The Siren of Paris by David LeRoy

Born in Paris and raised in the United States, 21-year-old Marc Tolbert enjoys the advantages of being born to a wealthy, well-connected family.. Reaching a turning point in his life, he decides to abandon his plans of going to medical school and study art in Paris. In 1939, he boards a ship and heads to France, blissfully unaware that Europe -- along with the rest of the world -- is on the brink of an especially devastating war.

However the story begins at the close of Marc's life. In the opening lines of this novel, we find ourselves at a graveside, in 1967, as Marc's spirit watches the living pay their final respects. Surrounded by the ghosts of men lost in the war, Marc sees snippets of his life flash before him. Before he can leave this world in peace, he must reconcile the sadness and guilt that burden him.

Soon we meet Marc on his carefree voyage to Paris, a place that seems far removed from the looming Nazi threat to Eastern Europe. When he arrives at l'École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, more ominous signs surface. There are windows covered with tape, sandbags shielding the fronts of important buildings, whispers of Parisian children leaving the city, and gas masks being distributed. Distracted by a blossoming love affair, Marc isn't too worried about his future, and he certainly doesn't expect a Nazi invasion of France.

Marc has a long journey ahead of him. He witnesses, first-hand, the fall of Paris and the departure of the French government. Employed by an ambassador, he visits heads of state, including the horribly obese gray-haired Mussolini and the charismatic Hitler. He witnesses the effects of the tightening vise of occupation, first-hand, as he tries to escape the country. He also participates in the French resistance, spends time in prison camps, and sees the liberation of the concentration camps. During his struggles, he is reunited with the woman he loves, Marie, who speaks passionately of working with the resistance. Is she working for freedom, or is she not to be trusted?

I've read many kinds of historical fiction. In some historical novels, the setting and events unfolding are merely a backdrop for the characters and story the author has created. In The Siren of Paris, the historical setting and events are the story. While the characters and their lives are important, the exciting and horrific events of this period drive this novel. Carefully researched, well chosen details bring these events -- from pre-World War II France through the liberation -- to life. While I generally gravitate toward more character driven novels, I was absorbed and fascinated by the book.

The author's meticulous historical research really shines. Events are described in incredibly vivid detail and in a very personal and human way. For example, we see detailed news footage of the German invasion of France. We see people cramming themselves into and piling on top of train cars, trying to escape the country. We experience the destruction of an ocean liner, are drawn into the intrigue of the French resistance, and feel a character's psychological deterioration in a prison camp. The novel also touches on the post traumatic stress the protagonist suffers after the war.

I also liked the spirituality that runs through the novel. We see a priest who is well versed in dogma and without compassion contrasted with a loving, spiritual man of God. This story explores themes of faith, despair, betrayal, guilt, forgiveness, redemption, and the pivotal choices that make us who we become. There are also lightly rendered paranormal elements and interesting dream/hallucination sequences as well as a wise, thoughtful moment, at the end, where Marc's spirit realizes what he needs to achieve peace.

While it is packed with information, The Siren of Paris is readable and entertaining. This is an excellent living history book for adults and mature teens, and it might be a valuable resource for homeschooling families. Parents may want to know that while the violence is not very graphic, there are very disturbing elements along with some strong language and very mild sexuality.

I received this e-book, with no expectation of anything other than an honest opinion, as part of a virtual book tour through Promo 101 Book Promotion Services. For more information about this virtual book tour, please visit -- http://bookpromotionservices.com/2012/05/22/siren-of-paris-tour. For more information about this novel and author, see http://www.thesirenofparis.com/. You can also follow David on Twitter @studioleroy or on Facebook.

Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Hunger (2008)

Consumed with artistic ugliness and teeth-grindingly nasty realism, Hunger is the first film by up-and-coming director Steve McQueen, not to be confused with the The Great Escape man. No. This Steve McQueen is big, black, and British, and knows more about European prisons in the 80's than any man should be comfortable knowing.

     The setting is 1981 Ireland, and the film follows Bobby Sands, a real person, we are told. Bobby is played by Michael Fassbender, who is now acclaimed for playing in McQueen's new NC-17 drama Shame. Fassbender is considered a handsome man by many, and seeing him brought to this sad physical state is disturbing, to say the least.

     The real Bobby Sands, an member of the Irish Republican Army, was arrested for keeping handguns in his home, with a history of other suspected crimes. In the movie, we are never told this. He is simply there, participating with the others in a no-wash strike, demanding better treatment. His rebellion is quickly and brutally ended when a group of guards drag him, kicking and screaming, and cut his unshaven hair and beard.

    Undeterred, Bobby begins to starve himself, but not before a serious talk with one of cinema's only cool priests, Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham). What the 'ole father's saying is, basically, don't do it.

     Despite the father's strong urging not to proceed, Bobby does, and both he and his counterpart Fassbender begin rapidly losing weight (my mother says Fassbender's weight loss took "dedication," and I agree, but dedication leaning towards insanity.)

    Sound unpleasant? It is. Sand's story is linked with the stories of prisoners Davey Gillen and Gerry Campbell (Brian Milligan and Liam McMahon) and prison guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) who might feel guilt about the whole situation. Or he might not. Hard to tell, since the film has minimal dialogue. He might just be an unhappy guy.

    At first, I found this movie to be a bit of a bore. Bread crumbs falling onto a lap? Why waste a close-up on that? (I stand by what I said then on that matter.) But, just when I thought I'd have to admit my stance to the film snobs of the world and endure their rage, it got better. It was around the time of the brutal rest home scene (which wasn't very restful) and the conversation between Bobby and Father Dominic, which goes on for seventeen minutes, according to Wikipedia, but doesn't get old.

     The realism really stands out here. The filth, the feces, the full-frontal male nudity that prudish or fearful American filmmakers try so desperately to hide. Yup, schwangs flop a-freely, but rarely in a titillating way. The acting seems similarly real, as do the little details (radio 'phones up the vagina? That's *one* way to get them to your jailed hubby.)

    I did think that Bobby's character seemed a little underdeveloped. He was passionate about his cause, and the ambiguity of that cause was thoroughly explored. But he wasn't developed enough for me to fully care about him. My favorite character was the priest who, in his one short scene,  was neither bitter, hypocritical, rapey, or pedophilic, and gave off the best impression.

     An interesting watch for people who either do or don't know a lot about English-Irish hostilities, Hunger is worth watching through the slower parts, and at 98 minutes, it's short and concise. It pulls no punches, offers no enemies (except maybe Margaret Thatcher) and gives a compelling look into an ugly part of history.

     Note - The condition of the penitentiary makes modern American prisons look like Disneyland, and makes you not only think about basic human rights, but also about foreign state institutions that leave their prisoners in similar conditions.

Don't Bother Me Mom -- I'm Learning! How Computer and Video Games are Preparing Your Kids for 21st Century Success -- and How You Can Help! by Marc Prensky

I have a love-hate relationship with my kids' video games. Especially where it concerns my son, who has a passion for electronic entertainment flowing through his veins and finds Nirvana in a good shooter game -- a concept that makes me cringe.

