Review: ' Pilgrim's wilderness ' by Tom Kizzia

 Parts of this post originally appeared on book Riot.

In 2002 bought Papa Pilgrim, a retired, Ultra religious family man, a 420-acre mining area in the middle of a park of the State of Alaska. Ignoring the warning of the local park officials, bulldozers Pilgrim the way of a 13-mile through the park to the small town of McCarthy so that his wife and 14 children could get to their house.

At first, many of its rural neighbors-sided with Pilgrim when the National Park Service came down on his small improvement project. As time passed, however, it became clear that life at the compound Pilgrim family not as rosy as it turned out. In Pilgrim's wilderness reveals the story of a charismatic outlaw journalist Tom Kizza and his final feud with its neighbours, the Government and his own family.

The blurb for Pilgrim's wilderness described the book as a mix between Into the Wild and Helter Skelter, which were comparisons I could not ignore it — I'm a total sucker for eccentric true crime books, especially those written by journalists. The setting of the book, the edge of one of the final frontiers of America, was another attractive piece of this story.

Although the ultimate reveal of Pilgrim as a physical, mental and sexual abuse psychopath is what makes this book outrageous, there is also a ton of interesting back and forth over property rights and life on the edge of the border. I was fascinated by the tensions that have arisen between the Government and the citizens of McCarthy on issues of resources and private property. In some ways I wish that the Central antagonist, Papa Pilgrim, had not turned out to be such a crazy dude because it distracts from that conflict. But I'm a nerd, so of course I think that Government would.

The story of how Pilgrim's children, especially his eldest daughter, finally got to him escape is incredibly courageous. I can not even imagine their lives, although Kizzia does a great job setting the stage and tell their stories sympathetic and honest. If you true crime and can handle a story about a large sociopath, then is Pilgrim's wilderness a book you will want to pick up.

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Review: ‘Slow Getting Up’ by Nate Jackson

 If you’ve been paying attention to my recent “Currently” posts, you know that one of my favorite things about fall is football season. I really only got into football in the last few years. As a kid, I used to hate sitting through Sunday afternoon Vikings games. But it’s something my family, in particular my dad, loves, and watching games together is something we’ve bonded over.

Part of my growing understanding of the game is finding books that get inside the huddle, so to speak, and address the economics and social impact of the game on owners, players and fans. Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile by Nate Jackson is a look at the NFL from what could be considered an “average” player’s perspective:

This is not a celebrity tell-all of professional sports. Slow Getting Up is a survivor’s real-time account of playing six seasons (twice as long as the average NFL career) for the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos. As an unsigned free agent who rose through the practice squad to the starting lineup, Nate Jackson is the talented embodiment of the everyday freak athlete in professional football, one of thousands whose names go unmentioned in the daily press. Through his story recounted here — from scouting combines to preseason cuts to byzantine film studies to glorious touchdown catches — even knowledgeable football fans will glean a new, starkly humanized understanding of the daily rigors and unceasing violence of quotidian life in the NFL. Slow Getting Up is a look at the real lives of America’s best twenty-year-old athletes putting their bodies and minds through hell.

Commentators and news organizations spend a lot of time profiling and featuring and praising the franchise players on a team, but an NFL team is a lot more than the star quarterback. In this book, Jackson represents all of those unnamed players, the guys who have to play through the preseason to just make the team and who can be let go or traded with nearly no notice. These are the majority of the players in the league, and their experience is important. Jackson is an entertaining and honest spokesperson, even if I don’t think he’d consider himself a spokesperson, as such.

This is certainly not a book to read if you enjoy the unvarnished, tv-produced story that most sports journalism and game commentary puts on the game. Life in the NFL for most players is simultaneously brutal, boring and brief. Few get the chance at stardom, and in the league’s pursuit of good entertainment, you get a bunch of young men who are overpaid without enough to do during the off season. Jackson doesn’t give a particularly flattering view of that side of football.

But he also captures the pure joy that he and other players have getting the chance to keep playing the game they love into early adulthood. There’s something amazing about the fact that some little boys get to grow up into young men that get to spend every week in pursuit of the thing they love most. Jackson captures the exhilaration of getting the call to play, of starting the first game, of catching the first touchdown. There’s something really wonderful about those fleeting moments that sports fans will understand and appreciate.

I enjoyed the heck out of this book. It’s a quick read, but well written and extremely entertaining. Jackson certainly strips some of the glossy finish off the whole football thing, but I think knowing what goes on behind-the-scenes makes success and failure on the field mean more.

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Review: ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ by Cheryl Strayed

 I like to think (and hope) that every person has at least one other person in their life who will tell them what is what. For me, those people are usually my mother and my sister. I know they love me unconditionally, but I also know that they don’t put up with my nonsense. If I’ve gone off the rails in some small or large way, they get me back on the track in the most kind and generous way possible. I’m so lucky to have that.

I tell you that because I think the voice that Cheryl Strayed adopts as Sugar, an advice columnist for the online age, has a lot in common with a family member who loves you but doesn’t let you get away with anything. In her columns, collected together in Tiny Beautiful Things, Strayed practiced what Steve Almond called radical empathy:

Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills — and it can be great: you’ve had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the courage to write your novel. Sugar — the once-anonymous online columnist at The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild — is the person thousands turn to for advice. Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond. Rich with humor, insight, compassion — and absolute honesty — this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.=

The first thing to know about this book is that Cheryl Strayed can write. If you don’t believe me, stop reading this post and go read these two columns: The Baby Bird and Write Like a Motherfucker. I’ll wait.

…

…

…

Finished? Holy shit, right? Cheryl Strayed can write like a motherfucker, and that talent is on display in every one of her lovely, profane, honest and frustrated columns collected in this book. I just can’t even quite articulate just how great each and every single one of them is to read.

If you haven’t read these essays yet, I highly encourage you to pick them up. But, I think this is a book that is better read slowly, a few pieces at a time over a month or two. When you read them back-to-back, you start to see a little bit of repetitiveness in the way that Strayed approaches each problem. That’s not to say her answers aren’t surprising or wonderful to read, just that they have a little less impact taken all together than I think they do taken at a slightly slower pace.

