The Orchards of Basra

Mansoura Ez-Eldin; trans. Paul G. Starkey

The Orchards of Basra by Mansoura Ez-Eldin, translated from the Arabic by Paul G. Starkey, was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2021. The narrative shifts between modern Egypt and ancient Iraq and uses multiple narrators.

The novel is in six sections. It opens with Hisham Khattab, an antique bookseller in Cairo. He is enamored of ancient manuscripts, collecting them and selling them for a living. He has a passion for Arabic poetry, theology, and philosophy, and thrives on the words of Islamic scholars some of whom lived over 1,000 years ago. He becomes an assistant to an ex-sheikh who has been demonized by the mainstream religious establishment for espousing Marxism. Hisham has a series of dream visions involving jasmine flowers. These dream visions convince him he lived a former life in 8th century Basra, Iraq, as a man named Yazid Ibn Abihi.

The second section takes us back to fragments in the life of Yazid Ibn Abihi, a basket and mat weaver. He, too, dreams of jasmine flowers and relies on Malik ibn ‘Udday, the copyist, to interpret his dreams. This section includes the various sheikhs Yazid follows and their debates on theological matters. The third section focuses on Layla, Hisham’s mother. Section four introduces us to “Bella” who has a relationship with Hisham. Section five takes us back to Basra and Malik ibn ‘Udday’s affair with Mujiba, Yazid Ibn Abihi’s wife. And with section six, we are back in Cairo with Hisham.

The construction is complicated and can get very confusing. Chapters within each section shift between characters, times, and locations. Threaded throughout the sections are episodes of violence that continue to haunt the perpetrators in the different time frames. Actual historical figures mingle with fictional characters. Hisham’s and Yazid’s lives are so tightly woven together, they become almost inseparable. At times, Hisham is convinced he is strolling along the roads of 8th century Iraq. Such shifts can be jarring for the reader.

Through Hisham/Yazid, Ez-Eldin explores themes and debates in Islamic philosophy, with a special focus on the Mu’tazila school of thought. For those not versed in Islamic debates of over 1,000 years ago, she includes a list at the end of the novel of the historical figures and a brief summary of their positions. This is somewhat helpful but the name-dropping of various religious scholars, their exchanges and theological debates, is bewildering to someone without a rudimentary knowledge of the issues. They bog down the narrative.

The labyrinthine structure serves as a platform for Ez-Eldin to explore questions raised by Muslim scholars for over 1,000 years. The major debate seems to be about whether a Muslim who has committed a sin can still be considered a Muslim. Questions emerge about guilt, sin, morality, predestination, free will, reason, the impact of one’s choices, and justice. The probable intent of this complex novel is to invite the reader to reflect on these thorny issues. Success in accomplishing this goal depends on some prior knowledge of the debate and its major players.

Nesting

Roisin O’Donnell

Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell is an intense, gripping tale about a woman extricating herself from an abusive relationship with her husband, Ryan. Ciara, a mother of two young daughters and with a baby on the way, decides she has had enough of her husband’s threatening behavior and emotional and psychological abuse. She packs a few items, bundles her daughters into the car, and takes off. With nowhere to sleep on their first night, they huddle together in the car.

Ciara sets off the next day, desperate to find housing for herself and her children. But that is quite a challenge since Ireland is facing a serious housing shortage. Eventually, she finds temporary accommodation in a hotel where she befriends others in a similar situation. She begins her search to find permanent housing. Navigating the housing system proves to be a nightmare. She endures cramped waiting rooms, fills out endless forms, and makes desperate phone calls to check on housing availability. She resuscitates her teaching degree and finds employment as a teacher. With support from her sister, mother, and newly-made friends, Ciara eventually succeeds in extricating herself from her abusive relationship and situates herself in a permanent home with her daughters and infant son.

O’Donnell’s portrayal of Ryan as the abusive husband is text-book authentic. He can be charming and solicitous one minute and angry and emotionally abusive the next. He controls the family finances so Ciara is totally dependent on him financially. He manipulates Ciara, is brutal and cutting in his language. He taunts her, demeans her, isolates her from her friends, and tries to isolate her from her mother and sister.

The narrative moves at a dizzying speed in fragmented, short, choppy sentences. These create a breathless quality, mirroring Ciara’s frantic pace as she struggles to find housing, meet with a solicitor, and appear in court while juggling to feed and clothe her three young children. Meanwhile, she is tormented by Ryan’s continuous pleas to come home with claims he loves her. His love refrain alternates with abusive, derogatory language, and vicious verbal attacks.

Through Ciara’s interiority and flashbacks of her married life, O’Donnell brilliantly captures the paralyzing fear experienced by those living in abusive relationships. Ciara lived in constant fear for herself and her children. She learned to read Ryan’s moods and navigated her words and actions to avoid his outrage although her efforts were not always successful. She protected her children if she anticipated he was ready to explode, frequently guarding their bedroom door at night. Having internalized the abusive language and threats, she became riddled with self-doubt and confusion. But by the end of the novel, she emerges as self-confident, recognizing Ryan for the cruel, manipulative person he is. Finally, in her home, surrounded by her children, Ciara finds herself breathing deeply and freely.

After the frenzied pace of the novel, we can breathe deeply along with her and celebrate her courage and her freedom.

