July 2016: David Liss' Historical Novels

July's been a month with fewer pleasure reads (thanks to a more than busy month at work), but the novels of David Liss provided some enjoyable downtime. I'd had these on the shelf for some years (the spines looked so elegant in the living room) before finally digging in this summer. Due to their period flavor, the prose reads a bit slower than much contemporary fiction, but the books amply reward time spent reading. There's quite a bit of plot (with mystery/detective story elements), historical details of daily life and bigger economic/political systems, intellectual challenge, and interesting, likable but imperfect characters. 

Benjamin Weaver, the protagonist of A Conspiracy of Paper, A Spectacle of Corruption, and The Devil's Company is loosely based on an actual historical figure, Daniel Mendoza. Weaver is an ex-boxer; a former highwayman; a London Jew proud of his Portuguese vs. Eastern European heritage, not especially devout and estranged from his family when A Conspiracy of Paper opens; and a professional thieftaker, a kind of proto-detective-cum-bounty-hunter. It's this role that propels the plots of the books, as Weaver follows his own peculiar code of honor in the clients he takes and the jobs he pursues, not part of the justice system controlled by the aristocracy or 18th century London's world of organized crime. In each book, his case touches on matters of national historic significance and present-day resonance: in A Conspiracy of Paper, the ethics of the stock market and its establishment; in A Spectacle of Corruption, elections (the title speaks for itself); and in The Devil's Company, global trade with protectionism, monopolies, workers' representation, and technological innovation all in the mix.

Weaver may be Liss' most fascinating creation, but Ethan Saunders of The Whiskey Rebels was the more amusing narrator. (In The Whiskey Rebels, chapters in Saunders' POV alternate with chapter from Joan Maycott, whose prose is less compelling but who plays a key role in the action on the western Pennsylvania frontier.) Saunders is a disgraced Revolutionary War spy, a self-absorbed drunk and a rake, a romantic and a patriot. When he learns his former fiancee's family may be in danger, he's drawn into a conflict that reaches from the early capital of Philadelphia to the wilds of Pittsburgh and the financial markets of New York, one deeply entwined with Alexander Hamilton's new Bank of the United States and the question of what it means to value "liberty" and "pursuit of happiness."

Other July reads included Nalo Hopkinson's SFF short story collection Falling in Love with Hominids -- some good stories, but overall kind of "meh." I wasn't as drawn in, excited, or challenged as I generally am by her novels. I also re-read Lev Grossman's The Magicians, enjoying it just as much as the first time around (perhaps the highs seemed not quite as high but, better prepared, I found Quentin less annoying overall). In August, I'll finally find out how the trilogy ends. 

August 2015: Nonfiction Round-up

First, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which I did actually finish in July, deserves a mention. I think George R. R. Martin's description of the book as "wonderfully elegaic" is spot-on. It's a postapocalyptic tale in which a plague devastates the globe; bands of survivors must make their way in a world largely deprived of technology and other infrastructure. There are a couple of threads that connect, or almost connect, including the pre-plague story of Canadian Shakespearian Arthur Leander actor and the post-plague story of Kirsten, a member of the Travelling Symphony who as a child had a walk-on role in Leander's production of Lear. Most of the novel muses on the value of art (including through a storyline pertaining to a mysterious comic book that almost seemed to me a homage to Moore's Watchmen). While there were some aspects of plot that didn't fully satisfy (the central villain seems pretty easily defeated after being built up quite a bit), Mandel is a prose stylist in the Hemingway tradition.

August turned out to be the start of a big nonfiction push, mostly focused around religion and anthropology. I started off with Religious Fundamentalism by Peter Herriot, a book that sets out to thoroughly define “fundamentalism” and show how it applies at personal, interpersonal, social group, and societal levels. What attracted me to Herriot’s exploration originally was that he thoroughly acknowledges and explores the similarities among fundamentalisms of many different traditions, including Jewish and Christian as well as Muslim traditions. I wasn’t sure about his 5-point definition of fundamentalism – some of the principles were so generic as to apply to just about any religion or group (he freely admits that it is not the descriptors themselves that are unique to fundamentalism, but their combination, with particular emphasis on the reactiveness of fundamentalism). I’m not sold on the essential reactiveness of fundamentalism; this seems a term even trickier to define that “fundamentalist” and likely to be applied selectively. I also found his emphasis on fundamentalism as a twentieth-century phenomenon to be problematic – it seems to me false and entirely arbitrary to deny the label of fundamentalist to the original followers of al-Wahabbi or to early Anabaptists. While it’s valuable, to have a fairly dispassionate and systematic study of the topic, I found much of the text dry and repetitive (Herriot shows his business background in many ways; the bullet points near the end of each chapter are indeed accurate summaries). Highlights of the book are the illustrative case studies, ranging from a close study of a George W. Bush speech to profiles of an Israeli conservative group and an al-Qaeda cell.