This is a book I will be holding on to, dipping back in and out in those moments when I just need to hear someone kindly and generously tell me to get my shit together.

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Sunnyside, by Joanna Murray-Smith

I bought Sunnyside by Joanna Murray-Smith ages ago, when she gave a discussion of the author at my local library, and now I feel quite a fool for have left it so long to read it.  It reminds me that there are some real treasures, moaning on my TBR shelf-about 600 books at last count-but I do like add to it for fear that if I don't buy a book when I see it, it may disappear from the shelves book stores because they are so mercilessly about graves of literary fiction, no matter how good it is.

If you saw my sensational fragment of Sunnyside, you will know that the novel is a comedy of manners satirising The Good Life.  Murray-Smith is a famous playwright here in Melbourne, and she has opted for what is, of course, Mt Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula, such as the setting for a privileged suburb called Sunnyside, with less stylish Frankston disguised as nearby Deptford.  The main industry in Sunnyside is real estate, and the annual event is the real estate agents community Race, the inner city waiters race aping but with brokers with the course Open to inspection implementation boards.

The book begins with the dinner revelation that Molly, wife of David and mother of Justin, has been enjoying himself with the man who cleans their swimming pool.  This causes an existential crisis under their set, wondering if they also miss out on sexual adventure and self-development, and others analysis of the purpose and the direction of their own marriages.  New temptations arise: a sexy old school friend arrives in Sunnyside, and Assistant Professor gets dangerously close to a student.   Children on the cusp of adolescence also have their own existential crisis: school, of course, but also dismay about parental behavior, and anxiety about contemporary problems and their own powerlessness in the face of adult indifference.

Indeed, the only flaw in this otherwise characterization in perfectly built novel with its devastating conclusion was Grace, the daughter of Harry and Alice.  Alice is an author who has lost her mojo in the slowness of the suburbs, and the speeches that eleven-year-old who Grace in the League public speaking delivers seem strange out-of-place in the sparkling dialogue that flows through this novel.

Murray-Smith offers intriguing food for thought in Sunnyside, often with penetrating insights delivered through her characters meditations on life, love and desire. She dissects the ambivalence of women limited by the relentless route of the female body, (p. 341); the theatrical bust-up that [makes] people think again (p. 359); and marriage as a calendar:

Alice herself had wondered, what would I? What would she without Harry and the children, without the House to restore her to the Earth.  A family gave you instant name, purpose, a future made up of graduates and twenty-firsts, from birthdays, anniversaries and surprise theme of family Christmas with their hothouse arguments and festive nibbles. What marriage gave you was a calendar.  And now ... and now ... Molly had committed this folly, nothing all that great, really, but in this small community, an act of lively assertiveness.  As thoughts words were, Alice thought, one can hear the whispering about the suburban lawns: dare I I dare, I dare? (p. 360)

Sunnyside is an entertaining book, but have trouble now.  There were copies on eBay when I looked, and you may be lucky and find a used copy on garden furniture. Or hunt it out of a library, it's worth tracking down.

Author: Joanna Murray-Smith
Title: Sunnyside
Publisher: Viking Penguin, 2005
ISBN: 9780670042975
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Kokoda, by Paul Ham, narrated by Peter Byrne

I'm not really very interested in books about war or military history but I just picked up this audio book in the library because military history part of the history curriculum at school and I felt an obligation to be a little more informed about the Kokoda campaign than I was.

The six-month campaign on the Kokoda track in 1942-3 is iconic in Australia, the stuff of legend.  All our best trained troops fought overseas when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and she had Southeast Asia ravaged without control, apparently on their way to Australia, a misconception reinforced by the attacks on Darwin and other northern coastal ports.  The task force set out to check the advance in New Guinea was hopelessly poorly trained, ill-equipped and dangerously naive about the terrible conditions in the field, but they managed to get the first defeat against the Japanese.  A heroic victory like that guarantees of more than one preserved work of popular history and there are numerous books on it around, including the print version of Paul Ham Kokoda, 624 pages long and the husband of copy of Peter FitzSimons ' Kokoda, 512 pages, but after reading Stalingrad last year I the enthusiasm to read one of them couldn't muster.  The audio book seemed like a more palatable way to get myself up to speed on the subject.

Paul Ham approach is as Antony Beevor in that it presents the perspectives of both sides of the fight.  The bibliography shows that the author investigated extensively in both Australia and in Japan, and first-hand accounts of front-line troops on both sides.   His sources included official military documents, participants diaries, personal documents and interviews, but it is this personal accounts whereby some aspects of the even more cooling.

Although the analysis deconstruction of Australia's shocking preparedness, are sometimes poor military leadership and the unjustified respect for Macarthur, is what remains in my mind the stories of soldiers fighting, hunger and disease, struggling along the track without medical help, and fight to the death because defeat was unreasonable.  For the Australians was the battle of their homeland; It was for the Japanese to obey the Emperor's command to conquer more uncritical East Asia. It was a ferocious battle: contrary to the rules of war, neither side took many prisoners, and for the Australians, there was the added fear of Japanese cannibalism.  But Ham also faces to Australian atrocities.  I expect most Australian readers would find that if worrying if I did.

In a comprehensive review on the age (which I hope you can still see as Mexican) academic Charles Schencking notes that there are some factual errors, but he is not what they are than the Ham claim says that cannibalism a deliberate policy by the Japanese high command was to dispute.   (Ham also says that the failure of Japanese supply lines that hunger for his troops in a disastrous extent causes a factor.)  This particular atrocity was or was not policy doesn't seem relevant to me because so many of the Japanese atrocities were officially sanctioned that it seems like nit-picking to want to exonerate them on this one.  Japanese treatment of prisoners of war and exploitation of women in prison as so-called ' comfort women ' was and remains outrageous, never apologize, nor fee paid.

Like most books on Kokoda, confront the reality of war is reading, I'm not at all sure that there is much in this book that I would like to share with elementary school children ...