The Winter Soldier

Daniel Mason

The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason opens in 1914 when twenty-two-year-old medical student Lucius Krzlewski reports for duty as a doctor at an improvised field hospital in Lemnowice in the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe. His thoughts of a grandiose medical facility shatter when he arrives at this destination. The make-shift hospital is in a converted church; the conditions are appalling; medical equipment is in short supply; and medical staff is reduced to a single nurse, Sister Margarete from the Sisters of St. Catherine. With minimal clinical practice, Lucius is thrust into operating on men with broken limbs, performing amputations, removing shrapnel, healing wounds, and administering medications. Fortunately, Sister Margarete, who has no formal medical training, tutors him. Without being officious or patronizing, she guides him through each procedure until he gains confidence and is able to conduct difficult operations unassisted. Their bond eventually leads to a clandestine love affair.

Lucius and the staff fall into routine periods of lull interrupted by new arrivals of wounded or dying soldiers. Jozsef Horvath, oHHHhhhhhha traumatized patient with no physical injuries, presents a unique challenge since he won’t speak, won’t move, and won’t eat. Lucius administers medication and watches as Horvath begins to make a slow recovery. To Horvath’s detriment, Lucius refuses to release him to a different facility, a decision that proves to have devastating consequences and which continues to haunt Lucius for many years.

As the battle front inches its way toward the field hospital, Lucius and Margarete are separated. He is reassigned to different hospitals but never stops searching for Margarete. He eventually moves back to Vienna, and after a brief, unsatisfactory marriage, renews his search for Margarete. He eventually finds her but under entirely unexpected circumstances.

The novel focuses on the effects of war, not on its battles and skirmishes. Its unwavering lens is on the casualties of war and on the medical staff who are tasked with healing them. Mason immerses the reader in the sights, sounds, and smells of the field hospital. He describes broken limbs, amputations, head injuries, lice infestations, typhus, and various other afflictions in gruesome, graphic detail.

The characters are well-drawn and believable. Margarete remains a fascinating enigma. Lucius is shy, self-effacing, prone to self-doubts, and with an authentic interiority. He struggles with the aftermath of war, with his guilt for the damage caused to Horvath, with his meandering search for Margarete, and with questions concerning her true identity.

The novel concludes on a hopeful note. Although her background remains a mystery, Margarete plays a pivotal role in Lucius’ healing. Just as she taught him to perform amputations and heal wounded limbs, she offers him a path to relinquish his feelings of guilt and to redeem himself from the horrors of war.

A skillfully executed intense, compelling narrative.

Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei

Eliot Weinberger

Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger is a delightful little book critiquing translations of a Chinese poem written over 1200 years ago by the Tang Dynasty poet, Wang Wei. One would assume such an exploration would be dry, but it is anything but dry in the capable hands of Eliot Weinberger.

The poem under consideration is only four lines long. Weinberger deconstructs nineteen different translations, including one by Octavio Paz. He comments on each, highlighting strengths and weaknesses. An Afterward by Octavio Paz articulates his methodology for translating the poem. Weinberger follows this with several additional translations and a Postscript.

Weinberger does not shy away from lambasting the translations if he thinks they are injecting the translator’s biases, deviating from the original, being illogical in use of imagery, imposing an unwarranted cultural lens, or attempting to “improve” the poem. His critiques can be quite scathing but also very funny. For example, he says of one translation, “To me this sounds like Gerard Manley Hopkins on LSD.”

What Weinberger achieves—and achieves so well in such a short book—is to elucidate the challenges of translation. He argues multiple factors must be taken into consideration when translating, and the right words must be chosen if the aim is to adhere faithfully to the original work. Often a single word or a shift in perspective can transform the theme and tone of the poem.

Weinberger’s commentary is insightful. He comes across as a bit of a curmudgeon but one with a great sense of humor. Even if one knows nothing about Chinese poetry, this little book is an absolute gem for articulating the challenges of translating a poem.

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry

Fredrik Backman

My Grandmother Asked me to Tell you She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman, translated by Henning Koch, is the story of a precocious seven-year-old Elsa and her delightful relationship with her best friend—her cantankerous, incorrigible seventy-year-old grandmother. The roles are reversed in the relationship with Elsa talking and behaving well above her age while her grandmother flaunts social conventions and is prone to playing childish pranks.

The two communicate in a secret language and share a love for the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the kingdom of Miamas, an elaborately constructed fairy tale land peopled with magical creatures and heroes and monsters. The grandmother shares this fantasy land with Elsa to teach her the skills she needs to cope with her parents’ divorce, her mother’s remarriage and pregnancy, and the bullies who torment her in school. They journey together to this land of make-believe every night with her grandmother adding layers and detail to the story with each telling.

 When her grandmother dies, Elsa feels angry, abandoned, and betrayed. But she is soon taken up with a treasure hunt left for her by her grandmother. She is tasked with locating and delivering her grandmother’s letters of apology to the group of misfits who live in their apartment building. Elsa learns the backstory of the individual with each letter she delivers. And she soon realizes that her grandmother’s Land-of-Almost-Awake is based on the characters and backstories of the apartment dwellers and that each connects to her grandmother in some way.