Some writers, including Steven Johnson and Marc Prensky, are telling parents that, while parental limits are in order, video games are nothing to fear. Many of us have pried a kid away from a video game to do schoolwork, or used a game to bribe him to do schoolwork. Marc Prensky offers us this provocative statement: kids are hooked on video games, ignoring schoolwork, because they're learning more from the video games.

Today's game-playing kid enters the first grade able to do and understand so many complex things -- from building, to flying, to reasoning -- that the curriculum they are given feels like their mind is being put in a strait jacket, or that their milk is being laced with sedatives. Every time they go to school they must, in the words of one student, "power down."

The games Prensky is exploring are not "educational" computer games. While these programs may be useful for reinforcing certain skills, they are relatively simple. He is mainly talking about role-playing games, including Runescape, Age of Empires, Zoo Tycoon, Spore, Sim City, and the much-maligned Grand Theft Auto.**

Many kids learn more quickly and thoroughly from the games they love than from academic work because, well, they love them. They're engaged, fully attentive, and learning through their passions. Furthermore, according to Prensky, these games speak their language. Our kids, who were conceived in the era of prolific electronic communication, are "digital natives." We parents, on the other hand, were reared in an the era of print encyclopedias, card catalogs, and "snail mail." We're "digital immigrants." So one of the problems we have with our kids' gaming is that we just don't "get it" -- we're separated by cultural differences.

Some of the Benefits of These Video Games (In a Nutshell):***

• They help develop a player's visual selective attention -- when many things are going on at the same time, they can figure out what's most important to the task at hand and filter out the rest.
• No one explains all the rules of these video games in advance. Players have to carefully observe what's going on and make inferences. Kind of like the scientific process.
• Players need to develop complicated strategies to overcome obstacles. Kind of like life.
• Gamers practice situational awareness -- tuning into the environment and making good decisions quickly. This is one reason the military makes extensive use of computer simulations in training.
• They get great at multi-tasking, or parallel processing -- effectively dealing with many things at the same time

Throughout this book, Prensky clearly explains why video games are so engaging and how they nurture learning. He offers specific examples of skills fostered by certain games. He includes anecdotal evidence of successful people who were hard-core gamers as kids (and, in many cases, still are) -- illustrating how video game-related skills helped them. Prensky also thoughtfully addresses important parent concerns. Do violent video games cause kids to become violent? What about video game addiction?

Prensky goes on to explore the role of video gaming in parenting and education. Prensky argues that the main reason we are so worried about our kids' gaming is that we really have no idea what's going on when they're glued to these "mindless" electronic amusements. He suggests that you sit beside your child while he's playing a favorite game. Pay attention to the challenges he's facing. Ask questions. Find out what your child's favorite video games are and why. Is it simply the eye candy or the opportunity to commit heinous acts of violence in the virtual world? Or is it the challenge -- the opportunity to devise complex strategies and keep getting better at it?

I can tell you that this approach was eye-opening for me. I once invited my son James to teach me to play a fantasy role playing game. I wrote about it here. What I learned from the experience, in a nutshell, is -- well, all the female warriors in these RPGs wear minimal clothing and have insanely large boobs. And these kinds of games are too damn hard for me. So James was rewarded for his patient tutoring by never again having to hear me say, "Those stupid video games are going to rot your brain!!!" (just as my parents once warned us of the brain-damaging effects of too much television). THAT particular myth was debunked for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is somewhat narrower in scope than Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson, but is more practical, exploring the role of video games in kids' lives and educational planning in more detail. Prensky does a good job of explaining the complexity of role playing games to "digital immigrants," helping bridge the culture gap between us and our "digital native" kids. It also offers practical suggestions for communicating with kids about their electronic interests and nurturing the positive aspects of gaming. I recommend this book to all parents, regardless of how you feel about kids playing video games, to get a fresh perspective on this issue.


**As a side note, I don't let my son play Grand Theft Auto -- I think it's the only video game that's banned in this house, at least for people under 40. :-P My husband has it, and he once let James try it out -- he told the kiddo that he could explore the city and enjoy the driving and graphics, as long as he avoided the thugs and prostitutes. Well, that didn't work. James told me when you avoid the violent and racy stuff, the game throws them at you -- people start popping out and shooting at you. The bottom line: even when you try to avoid trouble it manages to track you down. Life is sometimes like that, isn't it? I've BTDT. :-P

***For those of you who have delved into Relationship Development Intervention for kids on the autism spectrum, don't these look like core dynamic thinking skills? I would love to see somebody do some serious research on the benefits of gaming -- if done correctly -- for kids with autism and Asperger's. This sounds like a topic for another post.


Rating:4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

The Hunger Games

Gary Ross' fourth feature portrays young adult writer Suzanne Collins' vision of the future. But this future does not bring flying cars, super-advanced robots or time travel. Instead it brings "The Hunger Games," a horrific celebration of totalitarianism and fear where twenty-four boys and girls, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, from twelve districts are brought to a large arena to fight to the death.

   Sounds an awful lot like Battle Royale, a 2000 Japanese film with a similar premise. However, The Hunger Games exceeds in acting, character development, and substance what was a somewhat underdeveloped bloodbath (albeit a creative one). Although this film pushes the PG-13 rating it has nowhere near the level of violence of Battle Royale and should be okay for kids over a certain age.

   The heart of this story is Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), who is forced to care for her beloved younger sister Primrose (talented newcomer Willow Shields) when her father gets blown up in a mining explosion and her mother falls into a deep depression. Her back-story bears some similarities to Lawrence's role in the rural thriller Winter's Bone back in 2000, but The Hunger Games is glossier, more action-packed, and goes in a completely different direction.

   In this year's Hunger Games, Katniss knows that her sensitive twelve-year-old sister, due to her age, has been placed in the drawing only a few times and statistically has a smaller chance of getting picked. To her horror, however, Primrose is drawn, and Katniss, knowing her sister doesn't stand a chance, volunteers to fight in her place.

   After leaving her potential love interest Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) and placing Primrose in the questionable care of her mother, Katniss heads by train to the capital, where she is introduced briefly to a luxurious lifestyle before being offered up in the arena like a sheep for the slaughter. The other kid from her district, Peeta Mellark, has harbored a crush on her for many years, which makes the circumstances of the situation even harder.

   Jennifer Lawrence is, at twenty-one, five years too old for the role, but her talent shines through, and her Katniss is a character to be appreciated. Her relationship with Peeta moved a little quicker than I would have liked, as after a crucial plot development they are hanging over each other like lovesick puppy dogs. Their friendship is more ambiguous and conflicted in the book.

   The other actors are good, including Stanley Tucci, Amanda Stenberg, and Woody Harrelson as drunken former child contestant Haymitch Abernathy. Tucci, despite not having as juicy a role as he did in The Lovely Bones, is good, and his portrayal of gaudy, grinning talk-show host Caesar Flickerman is a disturbingly on-target depiction of the fakeness and pomp and circumstance of reality TV. 