Author: Paul Ham
Title: Kokoda
Publisher: Baker Publishing, 2010
ISBN: 9781742148281

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Let the games begin, by Niccolo Ammaniti, translated by Kylee Doust

As ethical and aesthetic principles no longer exist, looking like an idiot as a a consequence.  (p. 184)

So says the surgeon Bocchi in this new novel by Niccolò Ammaniti.  He says it's to reassure the writer Fabrizio Ciba, who is concerned that his audience a poem he will recognize plagiarism by Kahlil Gibran.  And that cessation of ethics and aesthetics that plagues of the modern world and Italy in particular, is the theme of this bizarre farce.

Let the games begin utterly unlike the famous that i'm Not Scared, that won the Viareggio Literary Award, was made into a film in countless languages and gripping.  This new novel is absurdist, crude and mocking, and-be warned-it has some Repellent scenes that made me hesitate before plunging on.

Think Federico Fellini, Carnevale, Bacchanalia.  The cover art on the Australian Edition refers to two-faced Janus, the rape of the Sabine women, Artemis the Hunter, Bacchus and an assortment of devilish satyrs and whatnot.  In satirising the State of Italian politics, has drawn on all types of Mythology Ammaniti make this extraordinary book, intentionally designed to shock, disgust and dismay.

While reading this book, I was visiting my parents that Avid cryptic crossword fanatics, so I had access to not one, but two encyclopedias of Mythology, and an old dictionary of Demonology.  Browse through them revealed that Ammaniti Aeneas, which was named after the duty in place of love, and Atreas dispute over joining a throne.  In let the games begin is a pathetic Satanist who unfortunately little his duty as leader of his sect ahead of love, and the throne in dispute is literary kingship.

The novel begins with Saverio, a man whose life bad is synchronous.  He has big dreams to achieve familiarity with the Satanic rituals to rival Charles Manson, but in reality a pedestrian lives life as a failed furniture salesman with a dominant woman whose father owns the furniture store.  His cult, the wild beasts of Abbadon, has members to the rival children of the Apocalypse bleeding, and he is under pressure from his remaining pals, Zombie, a human sacrifice, murder and Silvietta, an initiation ritual with virgins, or at least organize an orgy.

The catalyst for change in Saverio of life is when the rival Satanist who are members has its poaching him membership offers, and he says no. This gives him the courage to say no in other contexts, (leading to a very ugly scene at home), and he almost has a moment of common sense and abandons the cult. But he doesn't, because he thinks his duty lies with the cult, and the only way to keep the respect of his members to do something really violent. (This scenario comes to some readers uncomfortable, the idea that an act of extreme violence, with no prospect of repentance (out of the question as he is a Satanist), an assertion of self-respect is.  It all depends on how seriously you license it, and how much you are willing to grant the author).

Fortunately for Saverio comes Salvatore Caldwell, the richest man in Rome, to the rescue. Under privatization, he has bought the Villa Ada and transformed it into a grotesque fun park.  To celebrate his great achievements, he is holding a party, and every celebrity and corrupt politician has invited to join the fun.  There will be three different hunts: an Indian Tiger-Hunt, a fox hunt and a lion hunt, and guests get to dress up and pretend to be of Ernest Hemingway. With real guns.  Is the singer of hit list that Larita Saverio burns because they gave up heavy metals for sweet love songs and converted to Catholicism among the guests.  All the cult has to do is in the park and they can then be killed with the sword Durendal which Saverio has bought on eBay.

At the same time, the celebrity author, Fabrizio Ciba, a bit of an identity crisis.  He is the last time, more known for its famous than he is for writing books, and he haasmi after a Nobel Prize, handicapped by the fact that he's shallow and amoral, and by the look of his essay on poetry, banal.  He is jealous of a young writer who has won the three major Italian literary prizes in a year, and he would like to see the back of the Nobel laureate whose praise he has to sing. All three get invited to the party as well, of course, and eventually crossing paths with the cult.

All this ends in chaos, like you, with some spectacular annoying victims and an unexpected redemption or two would expect.  Some of it is rather chastens, some of it is disgusting and some of it made me laugh out loud. Let the games begin is a bit of a roller coaster ride, which not everyone will enjoy.

Unfortunately, this edition is marred by too many typos and the translation is not very smooth.  There are many strange metaphors such as "drink such as a Frisian at a fountain ' (p. 146), and ' exploding like a football ' (p. 223).  There are idiomatic errors like ' the day to day ' (' day to day ', p. 146) and ' between one and other ', usually rendered ' what with one thing and another. '  Then there are careless mistakes such as "talk to the ' copy-editing (bearing, p. 195); and ' thanks ' (dan, p. 47); ' psycopath ' (p. 185); and unphased ' (unfazed, p. 244);  ' snake ' instead of ' nose ' on p. 280 and "Treaties" instead of discourses (p. 354).   ' Incoronation "(p. 266) seems to be a hybrid of Coronation and inauguration, but I count on an online dictionary, while I am away from home, so I could be wrong.  ' Molasser ' (p. 268) and ' an onanistic topos ' (p. 204), well, perhaps these failures of my vocabulary, but I had no idea what they meant.  I suspect molasser, apparently a kind of dog, should have become as mastiff; but Wikipedia fails me with an onanistic topos.

Author: Niccolò Ammaniti
Title: let the games begin
Publisher: text Publishing, 2013
ISBN: 9781921758461
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The Swan Book, by Alexis Wright

Get set for a wild ride with Alexis Wright’s new novel, The Swan Book!  It’s exhilarating, confronting, funny, touching, angry, wise and unforgettable.

I am mildly worried that perhaps I should have re-read it in its entirety more than once before tackling writing about it, because I suspect that repeated readings will reveal all kinds of aspects that I’ve missed or misunderstood.  Indeed, I kept thinking of James Joyce’s Ulysses as I read: it has the promise of the same kind of riches that reveal themselves the more times you read it.  There are allusions and allegories all over the place, myths I recognise and those I don’t, circularities that seem to get lost but perhaps I missed the route, and so on.  But you’re not here at ANZ LitLovers to see what an expert makes of a book like this, you’re here to see what an ordinary, interested reader discovers.  So with that caveat, read on.