I then moved to a classic that has been on my to-read list for years (at least 15) – Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism. I think my expectations were simply set too high, for while I found the book interesting, I didn’t find it packed with profundity. (Eliade corresponded with Jung and is frequently cited by Campbell, but Shamanism doesn’t reach the ranks of Man and His Symbols, The Hero’s Journey, or The Mythic Imagination for me. Part of that no doubt is that I was already familiar with the gist of Eliade’s argument.) I found some of his distinctions forced and resented his often condescending approach any time women are involved in shamanic practice (Eliade uses discounts such instances as mere mediumship or witchcraft). The introduction to my edition had a brief, interesting forward by Wendy Doniger that talked about the shortcomings and real contributions of Eliade and other scholars of comparative religion and “armchair anthropologists.”

I moved on to more contemporary studies of witchcraft and shamanship, some newly acquired and others the long-hoarded fruits of past visits to the Heartwood bookstore. In Darkness and Secrecty: The Anthropology of Asault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia, edited by Neil L. Whitehead and Robin Wright and published by Duke University Press, is an interesting collection of academic (some highly academic) articles on shamanship in South America, with a focus on “dark shamanship” that in large part seeks to counterbalance overly-positive (and New Agey) depictions of shamans. The editors reject a distinction between “witchcraft” and “shamanship,” and most articles focus on how shamanic practice is customized to particular community needs or practices. There is a detailed depiction of shamanship in Warao cosmology; several articles looking at historical intersections or contemporary conflicts to find connections between shamanship and politics; and an exploration of child sorcery and its consequences (accused sorcerers were frequently executed).

The Modernity of Witchcraft by Peter Geschiere and Witchcraft, Power and Politics by Isak Niehaus with Eliazaar Mohlala and Kally Shokane document African witchcraft in Cameroon and South Africa. Geschiere, writing in 1997, cautions against discounting witchcraft beliefs as vestiges of a primitive past that will be swept away in a modern, global society (or as the exaggerations of patronizing and racist colonizers, despite admitted misreadings and over-emphasis of witchcraft beliefs by many Western scholars); he shows how strongly-held witchcraft beliefs continue to be a part of African society, and indeed how witchcraft beliefs and have changed and practitioners have interacted with other power brokers over time, so that witchcraft has at times been a modernizing (or at least uniting) force rather than a conservative one. The real problems or challenges of witchcraft beliefs are in no way overlooked, and Geschiere devotes considerable attention to accusations and punishments of witchcraft both within the judicial system and extrajudicially. Niehaus and his local collaborators have a similar focus, showing how witchcraft cases changed along with social tensions related to South African relocation of indigenous peoples, politics, and economics, including case studies of witch hunts in the 1990s. With his local collaborators, Niehaus presents numerous stories, analyzing the different types of witches and witchcraft beliefs reported and incorporating many colloquial and Sotho terms. Both studies of African witchcraft point out the power of occult practitioners (who have the power to cure as well as curse, but in doing so typically must identify the source of the curse as someone either within or outside the community) to both support local chiefs or serve as checks on their power, although in contemporary times, their power to challenge the elite may have lessened. Witches can be players in resource redistribution, often accusing those who have failed to give back to the community; they can bind communities together by accusing scapegoat figures such as strangers and the powerless; at the same time, they are always at least in part outsiders and at risk themselves.

Shamans of the Foye Tree by Ana Mariella Bacigalupo returns to South America, focusing on gender identity and expression among the machi, Chilean Mapuche shamans. Although the Mapuche indigenous peoples have been forcibly relocated and excluded from many economic opportunities (much like American Indians in the U.S.), the tone of this book is optimistic overall, and Bacigalupo focuses on the positive ways individual Mapuche machi express themselves. Currently, a majority of Mapuche shamans are women, but the opposite was likely true historically: machi were most often men who nevertheless sometimes presented themselves in feminized ways (including by wearing women’s clothes and headdresses). While there’s no simple parallel between gender roles in today’s America and Mapuche traditions, it’s likely that many were (and are) homosexual. Bacigalupo describes “co-gendered” male machi. The change over time is likely due to the influence of Western colonizing culture, including Spanish machismo, which set aside little space for non-binary or fluid gender roles. Bacigalupo interviews both male and female machi, asking their opinions on their practice, their colleagues, politics, gender roles, sex, and marriage. She follows their practices closely, describing healing (the machi mainstay) and community rituals. She investigates how modern-day machi interact with or ignore the systematized, medical model of the national healthcare system. The foye tree of the title refers to a tree carved with notches, climbed by shamans during rituals as part of an ecstatic, celestial journey, referenced by Eliade.