The third person narrative voice is entertaining when presenting Elsa’s perspective and comments. But the exposition of the interlocking mythologies of the Land-of-Almost-Awake with its several kingdoms and complex rules is unnecessarily elaborate and confusing. It detracts from the narrative. And the correspondences between the events and characters in the Land-of-Almost-Awake with the group of misfits doesn’t always work. The fantasy tales take on a life of their own and do not fit into the narrative organically. The effect is of a strained connection. With the exception of Elsa and her grandmother, character development is weak, with some of the portrayals bordering on caricatures.

Certain aspects of the novel are entertaining, but, on the whole, this is the not up to the quality of Backman’s other novels.

Brotherless Night

V. V. Ganeshananthan

Winner of the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan is historical fiction set against the background of the Tamil’s fight for autonomy during the 1980s Sri Lanka civil war. The novel is in five parts, beginning in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in 1981, and concluding in New York in 2009. Although the novel is fictional, it builds on actual events that transpired during the civil war.

The narrator is Sashi, a young Tamil girl with aspirations of becoming a doctor. She lives in Jaffna with her parents and four brothers. As the conflict between the Sinhalese-dominated state and the Tamil separatist groups heats up, Sashi’s eldest brother is killed in anti-Tamil riots. Two of her remaining brothers join the militant Tamil Tigers, leaving Sashi and her youngest brother alone with their parents. The war becomes increasingly violent with both sides perpetrating atrocities and with civilians caught in the crossfire. It isn’t long before the Tamil Tigers kill members of other rebel groups to eliminate all potential opposition to their dominance. Civilians are accosted from all sides. They live in fear of the Sri Lankan army, the Tamil Tigers, and, later, the Indian Peace Keeping force which has ostensibly entered the fray to maintain peace between the two sides but which ends up terrorizing the population by committing rape and murder at will.

Sashi’s determination to pursue her medical education is unwavering. She navigates a path in her war-torn community. She juggles her studies with volunteering at a medical facility that treats civilians and rebels. She teams with a medical professor and her husband to document human rights violations perpetrated by the Tamil Tigers, the Sri Lankan army, and the Indian peacekeepers. After her professor is murdered, Sashi escapes to England and then to New York where she continues to advocate for justice for the civilian population.

The novel is well-researched, drawing heavily from actual events and representing a powerful illustration of man’s inhumanity to man. The brutality and violence perpetrated by all sides is graphic and described with unflinching honesty. All too often, a group formed to advocate justice for its ethnic population turns against that very population by intimidating and terrorizing it into submission. In such situations, as Sashi demonstrates, the space for movement and for freedom of thought and action shrinks immeasurably. Moral certainties are questioned; moral ambiguities proliferate; conflicting impulses abound. One does the best that one can under the circumstances by handling daily struggles one step at a time.

Sashi’s voice is deliberative. At times, her interiority can be long-winded, repetitious, and somewhat self-indulgent. She frequently pauses from the narrative to address the reader directly to invite empathy and consideration. The prose is unadorned and somewhat labored. In spite of these shortcomings, the novel powerfully evokes the deleterious impact of civil war on all concerned, particularly civilians. It explores how and why individuals are sucked into a conflict. And it does so with simultaneous outrage, empathy, and compassion.

Lampedusa

Steven Price

Lampedusa by Steven Price is a fictionalized biography of Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, a Sicilian aristocrat, the last in his family line, and the author of The Leopard, a novel published posthumously and one which became a classic in Italy. Tomasi died from complications of emphysema and lung cancer at the age of 60.

Price conducted extensive research on Tomasi’s life and on the last few years before his death. He portrays him as endearing, cultured, sensitive, and intelligent. Tomasi is a man plagued with anxiety because he is the last in a line of noble aristocrats. Childless, he frets he has no legacy to leave behind, and that with his death, the family line will end. The novel opens with him learning he has emphysema and may not have long to live. He decides to write a novel based on the life of his great-grandfather in the hope of recording the past for posterity. The novel is rejected by publishers during his life time, so Tomasi never witnesses its success.

Price peppers his novel with Tomasi’s memories of his lonely childhood, the solace he finds in books, his military service in World War I, his time in a prisoner of war camp, his meeting and later marriage with the love of his life. Threaded throughout are snapshots of Tomasi’s mother who cast a powerful presence during his childhood and continues to do so even ten years after her death. As Tomasi writes his novel, he makes continuous excursions down memory lane. He visits the once magnificent but now crumbling palazzo where he spent his childhood. And he visits several locations that were a big part of his formative years.

Tomasi’s interiority is deeply moving. He is sensitive, cultured, intelligent, introspective, and deeply emotional. His observations on Italy as it transitions from post war to new beginnings are astute and tinged with melancholy. He grapples with existential questions of the meaning of life and the legacy one leaves behind if there is no one to carry on the family name. He grieves knowing that when he is dead and buried, the past will be buried with him. And he contemplates the connections between his life and his art, on how much of his life is projected on to his novel, and whether his novel constitutes a significant legacy.

Very little happens in the novel. It is quiet; the pace, slow; the diction, lyrical; the tone, nostalgic. Price captures the heart and soul of an aging, gentle man trying to come to terms with his impending death and with the decline of a way of life he once knew. The novel’s strength lies in Price’s poetic language and his ability to capture Tomasi’s interiority with sensitivity and compassion to reflect his feelings of loss of family, class, and culture.

The novel is a moving retrospective of a life, a powerful meditation on aging, a reflection on one’s past failures and successes, a consideration of how one wants to be remembered, and an assessment of what one leaves behind. It is a powerful portrayal of a complex, sensitive man with a mournful and beautiful spirit.