It’s not a book that you read to find out what happens, though what happens is fascinating.  The Swan Book is set in a dystopian future where climate change has altered everything.  This in itself if confronting, because a dystopian future conjures up all kinds of hideous scenarios, all of them involving radical, frightening social change as in The Handmaid’s Tale or The Road. But by leaving in place the Northern Territory Intervention and various other social engineering policies that apply only to our First Peoples, Alexis Wright’s novel shows us only too vividly that Australia’s Aborigines are already living a dystopian future: non-indigenous readers have to get used to trenchant criticism very early on in this book, and there is no let up though it’s often delivered with the black humour that seems to be a distinctive feature of Black writing in Australia.  Don’t read it if you’re not prepared to wear it.  The more you think you might not like this, the more important it probably is that you read it.

The central character is Oblivia.  She doesn’t say a word throughout the novel because she is traumatised, the victim of gang rape by a bunch of petrol-sniffing youths.  She also symbolises the way Aboriginal people have been silenced since the European invasion because even when they speak no one listens.  This is most graphically depicted in the blackest of black humour scenes towards the end of the novel when nobody listens to the elders who try to end the farce of endless grief-as-public-spectacle á la Princess Diana.  They explain that a man’s spirit must be laid to rest in accordance with his culture:

All services for the dearly beloved, the mourning, the last respects, country and western music, hymns and special foreign music, were heard continuously, and on a daily basis.  In actual fact, nobody thought a thing about the consequences of unabated mourning.  Certainly no one questioned the excessiveness of sorrow, and whether there was going to be an end point of mourning for Warren Finch.  That was until finally, one day in the middle of a lot of smoke, what looked like most of the countryman’s wildflowers and gum leaves arrived with scores of his ceremonial elders from his Aboriginal Government, and they sung his world.  They said that they were smoking his spirit back to their own traditional country.  His spirit was no longer in this place.  This was when the sky practically fell down, when they – these people (his own people) – wanted to remove the coffin from the cathedral.

Total pandemonium broke out between all the different types of mourners and officials one, two and three, with more to follow, told these cheeky people from the bush of some far-flung part of the country with an unpronounceable name that nobody had ever heard of, that Warren Finch’s importance as a man far outweighed any of their cultural considerations, and hum! Peace Brother! Go in peace.  Let that be an end of the matter.  (p. 286)

Then follows a macabre kind of Olympic Torch road-trip round Australia with the coffin in a Fresh Food People refrigerated truck…

There are some unforgettable characters in Oblivia’s curious life.  She was rescued as a girl by Aunty Bella Donna who (being a white European climate change refugee) is then accused of provoking the arrival of the Army in the dusty polluted swamp where they live, unwanted people living in a convenient dumping ground.

What were unwanted people?  Well! They were little people who can’t fight a big thing like the Army in charge of all the Aboriginal children – little pets owned by the Mothers of Government who claimed to love them more than their own ‘inhumane’ families. Disgraceful business! (p. 50)

But it is Aunty Bella Donna, who might have been an angel, who knows how to call the swans which become a guiding light in Oblivia’s life.  These swans derive from Aunty’s stories from Europe, but the ones which descend on the swamp are the affront to philosophical Logic: black Australian swans, not the white European ones that were a king’s own personal property, poached on pain of death, and thought to be the only ones in the world.  (As white people believe themselves to be the most important people in the world).  The black swans are the most important birds of many which are referenced in this book, and they are the ones that trigger Oblivia’s rebellion and escape from the apartment tower where she is dumped by Warren Finch.

This Warren Finch (a finch being a small bird, showy but lacking the power of larger birds) is the character who really messes up Oblivia’s life.  He turns up to take Oblivia as his ‘promise bride’ and demolishes her homeland (the Swamp) as a wedding present.  The way in which Oblivia is forced to submit to removal and subsequent participation in a farce of a wedding in which she cannot even say the words ‘I do’ reminded me of the way 12 and 14-year-old European princesses were traded as collateral in inter-country treaties.  Dressed up like little dolls in jewels and furs, these little girls were packed off to a place they knew nothing about where often they could not even speak the language, to cement alliances and stave off wars.  Oblivia’s role is to be First Lady to the first Aboriginal President of Australia, and it matters not a scrap that she is manifestly unwilling: they digitise her so that she watches herself on TV, doing the things that First Ladies do.  And all the while she is locked up in a tower in a flooded city that is eerily reminiscent of Brisbane, even though Alexis Wright must have been writing this book before those floods took place.

Warren Finch encapsulates the tendency for both government and media to rely on Aboriginal spokesmen as representatives for the diverse peoples of Indigenous Australia.  ‘Anyone would think that he had been the only Aboriginal person on the planet. The only one who had a voice, and could voice his opinion.’ (p. 291)  Warren has, in the process of assuming power in the dominant society, betrayed his own values and abandoned his country.  Wright’s satire of this character is particularly savage.

There were times in reading this long, unwieldy novel when I lost my bearings and floundered in the torrents of language, but I never wanted to stop reading.  Alexis Wright and her publishers have invited non-indigenous readers on a wild ride, but the journey to better understanding is worth it.  I remember Kate Grenville addressing a Melbourne audience – at a Festival of Ideas? the venue is beyond recall but the message was unforgettable – about the need for authors to engage readers in the issue of climate change through fiction: this novel The Swan Book is the one that will make its readers sit up and take notice, because the imagined future is too horrible to contemplate.

Author: Alexis Wright
Title: The Swan Book
Publisher: Giramondo, 2013
ISBN: 9781922146410

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A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, narrated by Atossa Leoni.