   The Muttations were well done. One of my main concerns about the movie adaptation was that they wouldn't be able to translate them onto the screen without becoming corny, and although they were not as horrifying as they were in the book, functioning instead as vicious, kinda-cute mastiff-looking creatures, the special effects people pulled them off.

   The Hunger Games is very much worth a ticket to the theater, although I would not recommend it to young or sensitive children. It is exciting, rousing science fiction with a message, and Katniss is a strong character worth rooting for.

Link to Quirky Bibliophiles review of the book: The Hunger Games.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Seventeen-year-old Susan Trinder has been raised in a house full of "fingersmiths," thieves and con artists, in Victorian London. Her foster mother, Mrs. Sucksby, is a "baby farmer," fostering children for money. The house is full of babies who are quieted with doses of gin, a brazier who melts down stolen goods, and young girls work the streets, begging and swindling. In the midst of this, a bond forms between Susan and Mrs. Sucksby, who singles her out for special attention and care, treating her like her own daughter.

Nevertheless Mrs. Sucksby colludes with a swindler called Gentleman to involve Susan in a scheme to rob an heiress of her inheritance. The target of this plot is Maud Lilly, a girl about Susan's age. Maud, who works as an assistant to her scholarly uncle, is harboring dark secrets of her own. Susan and Maud come to care for each other in ways they'd never expected, but their feelings are likely to be tossed aside as they fight for their own survival in a world of dark schemes, cruelty, and narrowly proscribed roles for young women.

This novel is written in Victorian style, with elegant language and careful, detailed descriptions. Like Dickens, the author takes us into the poverty and desperation of the London streets, and like the Brontes, she leads us to a dim, drafty Gothic mansion with dark secrets.

However, Sarah Waters also brings modern sensibilities to this novel. The result is an intriguing period piece that offers a glimpse at the dark underside of upper class Victorian England, beneath its careful manners and puritanical mores, as well as a vivid picture of lower class life in the London streets. It also explores the unlikely ways we find love and intimacy and the conflict between affection and compassion for others and the desperate struggle to survive at all costs. And as Kristen eloquently put it, this book offers so many plot twists, it resembles nothing so much as a DNA double helix.

This well researched historical novel also offers many layers of fodder for discussion, especially about women's issues. We were transported to a time when marriage -- in the words of one character -- was legalized rape and robbery. This is a cynical view but not far from the truth. Women were not allowed to own property -- everything they had legally belonged to their husbands. And there were no laws against marital rape.

In this era, mental hospitals were used by husbands as a way of disposing of wayward or unwanted wives. Physical intimacy between two women was grounds for being committed to a "lunatic asylum." And, if one scene in this book is to be believed, allowing a young woman to overindulge in literature was thought to cause insanity. Apparently it causes the "organ of fancy" to become inflamed, provoking psychosis. :-)

The breadth of the social issues Sarah Waters explored amazed me. The most compelling part of this novel, however, is the characters. The heroines are not paragons of virtue; they have been misshapen by destructive circumstances and are often selfish and cruel. However they are intelligent, thoughtful, and thoroughly human. And there are luminous moments when courage and love win over everything else. These women -- and this story -- will be difficult to forget.

Read More Reviews: S. Krishna's Books; Eclectic/Eccentric; Zen Leaf; Things Mean a Lot; BookNAround

Rating: 5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It has been an incredibly busy, emotional and eventful week. My first born "baby" turned 18. She can now sign legal documents, vote, serve in the military, or purchase cigarettes. Not that she has any desire to smoke or perform military service. :-P

My 75-year-old father got married for the third time. It was a beautiful wedding, and I have to say that my fellow native North Carolinians DO know how to throw a party!

My dad and my new stepmother were surrounded by friends and loved ones and many, many speeches and toasts. Including a speech by the bride's brother-in-law, Dick, who expressed gratitude that he is now only the second oldest man in the family. :-D The bride's sister and the groom's son (my brother) stood up for them, and their three youngest granddaughters -- including one of my daughters -- were beautiful flower girls.

This weekly round-up is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's a chance to check in with other bookish bloggers and get more fodder for one's ever growing "To Read" list.


I published one review post this week:

The Siren of Paris by David Leroy 

Here's a snippet:

Born in Paris and raised in the United States, 21-year-old Marc Tolbert enjoys the advantages of being born to a wealthy, well-connected family.. Reaching a turning point in his life, he decides to abandon his plans of going to medical school and study art in Paris. In 1939, he boards a ship and heads to France, blissfully unaware that Europe -- along with the rest of the world -- is on the brink of an especially devastating war.

However the story begins at the close of Marc's life. In the opening lines of this novel, we find ourselves at a graveside, in 1967, as Marc's spirit watches the living pay their final respects. Surrounded by the ghosts of men lost in the war, Marc sees snippets of his life flash before him. Before he can leave this world in peace, he must reconcile the sadness and guilt that burden him.

My daughter and partner in crime reposted several reviews from her old blog:















The Hunger Games















Hunger (2008)


I just finished reading this book and will review it soon:

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Excerpt: It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples; indeed, Jesuits were often the vanguard of exploration.

The United Nations required years to come to a decision that the Society of Jesus reached in ten days. In New York, diplomats debated long and hard, with many recesses and tablings of the issue, whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to contact the world that would become known as Rakhat when there were so many pressing needs on Earth. In Rome, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send.

The Society asked leave of no temporal government. It acted on its own principles, with its own assets, on Papal authority. The mission to Rakhat was undertaken not so much secretly as privately – a fine distinction but one that the Society felt no compulsion to explain or justify when the news broke several years later.

The Jesuit scientists went to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God’s other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the furthest frontiers of human exploration. They went ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God.

They meant no harm.

I'm currently re-reading Blackout by Connie Willis

From Goodreads:  Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place, with scores of time-traveling historians being sent into the past. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser into letting her go to VE-Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, and dive-bombing Stukas—to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.

Mudbound by Hilary Jordan

Henry and I dug the hole seven feet deep . Any shallower and the corpse was liable to come rising up during the next big flood: Howdy boys! Remember me?

As this story opens, in 1946, Henry and Jamie McAllan are burying their father in the flat, muddy fertile land of Henry's farm. Henry's city-bred wife Laura, trapped in a grueling life she didn't choose, stands by with their two girls. As they dig, the brothers realize they've accidentally unearthed the grave of a runaway slave.

"We can't bury our father in a nigger's grave," Henry said. "There's nothing he'd have hated more."

No one seems to be grieving the death of "Pappy," an old man who was defined by his hatred and died under suspicious circumstances. Why did this happen? To answer that question, the story loops around, delving into the characters' history and how they came to this farm in the Mississippi Delta. It moves seamlessly among different points of view, each with a distinctive voice and personality.

The story revolves around two families: the McAllans and the Jacksons, a family of "colored" sharecroppers living and working on their land. Under the feudal system of sharecropping, the Jacksons and others like them farm the McAllans' land, barely earning a subsistence wage.
Their lives are shared by Henry's kind-hearted, charismatic brother Jamie, fighting a losing battle against the demons that followed him home from World War II.