July 2015 Reading

Well, I was browsing some other blogs that did monthly book reviews or round-ups, and I thought I'd give it a try since I haven't posted in a while. Also, I suspected July would be an easy month to reflect on, since it seemed like I'd read less this month than I had during any other month of the year. (Also, I've been procrastinating on writing my midterm.) When I actually checked my Goodreads stats, I found that July is actually my 2015 month of second-fewest-books-read. I only read four books in June, but one of those was The Crimean War by Orlando Figes and I was pretty sick for at least a good part of that month, so I give myself a pass. Also, I read  two issues of Foreign Affairs cover-to-cover (I'm digging that subscription much more this year than last time I tried it.)

Anyway, July. I suspect Station Eleven would be the stand-out of the month, but I'm only two-thirds through and not at all sure I'll finish by tomorrow. So instead I'll give the top spot to Shrubs: An Old Fashioned Drink for Modern Times by Michael Dietsch. This is a cookbook! It was also a birthday gift from Noah. It's rare I read a cookbook from cover-to-cover, but this is one of those rarities; it opens with a discussion of the history of shrubs (whose name comes from the same origins as sherbet and syrup), which are essentially fruity simple syrups with a vinegar base. They can be mixed into cocktails or blended with soda water to create homemade soft drinks, and I am looking forward to mixing up a few, which will apparently keep for a year in a fridge. (Hold the jokes, please.) 

The book opens with some traditional, heavy-on-booze, light-on-vinegar recipes, including recipes used by Benjamin Franklin and Martha Washington. (The whole section, with its presentation of the original recipe wording and a modern adaptation reminds me of the VHS-sponsored historical cider tasting at Blue Bee.) Ben's is basically oranges marinated in rum and is definitely on my to-try list. There are some suggestions for modern white rums that still have some of the rum "funk" associated with darker or blackstrap varieties. (I haven't checked yet to see how well represented these are in the local ABCs.) The majority of the book is devoted to simple but enticing fruity concoctions -- like the strawberry balsamic, cherry mint, and blackberry-raspberry shrubs. Experimentation is encouraged, and there's a cucumber shrub I'm itching to add a jalapeno twist to. The final section of the book is devoted to cocktails, ending with the "ultramodern" twist on an old fashioned: bourbon, Scotch, cinnamon fig shrub, and a dash of bitters.

Roadside Picnic, a Russian sci-fi classic by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, was another July standout. The novel has a bit of the PKD high concept, slapdash feel about it, with long talky moments interspersed with action sequences. We begin, after an introductory faux interview, in the point-of-view of Red, who works at an international research institute but makes his real living as a "stalker," venturing into the perplexing and dangerous areas affected by alien contact and stealing artifacts to sell on the black market. In Roadside Picnic, the cosmos may be indifferent to humanity, and most characters try to make do in an amoral world.

House of Rain is probably the main reason for my slow July. This moderately hefty nonfiction volume had caught my eye some time ago, and the subject was indeed fascinating: author Craig Childs tackles the question of why the Anasazi culture "disappeared" around 1300 A.D., resisting the idea of disappearance and instead looking at archaeological support for possible migration paths southward. He doles out his argument in snippets along with descriptions of ruins and other landmarks (generally very well written; Childs has a feel for the locale) and ancecdotes detailing his own thoughts, hikes, and journeys (often with chance-met travelers or his wife and infant son filling mostly non-speaking roles as add-ons to the scenery). Hey, he obviously walked the walk, but I could do with a little less walking and meditating and a little more of the archaeological data and hypothesizing. The attitude toward the general public that comes across is also kind of ambivalent and perverse. (Many of the sites are on national parkland, and Childs is often trespassing or wheedling his way into special-exception status in order to complete his research/experience. Childs seems to thoroughly believe that he deserves special-exception status while also seeming to think that maybe more of these sites should be more open to the public while also seeming to think that the public are mostly bores who can't appreciate what they're seeing, block the scenery, and get in the way of his mystical experiences). The book was published in 2007, and Childs appears to be ahead of a curve, with contemporary archaeologists seeming to spend more time looking at patterns of migrations and leaning toward a consensus that, yes, many of the Anasazi did move to other population centers. Not a professional achaeologist, Childs is free to make some larger guesses and generalizations and makes a pretty convincing argument for linking many of the Anasazi sites to sites to the south and to worship of Tlaloc, a Mexican/mesoamerican rain god.