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Het is nieuwsgierig, is het niet, hoe Afghanistan heeft morphed van een plaats meeste mensen had nog nooit gehoord van, naar een land dat beschikt over de instelling van bestsellers? A Thousand Splendid Suns is het opvolger bestseller van de bestseller Kite Runner, en in de luchthaven bookshop gisteren zag ik een nieuwe release van deze auteur op de Top tientallen plank.  (Er is ook die roman door een Algerijnse auteur, The Swallows van Kabul, hoewel ik denk niet dat dat een zeer goed was).

(Het doet denken van alle andere plaatsen van waaruit we in Australië nooit lijken om te zien een boek: toen was de laatste keer dat ik zag een boek uit Syrië? of uit Ethiopië, Tibet, Guyana?  Zelfs de Balkan maken het zelden in boekhandels hier in Australië, was ik gelukkig dat Istros boeken me een paar voor revisie stuurde of ik nooit zou hebben gelezen een boek uit Bosnië of Kroatië).

Anyway, ik denk dat er is meer aan de populariteit van deze Afghaanse boeken dan de verhalen die ze vertellen.  Ik denk dat ze populair omdat ze beschikken over een Afghaanse leven van grote ellende en de West-behoeften om te geloven dat het heeft bevrijd van Afghanistan van afbraak en haar mensen hoop gegeven.  Zo vele dappere jonge mannen hebben verloren hun leven in de Afghaanse oorlog, die we willen om te leren over de plaats waar zij hun leven verloren, en nemen sommige kleine troost uit de wetenschap dat ze stierf in een goed doel.

A Thousand Splendid Suns zeker niet mince details over de ellende en de beroving van het Afghaanse leven.  Het begint net voor de Sovjet-bezetting, dan sporen van de opkomst van de Mujahedeen bewapend door concurrerende belangen, de komst van de Taliban, en ten slotte hun uitwijzing naar Pakistan.  Deze tientallen jaren oorlog maken dood en vernieling een onvermijdelijk deel van het leven, maar de Afghaanse geest blijft ongeslagen.  Het onderliggende thema, zijn helden en de plot zijn allemaal in de beste tradities van propaganda, niet ongelijk aan die zwart-wit oorlogsfilms die zo schilderachtige vandaag lijken.  Rechts schijnt volkomen gelijk, en het kwaad moet versloeg, ongeacht de kosten.

Onduidelijkheden en morele complexiteit hebben weinig plaats in een roman van dit soort, maar af en toe bitterheid sijpelt in.  Het verhaal van Maryam en Laila, Rasheed en Tariq is binnenlandse in oriëntatie en doorspekt met de gevolgen van conflicten op hun leven ongeacht wie aan de macht is, maar de roman onthult ook vijandigheid tegen de grote mogendheden die Afghanistan hebben gebruikt in de dienst van hun eigen belangen en hun beloften over wederopbouw steungelden hebben gefaald.  Als westerse troepen trekken, de boodschap is duidelijk: het is aan de Afghanen zelf te handhaven bestuur en veiligheid omdat het westen andere bekommernissen nu heeft.  Of dit fair is of niet is voor geschiedenis om te beoordelen.

A Thousand Splendid Suns poneert dat de komende generatie is de uitdaging.  Vorige generaties vertegenwoordigd door Jalil en Rasheed, symboliseren de versloeg vrouwen en de corrupte krijgsheren de mislukte verleden.  Maryam, uit de tussenliggende generatie, is het offer symbool, en Laila, haar echtgenoot en de kinderen zullen herbouwen samenleving op een nieuwe manier.

Maryam is een vrouw wiens leven was verwoest door een buitenechtelijke dochter van Jalil. Ze onderwijs is geweigerd, en nadat haar moeder sterft ze af is getrouwd met de vrouwenhater Rasheed, een schoenmaker in Kabul, waar ze uit het zicht en uit het hart van Jalil beschaamd familie is.  (Ik nooit helemaal begrepen het ontstaan van dit probleem aangezien Afghaanse mannen zijn toegestaan om zo veel vrouwen als ze willen.  Zoals ik het begrijp kon Jalil zijn getrouwd Maryam's moeder of zijn andere vrouwen nu of niet wilde.  Waarom hij deed het niet en waarom bleef hij een relatie met zijn onwettige nakomelingen, vooral omdat ze een meisje was, en daarom is veracht in de Afghaanse samenleving, maakte geen zin voor mij.)

Laila, wordt enkele jaren jonger dan Maryam, de tweede vrouw van Rasheed.  Hij neemt haar mee in wanneer ze is zwaar gewond bij de aanval van de raket die haar hele familie gedood en accepteert ze zijn aanbod ondanks zijn unprepossessing uiterlijk en weerzinwekkende wreedheid jegens Maryam omdat ze een man moet.  De vrijheid die vrouwen had onder de Sovjets is verdwenen.  Vrouwen zijn geen onderwijs, werk en de vrijheid om te bewegen.  Zij kunnen niet verlaten het huis zonder een man relatieve, zij mei niet uiterlijk vertoon van hun gezicht of een deel van hun lichaam en hun stem niet kunnen worden gehoord in de straat.  Ze zijn niet-personen, volledig overgeleverd aan de genade van de mannelijke leden van hun familie.

Maryam heeft opgemaakt met Rasheed de brutaliteit jarenlang, omdat ze geen andere keuze heeft, maar Laila een feistier karakter is.  Niet realiseren van de omvang van Rasheed van minachting voor de vrouwen, zijn wrede bedrog en zijn capaciteit zijn regel in een samenleving die hem absolute macht verleent af te dwingen, probeert ze om sommige zelfbeschikking.  De scènes die deze ongelijke strijd van testamenten traceren zijn grimmige inderdaad.  Ik ben bewust weglaten van details hier omdat ik wil vermijden spoilers, maar iedereen die deze hoofdstukken leest zal worden geschokt door de licentie verleend aan Rasheed: hij fungeert als hij doet omdat zijn maatschappij hem carte blanche geeft voor de behandeling van vrouwen en meisjes als hij behaagt en zij geen verhaal dan ook hebben.  Het maakt de strijd voor de bevrijding van de vrouw in de west-look triviaal.  Maar het is ook een transparant pleidooi aan westerse feministen: laat niet uw leiders afzien van Afghanistan of vrouwenhaat zullen terug. (Ik denk meest westelijke feministen zijn goed van bewust dat Afghaanse vrouwenhaat was en nauwelijks zelfs in Kaboel is onderdrukt, en dat de Taliban slechts bevrijd wat er altijd toch was.)