The Jacksons' oldest son Ronsel also returns from the war. After serving his country in the 761st "Black Panther" Tank Battalion, and expanding the boundaries of his world through his tour of duty in Europe, Ronsel is no longer content to keep his eyes down and go through the back door. In Mississippi, where racial discrimination is enforced through vigilante violence, this is likely to lead to disaster. Ronsel's mother Florence, who loves him passionately and has prayed continually for his return home, knows he can't stay. It is only a question of whether he'll leave Mississippi before it's too late.

It's incredibly difficult to tell the truth about racism. Often stories written in a setting like this, exploring these themes, offer us characters who seem color blind and are willing to fight the injustices they see. This makes the topic palatable for us. But it also presents us with characters who seem out of their own time, and it often doesn't ring true.

In Mudbound,  racism controls the lives of people in the community, while in a hole in the muddy earth, the skeleton of a runaway slave takes us back to a time of even more vicious racial inequality. This powerful image reflects the themes in this novel, which explores the many strata of racism. Racial hatred rules "Pappy," who seems to thirst for the blood of black people. He is almost a caricature of a bigot, yet chillingly, he is wholly believable. But it also encompasses seemingly decent white folks who have a paternalistic sense of superiority over blacks, which they view as a simpler, almost feral race. And it includes those who are kind to "colored" folk, but never let them forget their place, and never consider their needs as equal to their own.

I admire this author for telling the truth, without hiding its complexity. Today, when racism seems invisible to many people, the picture she painted reflects what I've seen throughout my life. "Jim Crow" laws and lynchings are a thing of the past, thank God, buried like the bones of the old slave. Yet so many levels of racism do exist in my lifetime -- sometimes glaring and sometimes so subtle you just see glimmers of it, yet you feel its destructive energy.

I grew up in a university town in Eastern North Carolina. The street I lived on ran through my little neighborhood, which clustered around the university. It was populated with many faculty families like my own. We lived modestly, but quite comfortably. If I rode my bike up my street, and through downtown, it took me through what the locals shamelessly called "Nigger Town," a neighborhood made up of neglected roads and tiny, ramshackle houses. I met few middle class African American families in my town. People didn't talk about it, but my parents wisely made sure my eyes were open.

In my school, desegregation was probably only about a decade old. Black and white children rarely sat together in the cafeteria. it just wasn't done, and no one commented on it. Many students, like me, had what I'd consider privileged childhoods. My parents were always on a tight budget, but we never lacked for anything we really wanted or needed, and they always managed to scrape together money for ballet or music lessons. Other students -- many of them black -- wrapped up part of their lunches, because there might not be a meal at home later. It surprises me, and saddens me a little, that I never said anything or tried to help. But I certainly never forgot it or stopped being grateful for the tremendous changes I've seen in my lifetime.

Mudbound is a beautiful novel but not a comfortable one. I found myself liking characters who had decidedly unenlightened views about racial equality. I saw the complexities of marriage in a time when a relationship was shaped by the man's need for dominance and control. I felt angry, hopeful, compassionate, horrified, and sad. The people and events in this book stuck in me like thorns, and they're still with me.

And damn -- this book was a page-turner! I kept finding excuses to pick it up, no matter what I needed to do, eager to find out what would happen next. It was heart-wrenching, but I loved it. It is one of those books I will never forget.

This novel won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, which was founded by Barbara Kingsolver and recognizes outstanding literature of social change.

Read More Reviews:
Boston Bibliophile
Bookdwarf
MostlyFiction Book Review
Fyrefly's Book Blog
The Compulsive Reader


Rating: 5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Michael (2011)

A tricky film about a tricky subject, Michael is handled somewhat more tactfully than you might expect, but remains a tough watch. Left deliberately ambiguous by the oblique festival trailer and poster, which shows a man and a boy framed by puzzle pieces, it is a sometimes unbearably tense portrayal of human perversion.

   Michael (Michael Fuith), a weasily little man who you might expect for this kind of role, lives an inconspicuous existence in Suburban Austria. In reality, he is anything but ordinary -- he is the abductor and captor of ten-year-old Wolfgang (Markus Schleinzer), who is becoming increasingly defiant about his living situation.

Wolfgang lives in Michael’s padlocked basement, where he is periodically raped (obliquely implied by a non-graphic scene where Michael washes his scrotum after an encounter with the boy), bullied into submission, and given what Michael hopes is enough warm and fuzzy time and traces of a normal childhood to keep Wolfgang compliant.

   It is implied that Michael plans to kill Wolfgang once he reaches puberty. Living a nightmare, Wolfgang becomes more and more rebellious, culminating in an eventual escape attempt.

   The film is minimalism at its most intense, focusing on the practices that make Michael seem at times like a normal human being. He and Wolfgang occasionally seem to have an almost father-son-like relationship, washing dishes, purchasing a Christmas tree, and passing discreetly into the fray of a petting zoo. Sometimes you nearly forget anything’s wrong at all, until some pedophilic dirty talk or foreplay brings you back to reality and forces you to face facts.

   Something is terribly wrong. Wolfgang has parents somewhere who love and miss him, and psychologically, he is splintering, turning into the polar opposite of the unknowing boy Michael goes after later in the film.

   To ask for more excitement in a movie like this is to ask for a nasty brand of moviemaking. Despite its relentless ugliness and bleakness, Michael never sinks to the sewers of  child exploitation. As a critic, though, I would have asked for a more conclusive ending. Placing an ending like this in any movie, let alone a film of this intensity, seems, frankly, a little like cheating.

 Note - Praised by critics for its subtle take on its subject. Free of heavy-handedness and melodrama, the film’s director, Marcus Schleinzer, got several calls from grateful pedophiles, thanking him for his "non-judgmental" portrayal of their kind. It's sad to think there are people like that out there, who will probably never benefit from any kind of therapy an are best kept away from children for the rest of their natural lives.

 

 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Last Friday (9/11/09) was a day of mourning for our nation and also the anniversary of my mom's death. I still miss her every day, and my feeling of loss is triggered in myriad little ways -- like hearing something she would have thought was funny or pondering an idea and knowing she would have "gotten" it in a way no one else could. Often it's my wanting to share a book with her. The Help by Kathryn Stockett was a novel I desperately wanted to discuss with Mom.

The story takes place in the early 1960s and is told through the voices of three women, all natives of Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen has been working for white families all her life and has lovingly reared 17 white children. Minny has also been "the help" for white folks all her life, though her incorrigibly sassy mouth has gotten her fired from several positions. 24-year-old Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a white girl and a recent graduate of Ole Miss. She dreams of becoming a writer, and she needs to find something she's passionate enough to write about.

Unlike her white, middle-class parents and nearly everyone around her, Skeeter isn't overtly racist, though she is naiive and rather patronizing toward the "help." When a long-time friend rallies support for not allowing black maids to use the toilets in their employers' houses (they have different diseases, you know), Skeeter decides to write a book in which a dozen of Jackson's maids, with their names disguised, talk about their experiences. It is a tremendously risky project, but one that, for the first time ever, gives these twelve women a voice.