Another reason for the relatively low July book count was my tackling of the massive volume The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year (Volume 9), edited by Jonathan Strahan. I enjoy short stories, but I often find reading a collection of short stories takes me longer than reading a novel ... with a novel, once I get into the rhythm, I can usually read a few pages while standing in line or eating lunch and be able to be fully immersed and remember what I've read. This is not as true for me with short stories, which I prefer to read in one sitting (though that can be hard to count on with some of the novella-length works). So, trying to find sustained reading time slows my pace, as does a preference for pausing for some processing time between stories. A great short story, even though short, is like a novel in that you want some time to think about it before diving into a new work.

Overall, although several of the stories veered more toward the slice-of-life approach than I'd prefer, this was a very strong volume. Holly Black's "Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (The Successful Kind)" was a highlight, telling a somewhat familiar but happily complete story with a few interesting authorial tricks. K.J. Parker's "I Met a Man Who Wasn't There," about a sorcerer's student, is full of delightful black humour and about as far from Harry Potter as it gets. Joe Abercrombie tells a cursed-object in sorta-fantasy-Venice tale with switching points of view; Lauren Beukes deftly tackles biotechnology in "Slipping" while Greg Egan finds utilitarian and criminal uses for drones in "Shadow Flock"; Ian McDonald's "The Fifth Dragon" takes a hard SF approach to life on the moon that also speaks to sacrifice and relationships; Elizabeth Bear's artificially "right-minded" sociopath makes for a compelling narrator in "Covenant," a mini crime thriller that poses several ethical quandaries. Peter Watts detonates the ethics case study in "Collateral"; Kelly Link tells an atmospheric fairy tale; Rachel Swirsky write a well-crafted AI tearjerker; Usman T. Malik writes an ambitious tale that brings together science metaphors, superpowers, conflict in the Middle East, and family values. I'm not much of a horror fan in general, but I found the aestheticization of violence in Caitlyn Keirnan's short story particularly problematic. (That's not to mention the incest, er  twincest, which I'm not certain was a problem, but I'm not certain it wasn't, either.) On the other hand, the charming octogenarian narrator in Garth Nix's horror short "Shay Worsted" made for an entertaining if slight piece. There are 28 tales and 634 pages in all. 

Largely inspired by my viewing of Justified (and listening to a few of the commentary tracks) was a spurt of crime reading. I read The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which Elmore Leonard called the best crime novel ever written, published in 1970 and set in the Boston of cops and criminals. Its dense, fast-paced dialogue and way of coming at the main action sideways through different POVs was deft and enjoyable; however, even when it deliberately tries to give female characters some agency or autonomy, it fails miserably in its writing of women. (Thankfully? the book mostly focuses on men.) Swag has a similarly distinctly 70s vibe (also with a bit of a whiff of misogyny, although less so) and tells an entertaining story of odd-couple armed robbers. Leonard has a spare but humorous style that works well here and perhaps even better in his short story collection Fire in the Hole.   

Closing the Book on 2014, One Chapter Down in 2015

So, how did I do on the reading challenges I set myself in 2014? Goodreads data shows that, with 185 books read, including 139 works of science fiction and fantasy and 11 volumes of poetry, I met all but one. A few highlights below:

Since I had never read a science fiction or fantasy graphic novel before, I set a small goal of 5 books for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Graphic Novel Challenge, which I quickly upped to 10. After that, I stopped changing the goal but kept reading (torn between wanting to try a variety of approaches and a strong impulse toward series completism), winding up with 43 volumes read. At the top of the list stands Saga – fun, thoughtful space opera with incredible painterly illustrations. Another favorite was the entertaining The Sixth Gun, an action-filled Western with an engaging cast and wonderful, detailed illustrations (the Thunderbird remains a highlight). Also standing above the crowd were Y: The Last Man, particularly strong in its opening volumes describing the responses to a global catastrophe that seems to have killed all the world’s males and bringing our hero Yorick’s story to a satisfying conclusion in volume 10, and Fables, a less philosophical series that follows the lives of fairy tale characters living in modern-day New York, at its best when telling war stories or poignant morality tales.