De bevredigende resolutie van Laila's omstandigheden is niet helemaal overtuigend, maar het biedt de hoop dat westerse lezers nodig om in te geloven.  Of dat geloof zal uitbreiden te geloven in de karakterisering van Tariq als een gevoelige moderne Afghaanse man is een kwestie van twijfel.

De gesproken tekst is goed gedaan, hoewel het accent een beetje wennen duurt aan.

Auteur: Khaled Hosseini
Titel: A Thousand Splendid Suns
Verteld door Atossa Leoni
Uitgever: Clipper Audio, 2007
ISBN: 9781407400105
Bron: Casey-Cardinia bibliotheek

Beschikbaarheid

Tuinzitje: Een Thousand Splendid Suns (dit is een verkorte audio-boek, slechts 5 cd's in plaats van 11.  Goedheid weet wat ze gesnoeid daaruit te verminderen met de helft).  Er is ook het boek: A Thousand Splendid Suns die ik heb eigenlijk op mijn TBR maar ik heb nooit rond om te lezen.
Boek de depositaris: Een Thousand Splendid Suns (boek)

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Sensational snippets: The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann

I'm reading Thomas Mann's the Magic Mountain, and I came across this:

Quite a bit of reading went on the international sanatorium Berghof, both in the common lounge areas and on private balcony – this was in particular the case of newcomers and short-termers, since residents of many months or even years had long ago learned how to plague time without diverting or service their thoughts, bring in time behind them had become virtuosi, and stated openly that only need a book to clumsy bunglers in art to hang on. At the most they can a book lying on their round or within easy reach on a table – which are sufficient for them to find their reading needs taken care of. The sanatorium library was a polyglot affair with lots of illustrated work – an expanded version of the kind of thing that serves to entertain patients in a dentist's waiting room – and its services offered free of charge. People exchanged novels from the lending library application template down in Platz. Now and then seems to be a publication that everyone fought, and even those who had given by reading for grab would only pretended, with disinterest. In the period that we describe here, the art of seduction, a badly printed booklet that Herr Albin had introduced, was making the rounds. It was almost word for Word from French translated with perfectly preserved the original syntax, even loans of a certain attitude and tantalizing elegance to her exposition of a philosophy of physical love and debauchery, all in a spirit of life-affirming paganism. Frau Stöhr had soon read and found it ' beautiful '. Frau Magnus-who was losing protein-supported her unconditionally.  Her husband, Dale, personally claimed to have benefited from reading it, but regrets that his wife had read, since that sort of thing just ' spoiled ' women and gave them immodest ideas.  His comments significantly increased demand for the publication.

The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, translated by John e. Woods, Everyman's Library, Knopf, 1995, p. 324

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

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Anybody Home? by Marianne Berkes/Sylvan Dell Publisher

Polly ' Possum is looking for a new home to raise her expected baby. Along the way she meets a wide range of diurnal and nocturnal animals. She learns how they build and live in nests, hives, shells, membranes, caves, lodges, caves, caves, Cavities, and even dreys. While these homes ideal for those animals, they are not suitable for her. How to search for Polly to a House and she finds it in time?

My comment:   the teacher in me loves Sylvan Dell books, and this one is no exception.  The illustrations by Rebecca Dickinson are vivid and detailed.  Add the last few pages like our science curriculum.  Anything to do with animals, children love!  The books are now aligned with the common core State standards-Yay!  If you go to sylvandellpublishing.com, you can download a 15-30 page education activities Guide.  The accelerated reading level is 2.8 and the recommended age for this book are K-2nd grade.  This is a great book for primary teachers, parents of primary children, and homeschoolers!  Enjoy!

Anybody Home? by Marianne Berkes/Sylvan Dell PublisherThis entry was posted on Saturday, September 21, 2013 at 7: 56 pm

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For each season (Amish vineyards and orchards book 2) by Cindy Wood small

Work Hard to develop a new Amish community outdoor unit, Maine, Rhoda Byler is fully committed to the clean-up of an orchard with business partner Samuel King. But an impulsive decision has made an unexpected strain in her relationship with her beau, Samuel's brother, Jacob, threatening plans for the orchard. Amid mounting tensions in the area of the heart and the business community will find Rhoda that she always feels this fledging settlement if it has yearned for home, and she begins to embrace the God-given, increased intuition that has always felt as a burden for her. It requires to Jacob completely free from its past, so they can work together on the way to the future.

But as Rhoda her gift used for extracting an old secret with her neighbors Englisch, it is not her beau but an unlikely ally that her cheering on. With the orchard on shaky ground and Jacob's plans in question, Rhoda determined to see things through to harvest. But can they trust her insight to her path directly on the area of the heart?

MyComments:  This is a great series!  I love reading about agriculture, preserves and relationships.  All aspects are handled: Amish-Amish, Amish-Englisch, etc.  I read in this entire book that Rhoda would choose – Samuel or Jacob.  It went back and forth, back and forth through the whole story, until satisfaction has occurred.  The touch of supernatural gifting in Rhoda also concerned me.  I love the whole relationship with Rhoda and Camilla.  Rhoda shows no judgment – only love and care.  I thought this series ended with three books, but now I see there is a result of fourth in April 2014.  I look forward to reading that book as well.

For each season (Amish vineyards and orchards book 2) by Cindy WoodsmallThis was posted on Tuesday, September 24, 2013 at 9: 45 am

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A teacher's Musings-Office Depot vs. Staples and more ...

I write everything but book reviews, usually not but I am a second grade teacher who recently went back to school and I have some opinions on some recent events of the teacher.