The Piano Tuner

Daniel Mason

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason blends historical fact with fiction while carrying distinct echoes of the Lotus-Eaters’ passage in Homer’s Odyssey and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as backdrops. The novel opens in 1886 when Edgar Drake, a quiet, modest piano tuner is summoned by the War Office with a strange request. Would he be willing to comply with the request of an eccentric English surgeon-major called Dr. Anthony Carroll?

Edgar Drake is baffled by the request. He listens as the colonel explains how Carroll’s unorthodox methods to build alliances through music have met with success, making him indispensable to the British colonization of Burma. Accordingly, the government is compelled to honor his requests no matter how bizarre. His initial request for an Erard piano was granted. But now it seems as if the piano is in need of the services of an experienced piano tuner. The question before Edgar Drake is this: “Are you willing to make the journey to a remote outpost in Burma to tune an Erard piano?” This quiet, unassuming piano tuner who knows virtually nothing about Burma, or its current political turmoil, or the imperial powers fighting for control of it, nods his head in agreement. And so the adventure begins.

Drake’s lengthy journey to Mae Lwin, the remote outpost in Burma, is described in an explosion of sensory detail and vivid imagery. Along the way, he acquaints himself with the complexities of Burma’s history and current political climate by reading War Office documents. This gives Daniel Mason, who spent a year studying malaria along the Thai-Burmese border, the opportunity to provide a detailed history of the region and the Shan insurgency opposing British rule.

Drake eventually arrives in Mae Lwin and meets the infamous Dr. Anthony Carroll who impresses him with his knowledge of indigenous customs and traditions, respect for the indigenous population, and extensive knowledge of the local flora and fauna. Drake tunes the Erard piano but is in no hurry to return home. He becomes increasingly embroiled in Carroll’s political machinations, eventually departing from Mae Lwin with the piano when the village is under threat of an imminent attack. The novel concludes with an ambiguous ending which calls into suspicion Carroll’s activities and Drake’s unwitting and tragic involvement.

The novel’s strength lies in its detailed, sensuous description and vivid imagery of the landscape and culture. The colors, sights, sounds, and smells are immersive. The villagers’ daily activities and the children’s games and laughter are captured in vibrant detail. The technical details of piano tuning are impressive. Edgar Drake emerges as a well-rounded character, simultaneously baffled, enchanted, and seduced by the environment and by his attraction to the beautiful, Khin Myo, Carroll’s mistress. Khin Myo and Anthony Carroll are not as well developed. She is exoticized. He remains elusive; his activities, a mystery. Perhaps this was intentional on Mason’s part. However, coupled with the ambiguity of the ending, the novel falls short of delivering a sense of closure, which may not appeal to some readers.

After You'd Gone

Maggie O’Farrell

Although After You’d Gone is Maggie O’Farrell’s first novel, she already shows promise of her wide-ranging talents as a writer. The novel’s ambitious structure consists of multiple timeframes, multiple threads, and the perspectives of three generations of women: Alice, her mother, and her grandmother. The main thread is about Alice.

The novel opens with Alice impulsively deciding to visit her family in Scotland. She is obviously in a great deal of emotional and psychological pain although we are not told the cause. Her two sisters meet her at the Edinburgh train station. Alice barely has time to greet her sisters when she sees something shocking. She immediately decides to catch the train back to her home in London, without explaining why to her sisters. That night, suffering from depression and intense grief, she intentionally steps off the sidewalk and is hit by a car. She ends up in a coma in hospital where she remains for most of the novel.

The novel then flashes back to Alice as a child and her fraught relationship with her mother; her university days; her employment in London at a national arts organization; her marriage to the love of her life; and her intense grief following her husband’s untimely death. Interspersed throughout Alice’s thread is the backstory of Elspeth, Alice’s grandmother; and Ann, her mother.

The novel’s shifts in perspective and spontaneous leaps in time which mingle the past with the present can be a confusing at the outset until one gets into the rhythm of the novel. The flashbacks are presented as interlocking vignettes, shedding light on the three generations of women and their back stories. The main thread is on Alice’s fraught childhood, her tense relationship with her mother, and her relationships with men. Unlike her Scottish grandmother who is methodical and calm; and unlike her English mother who is cold and dogmatic; Alice is emotional, moody, unconventional, and impetuous.

All the characters, including the minor ones, are authentically drawn. O’Farrell is an astute observer of minute details. She frequently juxtaposes a minor detail with a character’s climactic moment. She captures her character’s interiority, mannerisms, and the incidentals that distract attention, all of which contribute to a realistic portrayal. Her depiction of Alice’s despair and grief after the death of her husband is heart-wrenching.

The complex, interlocking structure gradually uncovers the lives of the three women, revealing secrets and illicit love affairs. But the beating heart of the novel lies with Alice, her boundless capacity for love, and her equally boundless capacity for experiencing grief at its loss.

Another great Maggie O’Farrell novel.

The Last Song of Penelope

Claire North

The Last Song of Penelope by Claire North is the third and final book in North’s The Songs of Penelope series. Each book is narrated by a different goddess: Ithaca by Hera; House of Odysseus by Aphrodite; The Last Song of Penelope by Athena. As she does in her previous books, North takes some liberties with Homer’s epic poems. But her story is so engaging and so well executed that her departures from the original myth are inspiring.