This challenge also encouraged me to check out some of the much-vaunted classics of the speculative graphic novel. While I didn’t especially care for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes (perhaps I should have heeded Internet advice to start with a later volume), I enoyed Snowpiercer’s starkly drawn tale of postapocalyptic class struggle aboard an unstopping train despite its weaknesses in characterization. It was easy to see why Alan Moore’s work has been deemed classic, and I certainly thought V for Vendetta and Watchmen earned their status, although they didn’t necessarily become favorites (a bit of datedness/the fact that I’ve now seen many variations on these themes – many of them inspired by Moore’s work – comes into play, as well as the fact that despite a few attempts to portray well-rounded females, I found Moore’s characterization of women to be problematic overall). I probably give the edge to V for Vendetta; although I’m not sure I buy a key relationship, the politics is still interesting; interesting, too, is how important words are in the way this graphic story is told, from a full sermon to vaudeville-style lyrics. Reading Watchman’s reflections of what it might really mean to possess a superpower or to exist “beyond the law” was made even more interesting by comparing its 1980s outlook to the current outpouring of books, films (Man of Steel and Birdman to mention but two), and TV shows now tackling the same themes.  
 

Then there was the SFF Explorer Challenge to read authors whose work I hadn’t read before. I expected that this category would lead me to explore some of the older “classic” science fiction writers whose work I wasn’t familiar with and perhaps also more military sci fi, which is a genre I often find entertaining and frustrating at the same time. In fact, what this challenge mostly prompted me to do was prioritize some writers who’d been on my to-read list for a while (like N.K. Jemisin with the Dreamblood duology) and some newer writers (like Madeline Ashby, who explored the ethics of artificial intelligence, with a lot of action and roadtripping thrown into the mix, in vN and iD). Nalo Hopkinson was one of these writers, and Midnight Robber was one of my top books of 2014, a book in which a high tech space colony can also be a bastion of Carribean culture, propelled at the sentence level by vivid dialect, and exploring (among many other topics) female friendships and coming of age.

I started with a goal of 15 or 20 for the Explorer Challenge, eventually raised it to 30, and ended with 34 titles fitting the bill. Of course, completing other challenges had a spillover effect in the “new to me” category, as did the books and stories I read in order to take place in online discussions. “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window,” was one of my first reads in 2014 and Rachel Swirsky’s haunting short story collection How the World Became Quiet remains one of the most memorable. Many of Swirsky’s stories explore gender through a speculative lens, but How the World Became Quiet is by no means a one-note collection. It begins with “The Lady Who…” novella, in which a sorceress from a warrior caste finds her consciousness preserved and her beliefs challenged as she encounters generation after generation of descendents and others. While not every story reaches the same level, there are numerous highs, from a ghost story set in Japan’s “Sea of Trees” to “A Monkey Will Never Be Rid of Its Black Hands,” which takes a personal look at global violence, to a relationship story that asks how an artificial intelligence experiences “Eros, Philia, Agape.”  

Another short fiction standout was On a Red Station, Drifting, part of Aliette de Bodard’s Vietnamese-inflected Xiyun universe. In the novella, a refugee crisis and uncertain peace are the backdrop for a multigenerational power struggle on Prosper Station. de Bodard draws strong, not always likeable, female characters and gives depth to most of her cast (be they male, female, and/or computer).

I found a lot to enjoy in my 2014 reading -- the great fun of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series and Michael J. Sullivan’s old-fashioned Riyria books; Jeff VanderMeer’s very weird Southern Reach trilogy; China Mieville’s marriage of science fiction and linguistics in Embassyville; Samuel R. Delany’s darkly playful The Einstein Intersection; Toby Barlow’s unique story of Parisian detectives, American spies, and Russian witches in Babayaga; K. J. Parker’s tactical and tough Fencer Trilogy; the Afro-Celtic scope of Kate Elliott’s Spiritwalker trilogy; The Lathe of Heaven (in which Ursula K. LeGuin seems to channel reality-bending Philip K. Dick); Jonathem Lethem’s Chandler-meets-Dick noir with a talking kangaroo Gun, With Occasional Music; and Dick’s own, suprisingly personal, paranoid yet exuberant A Scanner Darkly. 