Within the last month I have the privilege of attending two different "teacher appreciation" events.  The first one I attended was at Office Depot.  They had a nice, free continental breakfast spread for us, as well as some local suppliers sponsors give-aways.  Each teacher will receive a nice bag not filled, but including some teachers appreciate goodies.  I would say the best item for me in the bag was a gift card of Chick-Fil A for three different breakfast – one for the month of August, a September, and one for October.  We also receive a coupon for 25 free copies of the copy machine.

Then a week later I went to the teacher appreciation of staples.  We receive an empty bag and a 20% off coupon.  I have to say that the bag be blank when the local manager had not put in a few goodies for us would have been.  The head office is only delivered the bag and coupon.  What a disappointment.  Staples is usually my favorite, in fact, a few years ago, they gave each teacher a jet drive for our computer – very practical and necessary by teachers.  I think all this is a sign of the times, the finances and the lack of what for teachers.

Believe it or not, it is the task increasingly difficult.  We need to do much more with much less.  This year we have (as second grade teachers) 31 students in our class with absolutely no help.  The help I thought we were getting is only an hour from 2-3 on Friday afternoon (which is really no help because the children by this time done).  We received a new grade level printer last year only to have it replaced again when we were out this summer with our old broken down (we had before we got new).  It breaks often and is very frustrating.  Still, we are expected to use technology.  Each of us doing the work of two people, and we must educate proficiently converts 31 young children-even if some use significantly below grade level test.  Luckily, I have some parents who want to help.

Don't get me wrong I love children and I love teaching, but the conditions are making it more difficult and less fun.

Anyway, a little encouragement goes a long ways.  Thank you Office Depot and Staples for recognition from us.

A teacher's Musings-Office Depot vs. Staples and more ...This entry was posted on Thursday, September 5th, 2013 at 9: 04

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Injured by God's people by Anne Graham Lotz

Tucked into the biography of Abraham is the story of Hagar, a young Egyptian slave with whom Abraham had a son named Ishmael. Hagar stood out because they hurt — not physically, but in ways that were so emotionally and spiritually painful as injury or for a body would be. Some wounds were provoked by her own bad behavior, but others were inflicted by those who regarded themselves as God's people. Anne Graham Lotz has also been injured by God's people. Been some wounds deeper than others, some have come out of nowhere, and still others have caused by its own behavior, but all of the wounds have been deeply painful. She seemed to hurt even more when the wounders packed their behavior in a semblance of religion or piety. If the Hagar story unfolds, you will discover that injured people often wounders itself. While Anne with the unpleasant reality is that identifies the wounded, they also with the wounders identifies, because they already have a, too. They know from experience that injury is a cycle that must be broken. And by God's grace, it can be. Many have had similar experiences. And maybe you are among those who so deeply hurt that you have confused with God have been God's imperfect people. Maybe you've even run away from God as a result. Or maybe you've been a wounder to the extent that you in a self-imposed exile, to believe that you are unworthy to be restored to a warm, loving relationship with God or God's people. What your pain may be, Wounded by God's people helps you to start a healing journey — one that allows you to recover the joy of God's presence and all the blessings God has for you. God loves the wounded. And the wounders.

My comment:   one of my favorite Christian author/teacher is Anne Graham Lotz, so when I had the opportunity this book I jumped on the change.  The content also large interested me.  People wound and become injured – this is the life, but you don't really expect so much in the Christian community because we hold each other to a higher standard, but the truth of the matter is that people are flawed.  We must finally to Christ--not people watching.  I love the way that Ms. Lotz the wounded to the biblical story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar with Ishmael and Isaac.  Hagar was certainly used, abused, and discarded by God's people – but not God!  That is the crucial difference.  This is a great book.  The content caused me to think and reflect quite a bit – and I love forced to do that!  As the daughter of Billy Graham on the basis of believers suffer, how can I expect less?  Great book-I highly recommend it!

I got a free copy of Wounded by God's people of Booksneeze and Zondervan in Exchange for an honest review, which I have given.

Injured by God's people by Anne Graham LotzThis entry was posted on Saturday, September 28, 2013 at 9: 51 am

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A Christmas Rose for Rose by Tricia Goyer

. Born in the middle of the hardships of the great depression, grew up on in Berlin, Ohio, Amish in the arms of a loving family. But she is overwhelmed by self-doubt when she learns the truth of her birth. She was born English and abandoned when her family to the West in search of work. She Was meant to be Amish or would they are better off with its own kind of growing up — Englischers? And was her intended gift of discovering her birth family given out of love or fear? Inspired by a true story, A Christmas Gift for Rose is a heartwarming novel of sacrifice and deep love.

Mycomments:  This is a great holiday read.  Imagine growing up one way, think you are part of one family, and then find your shocking life has been a lie.  This happens to Rose.  The truth of her life explains the nightmares and feelings of loneliness.  Her hard judgement of her former fiance Jonathan turns into her mind now that they are English instead of Amish.  What will he think of her now?  Many questions need to be answered in this story!  Tricia Goyer is one of my favorites and this story does not disappoint.

A Christmas Rose for Rose by Tricia GoyerThis entry was posted on Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 9: 33 pm

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Twice loved by Wanda Brunstetter

Bestselling author Wanda e. Brunstetter brings you a touching story of a single mother widow after the second world war. Bev Wallace new job is an answer to prayer and just in time for Christmas — until her boss kindness an old desire awakened. Will allow her pride love after loss? Enjoy a collection of recipes of the 1940s and handicrafts together with stories and trivia about Christmas 1946.

My comment:   this is the first non-Amish book I've read by Wanda Brunstetter and I loved it.  It is a short, sweet, holidays, romantic read.  There are several tasty-sounding recipes at the end of the story that is added to this book job.  For some reason this book reminds me of a story of Grace Livingston Hill, and I love that!  The establishment of post World War II adds to the charm of the book.  I recommend this book as a fun, feel good reading!

Thank you NetGalley and Ms. Brunstetter!