In The Help, the author explores several layers of racism in the Deep South in the early '60s. These black women spent their lives serving white families, and often loved the people for whom they worked and were loved by them in return. Yet they were considered too unclean to use the families' toilets, and they had to remain silent, acquiesce to all their employers demands, and avoid drawing attention to themselves.

At the end of a grueling day of cooking, cleaning, ironing, and childcare, these women went home to do all their own housework and cooking and care for their own children. At the same time, they were going home to men who were sometimes treated them much worse than their employers did.

I didn't find this exploration of the subject as powerful as that in Mudbound by Hilary Jordan. And since this was primarily Skeeter's story -- a tale of a young white woman beginning to open her eyes to some of the injustices around her -- it only skimmed the surface of the racial issues that existed in this time and place. However, I found The Help to be a compelling story.

I was moved by this book, and as I said, I longed to discuss it with Mom. It is hard to fathom the level of bigotry that was virtually unquestioned in that time and place, where a black person's life could be ruined simply to protect a white woman's pride. Yet my mother grew up there. She was born in a small town near Greenwood, Mississippi in 1940. She worked hard in her parents cafe, which opened before dawn to serve coffee and biscuits to white farmers before they went out to toil in the fields.

She once told me a story about a man named Exxo Bassey who had come into the cafe for breakfast. He left, pulled his truck away from the curb without looking behind him, and crashed into a car driven by a black man. Exxo was entirely at fault, but all the black man could do was stare at the street mumbling, "I am sorry sir, I'm sorry .... I'm very sorry ..." and pray there would be no retaliation. The good folks in the cafe were unequivocal in their opinion. Obviously, that "nigger" had no business being there in the first place. (Driving on a public street on his way to work? The audacity of it!)

This moment, and many others like it, made a deep, painful impression on my mom. She once told me she had no one to teach her racism was wrong -- as far as she knew, that idea didn't even exist in that time and place. But she always knew. She couldn't wait to finish college and get the heck out of the butt crack of Mississippi.

She once explained to me that it was nearly impossible to really get just how deep this racial hatred ran. Two of our relatives had been complaining that the newspaper published pictures of African-American brides in the wedding section. This was in the 1990's. "They don't comprehend that black people think, feel, and breathe as we do," Mom said. It's deeply, bone-jarringly chilling.


Again, while this novel lacked the depth and power of some other accounts of this time period, it was a rich, engaging novel that told an important story. I also enjoyed the history reflected in this book. We see the murders of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. We see glimmers of changes coming. Dr. King has drawn thousands of white and black activists to march from Selma, Alabama. There is an unknown new singer named Bob Dylan, a few girls are wearing their hair long and straight, and one even dresses in tie dyed t-shirts. They've even gone and invented a pill that keeps women from getting pregnant. In the words of the aforementioned musician, The Times They are a' Changin'!

Another thing I loved about the book was the colorful and richly developed characters, including Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter, and Celia, a good-hearted, insecure white hillbilly who married a wealthy Jackson man. I felt as if I was sitting in these women's kitchens, talking to them about their lives.

On several different levels, The Help touches lightly on the brutality of racial injustice in 1960s Mississippi and explores the assumptions people make about each other. It also reflects the courage of people -- like Skeeter and my mom -- who can begin to see through the smoke and think independently, and -- above all -- the human traits and experiences that bind us all together.

Read more reviews of this book at The Book Lady's Blog, A Novel Menagerie, and at Chaotic Compendiums


Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Mum & Dad

The movie world is made up of four different kinds of families: the normal families (much less common than the latter varieties, and debatable, as no family is totally normal), offbeat families, and crazy families, for starters. Then there's the titular Mum & Dad clan, which brings us to the scariest and most dangerous variety, umpteen steps past crazy, and reveling in their own perversion.

   It's hard to even call them family, as such. Only one child, the severely brain-damaged Angela (Miciah Dring), is their own. The others are kidnapped additions brainwashed into adhering to the family's rules. These are vindictive Birdie (Ainsley Howard) and her silent "brother," Elby (Toby Alexander). It kind of reminds me of the 1970 horror film Girly, in which "new friends" are brought forcibly into a family of depraved Brits, If Girly were applied with the visceral brutality of a blunt hammer.

   The newest addition is quiet Polish immigrant Lena (Olga Fedori), who meets the loquacious Birdie at the airport where they both clean. Lena isn't stupid; she's just awfully polite -- too polite to follow her instincts. When Birdie and Elby "accidentally"  make Lena miss her bus, she goes home with them, against her own better judgment.

   Enter "Mum and Dad" (Dido Miles and Perry Benson). Mum is a manipulative, slick sexual deviant. Dad is also a deviant, who hits Lena over the head and rapes raw meat in front of his family (the camera then closes in on the cum in the meat *gags*). It's the kind of family relatively normal people stay away from, and Lena is not only determined to survive, but to escape.

   To remain free of all pretenses, I will just call a spade a spade -- this is a torture flick, competently executed, but mostly devoid of any higher purpose, deeper meaning, or pathos. It does sport, however, an intense and cleverly executed ending and decent acting (best from Dido Miles, who plays a soft-spoken psychopath so well). As a note to people who, like myself, can stomach graphic violence but have trouble with sexual assault, there are no rape scenes in this film, although sexual perversion is prevalent.

   Lena is a likable heroine, and although she certainly doesn't bring about fascination, the viewer will want to see her through. The film is primarily set in the home of the killers, with shots of airplanes soaring overhead, conveying a feeling of distance and one's desperate need of rescue going unnoticed. Now that I have called a spade a spade, I recommend Mum & Dad to extreme horror buffs and those with (very) strong stomachs.

March by Geraldine Brooks

March re-imagines the absent father in Little Women, who went to war and returned to his wife and daughters in a memorable Christmas scene. Although Geraldine Brooks adopted the elegant, rather formal language of the period, in a novel reflecting many of the moral values in Louisa May Alcott's most famous classic, March is not a children's story. It is a war story, gorgeous and eloquent but also raw and brutal.

"At the end of the novel, a year later, Mr. March returns to his family, in the delightful story-book fashion," Brooks wrote in the afterword to her novel, "to celebrate the wonderful transformation of his girls. But what war has done to March himself is left unstated. It is in this void that I have let my imagination work."

March takes us back to 1861. Mr. March, a character inspired by Louisa May Alcott's father Bronson Alcott, is a non-denominational minister, Unitarian in his beliefs. He is an idealist, a man of uncompromising ideals, and an ardent abolitionist. Inspired by the charismatic preaching of John Brown, he has spent his fortune trying to aid the abolitionist cause and finally enlisted as a Union army chaplain in The War Between the States.

As the story opens, he is with troops in Virginia, writing home to Marmee and his "little women" in a way that artfully cloaks the truth about what he's experiencing.