I read a number of books from C.J. Cherryh’s celebrated Alliance/Union Universe (conceived in some ways as a mirror of the Cold War), in which I found the recurring themes I expect from Cherryh (attention paid to economics, politics, and the mechanics of ships and stations) as well as a few surprises (“damaged” male adolescents as protagonists or prominent characters). Downbelow Station makes a complicated conflict between planets, ships, and unions into a pageturner; Rimrunners’ tough vet narrator, Bet Yeager, is compelling in her struggles to leave behind staion life; Cyteen tells an expansive and insightful tale of cloning, politics, and parenting. 

My reading outside the realms of fantasy and science fiction included the enraging but important nonfiction Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press, multigenerational Vietnam memoir The Eaves of Heaven, and Monica Drake’s not-just-chick-lit The Stud Book.

A few books and authors merit special mention:

Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being was a January 2014 read that’s stuck with me. It meditates on Zen, time, and mortality while telling the stories of a West Coast novelist and a Japanese teenager facing brutal bullying. Ozeki’s stories tend to be emotional but not sentimental, to ask big questions, and to promote environmentalism. In 2014, I also enjoyed My Year of Meats, which begins with a quote from Shonagon’s Pillow Book and introduces two very different protagonists, a brash Japanese-American documentarian working on a television series funded by the Beef Export and Trade Syndicate and a subdued Japanese housewife whose husband is part of BEEF-EX.

I had long heard fantastic recommendations for Mary Doria Russell’s Jesuits-in-space novel, The Sparrow. Both it and its sequel Children of God live up to the hype in their exploration of spacefaring possibilities; real questions of values, faith, and reason; and how individuals can change over time or just when looked at from a different point of view.

Although I’ve heard very little about this book and its author, A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn would be very close to the top of the list if I was attempting numerical rankings for my 2014 reading. The central story focuses on Josephine Ashkenazi, who has designed the program Genizah, which takes social media and other information to create incredibly detailed personal archives or living memories. Focused more on her work than her young daughter, Josie has been invited to do some high-profile consulting work with a library in Cairo. Not far into the book, you realize that you are reading a modern-day version of the Biblical Joseph story, but Horn ably walks the line of hewing to many of the details of the original while allowing enough differences to make the current tale seem plausible and its outcome uncertain. Into the layers of the novel, Horn pulls the story of Jewish scholar Maimonides (who like Josie faces political, religious, and sibling tensions) and the nineteenth-century Cambridge professor who helped uncover Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed in the geniza (worn-out document storage) room of a Cairo synagogue. Horn paints a complex view of Josie, her family, and global conflict in a novel that muses on the importance of memory and tradition. At least one review characterized this, Horn’s fourth, as her “best novel yet,” which seems likely to be true. I read Horn’s second novel, The World to Come, which includes an art theft, Marc Chagall’s early job teaching in a Soviet orphanage, Yiddish parables, and American Jews in Vietnam and New Jersey. Although I enjoyed it, I found the multilayered story tended a bit more toward the vignette than in Guide for the Perplexed. I’ll read Horn’s other two novels as well, but I’ll also eagerly look forward to her future work.

The only challenge I didn’t meet was my “14 books of contemporary poetry for every year of the 21st Century challenge.” I got as far as 7 books (though some publication years were particularly alluring, so I actually read nearly a dozen volumes of poetry). I won’t be too hard on myself for coming short: the two main themes of poetry are love are death; you could say that the main theme of poetry is ephemerality, and that can sometimes get a little dark. I’m not always in the mood for that. (Of course there are other, sometimes overlapping themes, including self expression and promotion of social change. I’ll admit that sometimes a book like Stacey Waite’s Butch Geography can be more enjoyable just for the fact that it presents someone else’s struggles, strengths, and weaknesses.) A lot of the poetry I read last year struck me as “just OK,” perhaps partly due to the fact that, while reading a full collection allows for emergence of themes and interesting points of comparison, it may also have a bit of a dilution effect, with individual verses fading into an overall remembered blur. Some works stood out as collections: the overall project of Susan Slavierno’s Cyborgia was perhaps more impressive than any of the individual poems on their own. Outstanding in my 2014 poetry reading was Blowout by Denise Duhamel. The biggest fault of the collection is probably that it never quite surpasses the height achieved in its opening poem, “How It Will End” – with a believable conflict that turns and develops, everyday language that is rhythmic and propelling, humor, a point of view, and a real sense of stakes.