With Athena as its irreverent narrator, the last book in the trilogy opens with Penelope still struggling to maintain some semblance of order in Ithaca. Along comes Odysseus disguised as a beggar from Crete. North departs from the original myth by making it clear Penelope immediately recognizes him as Odysseus. Penelope goes along with his ruse until she can figure out how best to handle the situation. She strategizes with her council of women and devises a contest to give Odysseus the opportunity to reveal himself and defeat the suitors.

The slaughter of the suitors is described in graphic detail. Odysseus orders the execution of three maids who ostensibly betrayed him. Penelope prevents further executions and rages at him for slaughtering the women whom she relied on to be her accomplices and informants during his twenty-year absence. The household then escapes to Laertes’ farm where they are besieged by the suitors’ fathers and their army, demanding revenge. Thanks to Penelope’s foresight, planning, and her loyal circle of female warriors, they are able to overcome the siege. The novel ends with reconciliation between Odysseus and Penelope.

The narrative moves at a brisk pace. North skillfully weaves stories from Greek mythology throughout. Athena’s critique and running commentary on the characters and events as they unfold contributes in large part to the success of the novel. She is witty, insightful, engaging, and thoroughly entertaining. She moves the narrative along, providing insight into each character’s interiority. Her assessment of her divine siblings and their shortcomings is amusing.

North’s characters are realistically rendered although some bear little resemblance to their Homeric counterparts. Telemachus is the same sniveling child desperate to win daddy’s approval. He falls short every time he tries to assert himself. Penelope is brilliant, resourceful, astute, strategic in her thinking, and highly competent in building alliances. She outsmarts the men, including Odysseus. And she earns Athena’s respect for her intelligence and talents.

North takes the biggest liberty in her portrayal of Odysseus. The battle-hardened, ruthless, cunning, and macho male Homeric Odysseus is transformed into a remorseful, self-critical, and guilt-ridden character. He apologizes to Penelope for slaughtering her women, acknowledges her skills and the invaluable contribution of women, and (shock of all shocks!) takes the advice of a female warrior on preparing for the impending battle. Some of the most delightful scenes in the novel occur in the bantering back and forth between Penelope and Odysseus as they size each other up and as Odysseus slowly realizes how seriously he has underestimated Penelope’s abilities. This new, improved, and humbled Odysseus is a far cry from the Odysseus of Trojan War fame.

Kudos to Claire North for having the gumption to turn Odysseus into a budding feminist; for centering her lens on women marginalized in the original myths; and for illustrating the power of female solidarity.

Although not exactly Homer, this is, nevertheless, a deliciously feminist rendering of the myth.

The Land of Green Plums

Herta Muller; trans. Michael Hofmann

The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller, the 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is translated by Michael Hofmann. Like Muller, the unnamed narrator of the novel is of the German-speaking minority in Romania; and, like Muller, her father was in the SS. Along with her three friends, the narrator tries to navigate as best she can while living under the watchful eyes of the government.

One never knows what to expect. The narrator and her three friends are routinely followed by mysterious-looking men. They are periodically called in for interrogation by a government official accompanied by his menacing dog. The goal is to intimidate them into submission. The friends are constantly looking over their shoulders, reading and hiding banned books, speaking in code, subject to searches of their personal belongings, and live with the uncertainty of who to trust and/or who may be a potential informer. Conversations are halting since people are afraid to articulate their thoughts aloud. Peppered throughout are references of disappearances, suicides, escapes, and people being killed while trying to escape. Two of the three friends are found dead under mysterious circumstances.

The narrative is sporadic in nature, with stops and starts of vignettes that thread themselves throughout the novel. The erratic flow captures the jagged atmosphere of fear and trepidation Romanians experienced while living under Ceausescu’s dictatorship. Rather than adhering to a plot, the narrative creates an atmosphere of fear, ambivalence, harassment, deprivation, and uncertainty. Shortages of food and material goods leave the population so hungry that some resort to nefarious means to satisfy their hunger. Some drink animal blood; some stuff themselves with stolen green plums; others exchange sex for food. Women are particularly vulnerable and subject to sexual assault by men in police uniforms or in military garb.

With her unflinching lens, Herta Muller successfully captures the haunting and menacing atmosphere of life under a dictatorship and its long-term corrosive consequences.

Not an easy read, but a powerful one.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez; trans. Gregory Rabassa

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa, and winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, is a gripping novel that combines magical realism with actual events in Colombian history. It is at once a fantastic tale; an indictment of capitalism; a political commentary on historical events, including the civil war and the Banana massacre; and exposes the manner in which historical events are buried in official narratives.

The novel tells the story of generations of the Buendia family and their fictional town of Macondo. From the family home that deteriorates with time, then gets a face-lift, deteriorates again to get another face-life with each successive generation, ad infinitum; to the endless number of male descendants named Arcadio or Aureliano; the pattern throughout is cyclical. The faces are interchangeable but the characters’ fates assume an uncanny similarity, generation after generation. Add to the mixture ghosts that communicate with their descendants, magic carpet rides, a woman who disappears into the clouds, a rain storm that lasts for more than a year, a patriarch tied to a tree, incestuous relationships with sisters and aunts, marital infidelities, a bout of insomnia that plagues the whole village, a slew of illegitimate offspring, the walking dead, babies born with pigs’ tails, and you begin to get a picture of this fantastical world Marquez has created .

