?

I will say one more thing. Books on supernatural beings all must define the parameters of powers and abilities. Kelley does not excel, but her take on the history of witches and their powers as well as those of the sorcerers can be entertaining and refreshing.

The Ponder Heart

The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty, 1953.

What Can I Say. Truly one of the better books I've read in a very long time. A detailed cast of characters. Keen, smart observations. Hilarious. I won't describe the plot as it would ruin the effect of this book, one that is meant to unravel before an assumed intelligent reader.