How best to address this missed goal? As the 21st Century remains young and full of appealing poetry titles, I think I’ll turn it into a two-year challenge. In 2015, I’ll aim to fill in the years missed plus something as-yet-unpublished. I was inspired by a collection of newspaper columns by poet Edward Hirsch (whose taste I’m not sure is very similar to mine but who seems to have pulled together quite a strong group of world poets) in which he writes about a poet at a time, giving some broad background on the writer but focusing on discussion of a single poem. My ambitious goal will be to review each volume of poetry I read this year in this way, focusing on a single poem (my favorite, or perhaps one I find most emblematic). I think this might be a fairer way to discuss and evaluate the poems I’ve read, a way of resisting the lyric blur.

What are other goals for 2015? I set a relatively modest goal of reading 100 books overall (I’ll probably read more, but reading is one thing for which I don’t need to find an incentive) and at least 20 science fiction or fantasy authors who are “new to me.” I also set a goal to participate in online discussions. I should probably set a goal for “number of books reviewed on this blog” … what would a good quantity be? Hmmm, I’ll think on it …

The Girl in the Road

The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne feels singular. What stands out is the bold, female, first person voice of Meena. (Mariama’s voice is not quite as vivid, though Byrne ably balances the child’s sometimes skewed perspective.) Some time 20 to 50 years in the future, two individuals embark on perilous journeys – young Mariama, born into slavery and separated from her mother, across the width of Africa in a truck caravan – and Meena, a college dropout from IIT-Bombay whose parents were murdered in Ethiopia and who sets out to cross (illegally) the Trans-Arabian Linear Generator, an energy-producing pontoon bridge that stretches from Mumbai to Djibouti. Both have been propelled on their journey by snake attacks that may not be all they seem; their back stories are filled in as the novel and their travels progress, and we learn more about how their stories might relate to one another.

         There are intriguing sci fi concepts here – it’s a world affected by climate change where today’s “developing world” is the center of global investment. Addis Ababa is the happening city of modern Africa. (One of the central conflicts of the book is the treatment of Ethiopian workers and the colonial-capitalist exploitation of Ethiopian resources by Indian businesses. I don’t know whether there is actually a history of migration between those two countries from which this future is extrapolated, but I can think of plenty contemporary parallels, for example, the treatment of Indian guest workers in the Middle East.) Alternative energy is crucial, from the solar Sun Traps of Sudan to, centrally, the TALG or Trail, with its pioneering wave energy and its controversial use of metallic hydrogen (a valuable but potentially unstable superconductor). Then there are the casual extrapolations of near-future tech, like “mitters” for wireless transfer of funds (far more common than cash) and the “glotti” translator.

         The novel describes a classic man vs. nature conflict – if we take man to mean woman and accept a future in which nature, even the deepest sea, is inherently compromised by the man-made. The TALG or Trail is an inhospitable as environments come, the path one of lunging peaks and troughs, intermittently submerging itself to allow the passage of ships. Food and potable water must be extracted from the surrounding sea or obtained through encounters with dangerous strangers; the sun and the solitude are brutal. Importantly, beyond the survival story itself, The Girl in the Road also asks what it means to be “a survivor.”

         But I’d say this is a book about sex. (I have a kneejerk tendency to lament: why does a book with an interesting, fresh female protagonist have to be about sex and relationships? But isn’t my assumption that a plot based in science is superior to one saturated in sex, with its suggestion that action-adventure is more worthwhile than romance, problematic in itself? Then, too, as I write, I think maybe I should reconsider my categorization: as central as human sexuality is to this novel, to the characters and themes, perhaps at its heart it’s a book about love.) It’s not clear whether Meena is bipolar or just impulsive, but her inner monologue thrusts the reader into her physicality as much or more than her strategizing, and her relationship with the hijra Mohini becomes just as compelling as the mysteries of who killed her parents and how Mariama’s African journey connects to her water-walk. While I’m not sure whether of the book’s elements are intriguing comments on the theme or problematic plot shortcuts (some of the hallucinations, for instance) The Girl in the Road is a fascinating pageturner that rips through the boundaries of more than one or two genres in its global travels.