The novel defies categorization or explanation. It lacks a clear narrative arc and is episodic in nature. Bursting at the seams with life and energy, it stitches together the absurd with the real, giving each equal weight and validity. The novel is confusing, frustrating, and perplexing. But if one surrenders to its ups and downs, to its ins and outs, it can be as exhilarating as a memorable roller-coaster ride that leaves one breathless.

A whirlwind tour de force.

84 Charing Cross Road

Helene Hanff

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff consists of a twenty-year correspondence primarily between Helene Hanff, an American writer; and Frank Doel, a bookseller at Marks & Co., a bookstore in London’s Charing Cross Road.

These letters are an absolute delight. The two share an obvious love of English literature as well as a very evident enjoyment in receiving one another’s letters. Helene’s requests for books are peppered with humor and an extensive knowledge of English literature. In between sharing intermittent smatterings of her life in New York and her many writing projects, she jokes, pleads, and cajoles Frank Doel to send her specific editions of cherished books. She chastises him when he sends her books that don’t meet her standards. For his part, Doel strives to meet her every request. His letters ooze with delight when he is able to find just what she wants.

Beginning in 1949, their correspondence lasts twenty years. In that period, Helene becomes a celebrity in the bookstore. She corresponds with the other staff members and with Frank’s wife, daughters, and neighbor. When her American friends visit the bookstore, they are treated as honored guests by the staff who shower them with profuse praise and appreciation for Ms. Hanff.

England of 1949 is still experiencing the crippling after-effects of WWII, including limited rations. Helene sends the staff meat, chocolate, eggs, and other staples that are hard to come by in England. They reciprocate by sending her gifts of books and a beautifully embroidered table-cloth.

In spite of her efforts to save enough money to visit England, and in spite of the numerous invitations to stay in their homes, Helene is never able to visit England or to meet face-to-face with the staff of her beloved bookstore. Sadly, after twenty years, the correspondence ends with the untimely death of Frank Doel from complications of a ruptured appendix.

A quick read and a delightfully charming classic.

The Paris Library

Janet Skeslien Charles

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles unfolds in a dual timeline. It opens in Paris in 1939 when Odile completes library school and obtains a position as a librarian at the American Library in Paris. An avid reader, she memorizes the Dewey Decimal call numbers associated with books and frequently peppers them as references. The narrative then shifts to the second timeline with the first-person voice of Lily, a teenage girl living in Montana in 1984. Lily just happens to be Odile’s neighbor, and the two strike up a friendship. The narrative alternates between the two timeframes.

Odile’s increasing involvement with the library coincides with Germany’s advance into France. When Paris is occupied by the Germans, Odile surreptitiously transports library books to Jewish patrons who are forbidden to enter the library. Her twin brother is captured by the Germans, is placed in a prisoner of war camp, and later dies. She becomes involved in a relationship with a French policeman, marries him, but then abandons him when she learns of how he punished her English friend for having an affair with a Nazi.

Meanwhile, Lily’s friendship with Odile is cemented after Lily’s mother dies. She takes French lessons from Odile and scatters her sentences with French words. Their friendship is temporarily severed when Lily finds letters in Odile’s possession that lead her to suspect Odile collaborated with the Nazis. Odile explains how she came to possess the letters and confides in Lily details of her background, her activities during the occupation, and her marriage to an American. The two reignite their friendship, and the novel ends with Lily on her way to France.

Janet Skeslien Charles worked in the American Library in Paris in 2010, conducted research on the library’s activities during the war years, and integrated the stories of real-life employees and patrons who undertook a form of resistance to German occupation. Unfortunately, her description is lackluster and replete with unnecessary and obvious fillers. She fails to capture the tension and palpable danger that must have existed in war time Paris. Her characters, none of whom are particularly endearing, are flat, uninteresting, and never come alive. Relationships are formed hurriedly and fail to emerge organically. Odile’s betrayal of her friend and subsequent abandonment of her French husband is glossed over flippantly. Lily’s coming-of-age narrative drags, is unconvincing, and does little to contribute to Odile’s story. And much of the narrative, especially the ending, feels contrived.

A disappointing read for material that had a lot of potential.

The Discomfort of Evening

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld; trans. Michele Hutchison

Set on a dairy farm in the Netherlands, The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison, is a dark and disturbing novel about a family unraveling after the accidental death of Matthies, the eldest son.

The novel unfolds in the first-person voice of ten-year-old Jas. Angry that her brother won’t take her when he goes ice-skating, Jas wishes he would die instead of her rabbit. When Matthies dies by falling through the ice, Jas’ unraveling begins—an unraveling compounded by watching her family fall apart.

The family’s repression, guilt, and grief manifest themselves in different ways. The parents offer no comfort to their children and basically abandon them to fend for themselves. The father buries his grief by citing words from the Bible. The mother stops eating, becoming little more than a skeletal frame. She openly expresses her wish to die even in front of her children. Jas’ other brother, Obbe, resorts to performing acts of barbaric cruelty on animals and then on his sisters and their friends. He bashes his head obsessively on the bedframe each night. And Jas’ little sister shares her fantasy of going to “the other side.” At one point, she bizarrely inserts her tongue into her sister’s mouth. In a desperate attempt to comfort herself, Jas wraps her body in a tatty red coat, refusing to remove it. She sticks a drawing pin in her belly button and watches with indifference as it begins to scab. Additionally, she suffers from chronic constipation.