He privately remembers the last time he was in Virginia, twenty years ago, as a young man earning his fortune through peddling. It was then that he came face to face with slavery for the first time. As March remembers that time, the author explores the evil of slavery in a way that is unflinchingly honest, yet multi-layered.

Now, two decades later, March has left his beloved family behind to serve the Union, seeing war as a necessary evil to emancipate the slaves. This is a comforting view that we still learn from textbooks. But the reality he sees is starkly different. Few of his comrades in the Northern army share his abolitionist convictions, and they are often just as cruel in their treatment of "Negroes" as their Southern counterparts. Furthermore the violence and suffering around him strip away March's moral certainty, layer by layer.

The truth: I was angry at myself, for not having had the courage to stand aside from the crying up of this war and say, No. Not this way. You cannot right injustice by injustice. You must not defame God by preaching that he wills young men to kill one another. For what manner of God could possibly will what I see here? There are Confederates lying in this hospital, they say; so there is union at last, a united states of pain. Did God will the mill-town lad in the next ward to be shot or run a steel blade through the bowels of the farmhand who now lies next to him? -- a poor youth, maybe, who never kept a slave?

He serves as chaplain as best he can, and he is later thrust into an opportunity to teach "contraband" slaves seized by the Union army. He has a passion for teaching, and this calling creates meaning for him. However, he is unable to reclaim his moral compass. And in time, though he longs to reconnect with his wife and daughters, his brutal memories and deep guilt create a wall that seems impenetrable.

Geraldine Brooks did a tremendous amount of research on Bronson Alcott, an odd and fascinating historical figure, to help her create Mr. March, an man who is eloquent and wise, yet at the same time naive and often ineffectual. This is a beautiful book, one in which you savor the author's eloquence, vivid images and richly imagined, complex characters. At the same time, while it offers glimmers of hope, it is painful and disturbing.

Geraldine Brooks has effectively recreated the time and places in which it is set, ranging from March's native New England, which we visit through generous flashbacks, to the war-torn South. We meet actual historical figures, including John Brown, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. We also see the unfinished United States capital in Washington, D.C., drenched in mud and overrun by wartime mercenaries of various types -- I found these scenes particularly vivid. I also loved March's mindful attention to the natural world, inspired by Thoreau, that nourishes vivid, gorgeous imagery in this novel.

This is an unforgettable book about love, suffering, and the fate of idealists in the real world. I found it hard to put down, and I will find it even more difficult to forget.

Read More Reviews:
Write Meg
The Bookworm's Hideout


Rating: 5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Flexing With Monty

Allegedly, it took director John Albo six years to distribute this pseudo-art film to the public. He should have waited longer. Or better yet, not distributed it at all. Flexing With Monty is an unappealing, unlikable, incomprehensible, badly written mess. It's not the acting that's the problem. The actors try their best (Rudi Davis being the weakest) but are weighed down by a bad script. Very little of the dialogue seems like something anyone in  the real world would say.

   Stylized dialogue can be an asset -- it can be witty and smart (Juno) or deliberately enigmatic and formal (The Living and the Dead, an art film which I loved, by the way.) The dialogue in Flexing With Monty is stiff, pretentious, overly sexual-minded, self-indulgently perverse, and shocking for the sake of being shocking. There are several characters in this movie, and I didn't like any of them, and that includes the masturbating guy in the cage, the tattooed nun, and the cockatoo.  

   Monty is the center of this film, and as nasty and unlikable a character as you can come across. Monty, played by the deceased Trevor Goddard, is a misogynistic, hateful bodybuilder who works out constantly but who's mind is dull and doltish. His brother Bertin (Rudi Davis), who is described as "sensitive, gay, and intellectual" by reviewers, seems like a character I would like, but he isn't. He's nearly as obnoxious as Monty. And I'm not entirely sure he's gay, as he harbors incestuous fantasies about his birth mother.

   The movie is full of incestuous overtones. Monty and Bertin show inappropriate impulses towards each other, their one-eyed grandmother gave them (naked) rubdowns, and when Bertin finally discovers the identity of his birth mother, a make-out session commences. I'm no fan of Harmony Korine, but the similarly incestuously themed Julien Donkey-Boy was way better than this. Bertin purchases an "exotic animal," which turns out to be an Aborigine man who wanks, makes moaning sounds, and, in one scene, sings harmoniously. His part in the story is never explained. Why would it? He's there to enhance the cultish quality movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show strive for.

   A nun appears on the scene. She is collecting money to stop a nuclear holocaust, and Monty tells her to piss off. But the nun keeps coming back, insisting on seeing the brothers. "What is the connection between them?" the movie wants us to ask. Do we even care? A prostitute is mysteriously sent to the house, and she and Monty engage in some role-play (in which bear-rape comes to the table). In one scene, Monty bangs an inflatable doll while watching a slide show of himself flexing (one of the few witty parts, as it shows him in all his masturbatory grandiosity.) Bertin and Monty fight and engage in weird sexual tension. Not much happens, and what does happen is in equal parts bewildering and inexplicable.

   There are some attempts at controversy, such as the knitting-needle abortion dream sequence and Monty's brutal attack on the gay man, but they seem kind of silly compared to movies like Audition. Another problem is the soundtrack -- the music turns on and off as it pleases and has no sense of dramatic tension. Someone online described it as a satire of American Values (not a direct quote), but even as a film that pokes fun at Americans, which never gets old for some people, it's a dreadful mess of a movie that should not be watched under any circumstances.

It's Monday, What Are You Reading

This weekly round-up is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's a chance to check in with other bookish bloggers and get more fodder for one's ever growing "To Read" list.

I published one review post this week; it includes brief reviews of  In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke,  The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman, &  Triggered by Fletcher Wortmann.


Currently Reading:

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Excerpt: It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples; indeed, Jesuits were often the vanguard of exploration.

The United Nations required years to come to a decision that the Society of Jesus reached in ten days. In New York, diplomats debated long and hard, with many recesses and tablings of the issue, whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to contact the world that would become known as Rakhat when there were so many pressing needs on Earth. In Rome, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send.

The Society asked leave of no temporal government. It acted on its own principles, with its own assets, on Papal authority. The mission to Rakhat was undertaken not so much secretly as privately – a fine distinction but one that the Society felt no compulsion to explain or justify when the news broke several years later.

The Jesuit scientists went to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God’s other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the furthest frontiers of human exploration. They went ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God.

They meant no harm.

I never would have guessed, off the top of my head, that I would be captivated by a novel about Jesuits in space, Who knew?  But I can't tell you how much I am loving this book. For me, it isn't really a page turner -- it's more of a slow, thoughtful read, combining science fiction with a thoughtful exploration of religion, philosophy, linguistics, faith, grief, suffering, and many other topics and themes. I am looking forward to reviewing this novel.

Sunday Shorts: A Round-Up Of Short Book Reviews

This post is a collection of short reviews of some of the books I've read in the past month.

In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke

This author won me over with The Life Before Her Eyes, and when I finally started In a Perfect World, I couldn't put it down. Jiselle is a thirty-something flight attendant, with an open heart and naive nature, who falls for a pilot. Mark seems perfect -- he's handsome, charming and sexy. Jiselle quickly agrees to marry him, quit her job, and raise his three motherless children. Do you sense trouble coming? 