Twice Loved by Wanda BrunstetterThis entry was posted on Sunday, September 15, 2013 at 9 am: 18

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Miracles happen here – the Letters – by Suzanne Woods Fisher

Rose Schrock is an ordinary woman with a simple plan. Determined to find a way to support her family and her late husband's debts, they set to work if you want to convert the basement of her Amish farm at an Inn. While her family, especially her cranky mother, unhappy with Rose's big idea, her friend and neighbor is, Galen King, supports the decision and he helps in the conversion. As Rose ends preparations for visitors, they pray. She asks God bless every guest staying in the Inn at Eagle Hill. As the first guest arrives and settles in, Rose is surprised to find that her whole family is the one that receives the blessings, in the most unexpected ways. And she is even more surprised when that guest decides to play matchmaker for Galen King.

With her signature plot twists combined with soft Amish romance, invites bestselling author Suzanne Woods Fisher readers back to Stoney Ridge for fresh stories of simple pleasures in spite of the complexity of life. Fisher's tale of God's Providence and provision will delight her many fans and create new ones. Welcome to the Inn at Eagle Hill.

My comments:This is the most compelling book I have read in a while.  Rose, the main character inspires me want better Christian.  In fact, all of the characters interested me!  The story is not completely predictable, not at all.  The whole concept of an Amish bed and breakfast is not new, but a in a basement with a cranky mother-in-law.  Love the story, love the characters, keep writing!

Thank you Revell and free evaluation copy for the NetGalley!  This is my honest opinion.

Miracles happen here – the Letters-by Suzanne Woods FisherThis entry was posted on Sunday, 25th August 2013 at 8: 38 am

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HOLIDAY PREVIEW-an Amish family Christmas by Murray Pura

After the tragedy strikes the family of young Naomi Bachman, does her sister-in-law Rebecca Bachman all they can to help. But things get complicated when Micah – Rebecca Naomi's brother and husband – returns of a combat tour in Afghanistan. He is under the shunning Meidung – the – because of its sign-on, and none of the Amish are allowed to speak with him or with him, even his wife Naomi. How then this young couple, still in love, ever find happiness? How can the healing process even start when Micah refuses to repent of what he has done?

Still, God has a way of working on the hearts of his people – especially at Christmastime.   Conspiring events at the right time to give birth to a miracle that things right for Naomi and Micah – and for the Amish community could set himself.
Here is warm and tender story of loyalty, love and reconciliation on the most wonderful time of the year.

My comments:I enjoyed this book, and although it is a holiday books and certainly would give the warm and fuzzy Christmas delights, it reads well at all times of the year.  Naomi and Rebecca have some adjusting to do.  Naomi lost most of her in a tragic accident.  Only her brother Luke alive and he is in a coma.  Naomi's also has some issues with her husband as he returns from Afghanistan.  The situation looks almost impossible.  Yet all things are possible with God – even in the Amish community!  I enjoyed this book because it shows how God can change hearts.  I highly recommend it!

Thanks NetGalley!

HOLIDAY PREVIEW-an Amish Family Christmas by Murray PuraThis entry was posted on Thursday, September 5th, 2013 at 5: 56 pm

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Harriet Beamer strikes gold by Joyce Magnin

After a whirlwind cross-country move, Harriet and her have donut-loving basset hound, Humphrey, in a new life in Grass Valley, California. When Harriet learns that she is going to be a Grandma for the first time and gets a new suite with room for her pepper shaker collection, can't they wait for her best friend, Martha, to come visit so they can share her good news. But adventure is never far away when Harriet is round. After listening to the pleas of a desperate teen need money right away — and whose dad happens to be a gold mine they grant a lease — Harriet falls hook, line, and sinker in the enterprise. Although she is nervous about her investment, Harriet chooses to keep it a secret from her son, Henry, and his wife. They can only imagine what they will do if this turns out to be her ticket to a golden windfall. When suspicions arise, though, it becomes clear that Harriet never an ounce of gold can see. But will they continue to trust and risk losing everything? The fate of the young teen and a family emergency Show Harriet where her true treasure lies.

My comment:   Harriet Beamer is a crack up!  She is what I would like to be when I'm 72 years old!  I didn't know quite what to expect from this book, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.  It's a sweet slice-of-life novel about a woman in the second half of life that quite a bit of live links to do.  I had strong feelings about events that have taken place in the whole and I my attention throughout the book.  I want to now go back and read the first book where Harriet land on a bus travels.  Thank you Booksneeze for a fun read.  They provided a free copy in Exchange for my honest review.

Harriet Beamer strikes Gold by Joyce MagninThis entry was posted on Thursday, August 29, 2013 at 7: 07 am

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Starry night by Debbie Macomber

Tis the season for romance, second chances and author Christmas cheer with this new novel by # 1 New York Times bestselling Debbie Macomber.

Carrie Slayton, a major city society-page columnist, desires to more serious news stories to write. So her editor a challenge her hands: they can relate to a subject she wants to, but only if they first the paper an interview with Finn Dalton, the notoriously reclusive author score.Living in the remote wilderness of Alaska, has Finn a megabestselling memoirs written to survive in the wild. But he stubbornly refuses to speak to anyone in the press, and no one even knows exactly where he lives.Digging deep into Carrie develops a theory about past Finn, his whereabouts. It's the holidays, but her career is at stake, so she renounces her family celebrations and forward to snowy Alaska flies. When she finally, Finn finds, she discovers a man both more charismatic and more stubborn than even they expected. And soon they torn between pursuing the story of your life and after her heart.Filled with all the comforts and joys of Christmastime, is Starry Night a delicious novel by finding happiness in the most surprising places.

MyComments:  This was a very fun and unusual romantic read!  Carrie taking a huge risk when she goes to Alaska looking for a recluse author – who wants to stay hidden!  She desperately wants to improve her writing assignments.  They will do!  They told that they could do what they wanted on the paper if they could find and interview Finn Dalton. I don't know anyone as Carrie, but I know people who would love to be like her, and could get a sensation living vicariously through her. Warm and fuzzy Christmas vibes run through the story.  The setting is great – Seattle and Alaska!  Couldn't get much better than this.  I will probably read this again!Starry night by Debbie MacomberThis entry was posted on Sunday, September 1st, 2013 at 7: 53 pm

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