The novel is replete with unfettered cruelty to humans and animals. Scenes of violence in which every orifice in the human body is penetrated by a foreign object are described in graphic detail. To remedy Jas’ constipation, her father stuffs soap in her anus to make her go to the bathroom. Obbe routinely kills animals in front of his sisters. And in one very disturbing scene, a metal artificial insemination gun is forced into the body of one of Jas’ friends. Scatological descriptions abound as does a morbid exploration of the human body and human sexuality. The children’s dirty fingers poke around in nasty places. Descriptions are visceral and border on being gross.

The novel’s strength lies in its use of painstaking detail to describe a family spiraling toward disaster because of an inability to cope with the loss of the eldest son. Grief is repressed, which only compounds their problems. The parents’ indifference and/or obliviousness concerning their children’s welfare as they descend into increasingly barbaric and violent behavior is horrifying. Jas’ observations and painful interiority while her family falls apart are tragic and heartbreaking.

Although the novel is well-written and was awarded the 2020 Booker International Prize, its subject and manner of execution is not for the faint-hearted or for those who cannot read graphic details of bodily functions or of cruelty to humans and animals.

The Frozen River

Ariel Lawhorn

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is inspired by the diary entries of an 18thC midwife and healer, Martha Ballard. The novel unfolds in two threads with different time frames. The opening thread is set in Hallowell, Maine, in 1789, when Martha is summoned to examine a body discovered in the frozen river. The body is one of the two men accused of raping Rebecca Foster. Martha concludes the man was beaten and hung before being thrown in the river. The second and much shorter thread goes back three decades in time and includes background on Martha’s family and early life in the Hallowell community.

The novel includes excerpts from Martha’s actual diary as she tries to piece together who murdered the accused rapist. She testifies in court proceedings about the murder and includes in her testimony the accusation of rape. But her efforts and the efforts of the young rape victim are complicated because the second alleged rapist is a judge and a respected member of the community. In between court appearances, testimonies, and her own investigations, Martha is called upon to assist one woman after another during labor and delivery. Most of these women are giving birth out of wedlock, which causes the rumor mill to flourish with questions of paternity. Complications ensue when Martha and her husband are threatened with an illegal eviction, when one of their sons is accused of the murder, and when the Rebecca discovers she carries the child of one of her rapists.

The novel is slow-paced and meandering. There is a lot of exposition which drags the narrative. The second thread, which goes back decades, does little to add to the main thread of the novel other than to suggest Martha, herself, had been raped. The smatterings of citations from Shakespeare’s plays felt pretentious.

As a character, Martha is not very sympathetic. She comes across as arrogant, self-righteous, and condescending. Her relationship with her husband is overdone and unrealistic. They have sex almost every time they interact as if they are two hormonal teenagers who can’t keep their hands off each other. And one of the final scenes in which Martha lashes out violently at the second rapist to protect herself is predictable and bordering on farce.

All in all, a disappointing read.

The Hand that First Held Mine

Maggie O’Farrell

 The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell rotates between two separate timelines, decades apart, that are seemingly unconnected but which overlap at the end of the novel when the past sneaks up into the present.  

The first timeline occurs in the late 1950s when Lexie Sinclair leaves her cloistered Devonshire home to make a life for herself in London. She falls in love with a dashing magazine editor, Innes Kent. She moves in with him and works at his magazine where she hones her skills as a journalist, is exposed to art, artists, writers, Soho nightclubs, and travel.

The second timeline occurs decades later in the present day. Elina, a successful artist, has narrowly escaped bleeding to death in a complicated C-section. Still woozy and confused from so much blood loss, Elina struggles with parenting her newborn son and with making sense of what has happened to her. Her boyfriend, Ted, tries to be supportive, but he, too, is traumatized by seeing her so close to death.

The timelines alternate and develop independently with no apparent connection. Lexie suffers the loss of the love of her life. Her later involvement with a television journalist results in a pregnancy and birth of a son. Meanwhile Elina, suffering from lack of sleep and exhaustion, becomes increasingly concerned about Ted who begins experiencing blackouts and flashbacks. Although decades apart, Lexie and Elina have much in common. Both are both involved in the art world, struggle with motherhood to varying degrees, are fiercely passionate and protective of their infants, and try to regain their balance after the shock of motherhood.

O’Farrell weaves both timelines in a masterly fashion, drawing the reader into the lives of two different women in two different time frames. The novel is threaded with flashbacks, flashforwards, and foreshadowing. Ted’s flashbacks, triggered by the birth of his son, consist of fleeting images of a past he tries to decipher. Innes Kent’s magazine office is transformed into a coffee bar to be frequented by Ted fifty years later.

O’Farrell’s attention to detail, colorful images, and ability to imbue mundane activities with significance is uncanny. Her characters are authentic, well-rounded, interesting, and fully believable. Lexie and Elina are fascinating and particularly well-drawn. The descriptions of the city’s sights, sounds, and smells are immersive. But where O’Farrell excels is in her depiction of new motherhood, especially in the case of Elina. In words that mesmerize, she captures the exhaustion, desperation, fear, and overwhelming flood of emotions that Elina experiences as a first-time mother. These sections are breathtaking and illuminating.