The story of Jiselle's marriage is one layer of this novel. In the background of her life, the "Phoenix flu" is killing indiscriminately, and no one understands why or how to prevent or treat it. Furthermore, the United States is blamed for this growing worldwide epidemic. We see society change gradually around Jiselle, beginning with occasional electrical blackouts and shortages and ending with a world that is almost unrecognizable.

I love Kasischke's lyrical, poetic writing. Her vivid imagery and attention to detail make her stories seem realistic and concrete, yet you're being drawn into a world in which nothing is quite as it seems. I love the fact that, unlike other dystopian fiction, this novel takes place in a culture that is clearly our own. The apocalyptic events don't come in one dramatic moment. It's a slow progression, painted vividly with realistic details. This made it eerily easy to imagine these events really happening.

In a Perfect World creates an apocalyptic universe interwoven with a drama about falling in love, marriage, and becoming a stepmother. This novel reflects the zeitgeist of post 9/11 America. It's also full of allusions to history, including the Bubonic Plague, and folklore. The author spent a great deal of time researching how cultures respond to plagues. Most of all, however, it's a story about who you become when life demands every bit of strength and fortitude you have -- and more -- and about the glorious and agonizing journey of becoming a mother. 


(4.5/5 stars)

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

Three sisters – Elv, Claire, and Meg -- have a deep bond. They share stories of a secret, magical land and a private language. One summer, after their parents' divorce, things go terribly wrong. While trying to protect Claire, Elv becomes the victim of a vicious, depraved crime. She carries this secret for the rest of her childhood, and it leads her down a tragic path that changes everyone's lives. 


I used to be a devoted reader of Alice Hoffman's books. This is my first in many years. She is the queen of quirky, lyrical magical realism. She weaves together realistic, raw, painful experiences with mythology and fanciful stories. For example, the brutality Elv suffers becomes intertwined with her fantasy world, and she lives in a dark fairy tale. Hoffman is also masterful at intermingling aesthetic beauty with darkness and pain: a necklace made of a bird's bones, a young woman hobbled by guilt and grief making intricate, beautiful jewelry in a tiny, secluded studio, or a tiny black demon, with delicate wings, bringing tragedy and sorrow.

I had mixed reactions to this novel. It is dark and sad, to the point of being emotionally manipulative at times. The characters seem to be relentlessly bombarded by tragedies. Even given the fact that the line between reality and fantasy is porous, as it always is in Hoffman's novels, it sometimes strained credibility for me. 

However, I was often mesmerized by the storytelling, characters, lyrical storytelling, and vibrant imagery. I also found parts of this story deeply moving. One piece of the story that particularly tugged at my gut involved a program in which prison inmates rehabilitate severely abused dogs. This provides some sense of purpose to a very troubled character who has always had a tremendous heart for hurt or suffering animals. At this point, the novel actually made me cry, leaving me with feelings that have stuck with me ever since. 

(3.5/5 stars)

Triggered by Fletcher Wortmann 

Imagine the worst thing in the world. Picture it. Construct it, carefully and deliberately in your mind. Be careful not to omit anything. Imagine it happening to you, to the people you love. Imagine the worst thing in the world.

Now try not to think about it.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, particularly the "Pure O" kind (uncontrollable obsessive thoughts with relatively few compulsive rituals) may be the most misunderstood mental illness. People continually joke about OCD, which makes me cringe. "I can't stand it if my CDs aren't organized. I'm so OCD." Or they imagine it's just a frenzy of hand-washing and lock-checking. The reality is generally much darker and definitely not funny.

Anyone who knows me understands that severe OCD, particularly the "Pure O" kind, is a subject painfully close to my heart. Wortmann describes it, from the inside out, so much better than any other writer I have seen. His account of his experiences is sometimes cerebral, sometimes raw and confusing, and sometimes absolutely brilliant. And much of the book was hilarious. As a person who gets through pain with dark humor, I felt like I "got" it -- I kind of wanted to take this young author out and buy him a drink. He definitely has a keen intellect and a sharp wit, and at times he reveals himself with painful honesty. The book made me laugh out loud and cry at the same time.

(4.5/5 stars)

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt April 16, 2002

As for me, I was sired in 1977, the same year as the hero of this story. In truth, my life has been very ordinary. As I mentioned before, I do many good things with myself and others, but they are ordinary things. I dig American movies. I dig Negroes, particularly Michael Jackson. I dig to disseminate very much currency at famous nightclubs in Odessa. Lamborghini Countaches are excellent, and so are cappuccinos. Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky Tickle, and the Unyielding Zookeeper ... That is why I was so effervescent to go to Lutsk and translate for Jonathan Safran Foer. It would be unordinary.

This is the voice of Alex Perchov, one of the narrators of Everything is Illuminated, a quirky and often endearing Ukrainian twenty-year-old who is enthusiastic about American culture and proud of his sexual exploits which are, in fact, figments of his own fertile imagination. He has learned English with the help of a thesaurus, creating a monologue that prompted Francine Prose of The New York Times Book Review to write: "Not since ... A Clockwork Orange has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio."

Alex's father runs a small tour service, driving Jewish Americans to the places where, several generations ago, their relatives died in The Holocaust. Jonathan Safran Foer has come from America, searching for the woman who may have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Alex's grandfather, haunted by his own memories of World War II, is his tour guide and driver, and Alex serves as translator. The three of them set off, with a dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, the "seeing eye bitch," adopted from "the home for forgetful dogs," to find Jonathan's ancestral village, the shtetl of Trachimbrod.

They travel the Ukranian countryside, beautiful but still ravaged by World War II, 50 years ago. When they reach the site of Trachimbrod, they find an old woman who has made herself the curator of the shtetl's memories; her home is filled with boxes of photographs, bits of jewelry, and other remnants of what was once a thriving community.

Alex's narrative about their "very rigid search" for Trachimbrod, and for the woman who may have rescued Jonathan's grandfather, is one of three strands intermingled throughout this novel. The second is a heavily fictionalized narrative Jonathan is writing about his ancestors and the history of Trachimbrod. It is a blend of storytelling, in which the past and future are often tangled, magical realism, and assorted thoughts on art and life. It begins when Jonathan's great great great great great grandmother, Brod, is rescued from the river as an infant, the only survivor of a horse and wagon accident. It continues through the life of Jonathan's grandfather, a man with an unusual disability and a prodigious history of sexual exploits.

This narrative is full of odd, quirky characters. These include Yankel the disgraced usurer, forced to wear an abacus bead as a reminder that he cheated someone. He lovingly raises Brod and as he ages, fearing he will lose his memory, he scribbles notes about his life on his ceiling with her red lipstick. It also includes the mad squire Sofiowka and The Kolker, who survives an accident at the flour mill with a blade in his head.