O’Farrell flaunts rules of grammar, shifts verb tenses at leisure, and jumps from past to present and back again. One doesn’t quite know what to expect. She holds the reader’s attention at every turn with her consummate writing skills. A gifted writer with incredible range, Maggie O’Farrell has done it, again. She has produced another riveting tale from beginning to end.

Whale Fall

Elizabeth O’Connor

Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor is a haunting book about a small, sparsely populated island off the Welsh coast. The year is 1938. The novel unfolds in the first-person voice of Manod, an 18-year-old who lives on the island with her younger sister and father. Manod has shouldered the responsibility for her younger sister since their mother’s death. She is better educated than most of the island’s inhabitants and is fluent in English. She is torn between her yearning to leave the island and her commitment to community, culture, and family.

The island is described through the unfiltered eyes of Manod. It is three miles long and hosts only twelve families. Life is a constant struggle. In addition to the isolation, the islanders have to contend with harsh weather, biting winds, and bitter winters. The sea, which provides the only source of income, can be unforgiving, drowning many of the fishermen. The dwindling population is due to relocations to the main land and to the number of deaths by drowning or during combat in the previous war.

Manod does not romanticize her life or her surroundings. Her descriptions are unabashedly honest. She recognizes the harsh reality and daily struggles while simultaneously exhibiting compassion and sensitivity toward the island’s inhabitants. Her descriptions are immersive, evoking the sounds, smells, sights, and texture of life on the island. Her description of the monstrous body and gradual decay of a beached whale is done in graphic detail.

Edward and Joan, two English anthropologists, arrive on the island to chronicle the life styles, habits, activities, superstitions, and folk tales of the islanders for their new book. They hire Manod as their translator since neither speak Welsh. They transcribe the islanders’ testimonies, superstitions, and folk tales. But much of their research is inauthentic since they re-shape reality to suit their projected image of the islander’s as leading ostensibly simple lives in harmony with nature. They exoticize life on the island. They stage photographs of the islanders. They ignore Manod’s attempts correct their misrepresentations in both word and image. To complicate matters, Manod and Edward become lovers. This leads to betrayal, disappointment, and outright theft.

O’Connor’s prose is restrained, spare, and effective. She captures the island with atmospheric detail and vivid imagery. Witnessing the world through Manod’s eyes, we come to share her gradual understanding that Edward and Joan have little interest in depicting island life as it is. They take advantage of the islanders’ naivete and isolation. They offer false hope. They objectify Manod, objectify the islanders, and exploit and twist reality with an aim to increase sales for their upcoming book.

A quiet and moving meditation on the awakening of a young girl to the harsh realities of objectification and exploitation.

Qur'an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam

Shadaab Rahemtulla

Qur’an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam by Shadaab Rahemtulla is a comprehensive survey and analysis of the commentaries of four Muslim thinkers who interpret the Qur’an as a liberating text that addresses social problems, including patriarchy, racism, classism, poverty, and violence.

The study explores the exegesis of four Muslim intellectuals: Farid Esack from South Africa; Asghar Ali Engineer from India; the African American, Amina Wadud; and the Pakistani American, Asma Barlas. As Rahemtulla shows, they have all been influenced in their choice of topic by the environment, struggles, and challenges they faced. As a South African activist engaged in the anti-apartheid movement, Farid Esack’s exegesis focuses on interfaith solidarity, liberation, and pluralism. As a Muslim living in India where there is communal conflict between Muslims and Hindus, Engineer focuses on the themes of social justice, peaceful reconciliation, and interfaith relations. And Wadud and Barlas focus on gender equality and the interlocking circles of oppression of gender, race, and class.

A thoroughly comprehensive study of these four Muslim intellectuals. Their exegesis offers refreshing insights and informative interpretations which highlight the connections between the Qur’anic text and liberation theology.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby Van Pelt

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt weaves different story threads that merge at the end of the novel.

Tova, a woman in her seventies, works as a cleaning lady in the aquarium at Sowell Bay. She recently lost her husband and, thirty years ago, her only son died in a tragic drowning accident. Tova has friends, but she is lonely. She takes pride in cleaning the aquarium and talks to the sea creatures, especially Marcellus, the giant Pacific octopus.

Cameron is an immature thirty-year-old who was abandoned by his drug-addicted mother to be raised by his aunt. He never knew his father. Short on money and in-between jobs, Cameron decides to go to Sowell Bay where his mother attended school to confront the man whom he assumes to be his father. He takes a temporary job at the aquarium to cover for Tova when she is injured. Not unexpectedly, Cameron and Tova’s paths cross and they become friends. Tova educates him on proper cleaning procedures and introduces him to her other friend, Marcellus.

Observing the two interact is Marcellus. Speaking in the first-person in short chapters interspersed throughout the narrative threads, Marcellus comments on the quirks of human behavior. Observant, astute, and intelligent, he recognizes the familial connection between Tova and Cameron long before they do. He drops mementos connecting the two in strategic places where Tova can find them, thereby orchestrating her gradual awareness of her connection to Cameron.

The novel drags in the beginning but then it picks up the pace. The characters lack depth and complexity. The diction is without frills and straight forward. The feel-good ending is very predictable. And although the series of coincidences coupled with the improbable antics of an octopus require a high suspension of disbelief, the novel is a quick, easy, and somewhat enjoyable read.