Throughout this fictional history, things are also vitally important, beginning with the detritus of the wagon accident which surfaces in the river when Brod is rescued and the bead Yankel wears to remind him of his disgrace. These things, including prayer beads, shawls, glasses, and other objects, fill much of people's lives and signify remembrance. This is reflected in Jonathan and Alex's odyssey, in present time, in the way the old lady from Trachimbrod carefully saves the possessions of Holocaust victims in piles of boxes, just in case someone comes searching.

Alex reads Jonathan's fictionalized history and discusses it in his letters, and this provides the third strand of the novel. It's an interesting addition to the book, because in effect, the novel reflects on itself and explores its own meaning. We also see Alex's character develop through these letters, as he sheds some of his silliness and prepares to take responsibility for himself and his beloved younger brother.

Jonathan Safran Foer is a tremendously gifted writer, with the courage to try something new and different. At moments I was awed by the story and by his writing. I really liked Alex's voice, and I quickly got used to his quirky use of the English language. I loved much of the magical realism in Jonathan's fictionalized history, and I admired the themes of memories, forgiveness, and coming of age.

On the other hand, I found the novel quite uneven. I ran the gamut from being absorbed by the writer's brilliance to barely wanting to keep turning the pages. It especially fell down during Jonathan's fictionalized narrative. At moments, it was splendid, but at other times it seemed self-consciously clever and disjointed. Some of the sexuality also disturbed me. I am all in favor of not shirking from explicit sex, when it fits the story, and I enjoy a bit of gratuitous literary smut here and there. But some of this sexual content was just bent.

Overall, I thought this was a unique and compelling story with memorable characters, that illuminates the the second world war and the holocaust and how it affects us several generations later. It shows us an empty field where a shtetl stood for generations, seeing births, marriages, feuds, friendships, and deaths, obliterated by Nazis in one afternoon. This image is more powerful than anything that could be expressed in words. It also does a beautiful job of exploring the theme of remembrance, through myriad layers, and I admired the way the author combined quirky humor with somber memory and reflection. This is definitely a novel I will remember.

Read Another Review of This Book At: Books and Other Stuff

Rating: I don't know how to rate this one.


 

Thoughts on the Movie Adaptation: The movie recreated one strand of this complicated novel, the journey Jonathan, Alex, and Alex's grandfather made to Trachimbrod. It offered excellent acting and gorgeous imagery, including a luminous moon shining on the river and a lush field of sunflowers.
While it followed Foer's novel closely in many ways, it made radical changes. Like the book, it revealed secrets about Alex's grandfather, who had been hiding his own memories of World War II. However, the grandfather's story is completely different; I am still puzzling over why screenwriters changed it.

The movie also created a new facet to Jonathan's character by making him a "collector," a young man with the quirky habit of taking things that evoke memories -- photos, his grandmother's false teeth, dirt from her grave -- and bagging, labeling and saving them. I think this may have been done to capture some of the elements of Jonathan's fictionalized history, which isn't presented in the film . It reminded me of its emphasis on multi-generational memories, and on the things that make up much of people's lives. When asked why he collected all these objects, the film version of Jonathan said, "I'm afraid I'll forget." It reminded me of the way Yankel, in the fictionalized history, scrawled his memories on his ceiling with lipstick. I also think the movie's authors wanted to reinforce the theme of remembrance which was explored so richly in the novel.

I liked the novel and the movie equally but, for me, they were very different. The book offered incredibly rich, though uneven, narratives about history and memory that could never be duplicated on screen. The film offered the advantage of not having to wade through the bent and self-consciously clever parts, of course. It also created gorgeous imagery and made the characters more three dimensional and human, somehow.

Another thing I admired about the movie, which I saw for the first time several years ago before picking up the book, was the way it revealed the history of antisemitism in Europe. It seems that too many accounts of the Holocaust treat it as if it were disconnected from the rest of Europe's history, as if Hitler somehow conjured the evil of antisemitism. Like much of Eastern Europe, Ukraine had a long history of progroms and other forms of persecution. Jonathan pointed out, in a very apt and poignant moment, that at first many Ukrainian Jews came to the Nazis to protect them from the Ukraine.

I recommend this movie, though it's not for the squeamish. Take a peek at Roger Ebert's review of this film. I agree with his comment that this is a movie that "grows upon reflection" -- it also benefits from a second viewing.

Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger

    Bespectacled, Australian/Jewish and peculiarly named Esther Blueburger (Danielle Catanzriti)'s coming-of-age is the subject of this balanced comedy-drama, which starts out strong and sinks into a pile of saccharine sweetness and bewildering contrivance. The theme, that in the pursuit of popularity, a young person can become the thing they've always hated -- a bully -- is a little didactic, but the movie initially deals with it in a light way.

   Esther is a twin, which would be hard enough in itself, but in this case especially so, as her brother is both manipulative and highly intelligent. She lives with the said twin (Christian Byars) and her inattentive parents (Essie Davis and Russell Dykstra) and goes to a private school which, day in and day out, is a parade of stifling conformity.

   The school uniforms are heinous. The halls are populated by school bullies, including a chick-clique that resembles an Aussie "The Plastics," and nerds. Esther is a nerd, hopelessly out of step with her peers. Lonely, she finds comfort in a flock of ducklings found caged in a classroom, who subsequently end up being the class science experiment.

   Esther's folks want her to invite friends to her upcoming Bat Mitzvah. Esther doesn't have any friends, at least, not until she meets popular Sunni (Keisha Castle-Hughes, an attractive and talented actress you might know for her astonishing performance in Whale Rider.) Sunni introduces her to her unpleasant, b**chy friends. But, surprisingly, Sunni isn't like the others. She takes her under her wing and, in her own slightly condescending way, introduces her to the clique experience.

   Unknown to her parents, Esther borrows a school uniform of Sunni's and goes to her school secretly, where she struggles to reinvent herself. Along the way, she learns the ins and outs of school politics, meets Sunni's eccentric mom, Mary (Toni Collette), who moonlights as a pole dancer, and begins to become a bully, much to the chagrin of Sunni, who had expected more of her.

    Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger starts out as a nice little movie, which saves it from being a complete failure in the end. Newcomer Danielle Catanzriti tends to overact with her mouth, but overall she's a good little actress, but it is Christian Byars who really stands out as her troubled brother. Keisha Castle-Hughes doesn't get as much of a juicy role as she did in Whale Rider, but she holds her own as likable but imperfect Sunni, who is more complicated  than her name suggests.

   The main problem here is the sentimental, overcooked ending and the air of predictability. There are some uncomfortable moments, such as Esther making out with a much-older boy who asks to "feel her boobs" (a watered-down version of a scene in This Is England), or when Esther laments that she "doesn't want to be a virgin at fourteen" (sad, but all too realistic). This is nothing compared to a deleted sequence, which I have only heard described, that was cut from the Region 1 release. The sexual content makes it a movie for kids twelve and up and adults who can look past that the fact that the ending approaches ridiculousness and nearly ruins the movie.

Note- In my humble opinion, the tagline ("Sometimes you have to fit in to stand out") doesn't make a whole lot of sense.