Astride the Gun Zam-Zammah

I don’t know what I expected of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. A militaristic novel that enthusiastically endorsed the British Raj. A nineteenth century tome (Kim was actually published in 1901) portraying Indians in a manner politically incorrect at best and with deeply offensive potential for a 21st century readership; a set-piece of orientalism. A Kipling novel, so one with lively action, vivid depictions, and memorable (male) characters. I didn’t expect a spy novel. I didn’t expect the “Great Game” among British, Russian, and other colonial powers with non-Western peoples and their lands as the tokens to be treated so openly. I didn’t expect a book that takes seriously Buddhist ideals that devalue the material world. (I didn’t expect the poetry – verse lead-ins to every chapter – although I should have.) I didn’t expect a portrait of India that aims to paint in the finests of shades, delineating different castes, countries of origins, and most especially religion, attempting nuances that it seemed to me are just beginning to be in English by the nonfiction of the past few decades (mostly written contextualize, warn of, or understand global conflict).

         So Kim is the spy story I didn’t expect, beginning when Kim’s picaresque adventures lead to him stumbling upon a message of urgent military import. One of the critics quoted in my editions annotated bibliography writes insightfully that the “India of Kim … is like a vast and well-equipped nursery full of benevolent mothers and fathers, who are all regarded as belonging to the gang.” Kim’s is a coming-of-age story that involves learning from many mentors, but mostly it’s of choosing between two – Col. Creighton and the opportunity to be a valuable but hidden cog in British espionage machine, or Teshoo Lama whose way offers few comforts but is devoted to gaining spiritual merit. Kim is described as very much of the world, and I never doubted that he would choose the life of a spy for the English – and yet, of the two paths, it’s not clear that the novel holds the spy’s to be superior. I’d argue that the lama (perhaps unintentionally) is portrayed as the better (more morally upright) man, and whenever the lama’s advice comes into conflict with, it usually the lama whose wisdom is proved.

         While Kim certainly endorses British colonial rule and practically redefines “loyalty” as “loyalty to the British empire,” being part of the patriotic effort is not the unambiguously cheerful adventure one might expect from Kim’s early chapters. Spoiler: Although one can expect that when an aged holy man enters a book in its first pages, his demise is likely to follow at some point, leaving his protegé with responsibilities and lessons learned, Kim complicates the narrative by making the lama’s death a direct result of Kim’s covert mission. The lama’s death can be seen as an eulogoy for native cultures lost or corrupted by colonial rule, but it can also be seen as the sacrifice of ideals on the altar of realpolitik. Kim’s breakdown/illness at the novel’s end is chalked up to exhaustion from tending to the weakened lama and the burden of holding significant intelligence with no clear means to pass it on, but its timing suggests it’s a guilty conscience that provokes his collapse. (The technique by which this collapse is introduced – with the initial focus on the return journey and the state of the lama’s health while the seriousness of Kim’s exhaustion only becomes fully clear from the reactions to his recovery – is interesting, and after reading the biographical notes, it’s hard not to see parallels to Kipling’s own nervous breakdowns.) Kim’s decisions and those of other characters have real stakes, and while specific to Raj setting, they also have wider implications – who is worth emulating, and how does one choose between competing loyalties? how does one reconcile religion with pleasure or with individual goals? is there a value to diplomacy even if one holds the upper hand?

         There are certainly problematic aspects to Kipling’s potrayals of native Indians (and Afghanis and Tibetans). The lama may be venerated by the text as well as by his title, but I can’t believe a white character would have been written as gullible-bordering-on-idiotic, most particularly in the final discovery of the River. (While the Protestant and Catholic army chaplains have their humorous flaws, they are not presented as fools, not even holy fools.) The most offensive charicature is Hurree Badu (whose desire to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, although ostensibly genially accepted in the book by Col. Creighton, is most often depicted as an attempt to literally ape his betters – are we meant to believe that this is the best Kim could have aspired to, despite his education, if he had actually been a Hindu orphan instead of Kimball O’Hara?). Muslim Mahbub Ali comes off as a more respectable figure. Much of the narrative serves to underscore how important both the contributions of native Indians and an understanding of native cultures, yet Kipling provides a protagonist with conveniently white shoulders as the symbol of cultural sensitivity.

         The female characters (few and far between in a book that highlights male bonds) deserve a word. At first, I thought Kipling would stick to true “The Vampire” form, seasoning in an occasional whore or nag for local flavor. But while not quite real people, Kipling does give his female characters their own histories and motivations but these are chosen from a narrow range of stereotypical options (a loquacious grandmother who nurtures with her cooking, a woman seduced and abandoned by an English soldier who neverthless provides lavish aid to Kim out of romantic sentimentalism). The Woman of Shamlegh was intriguing (is there a symbolism to her appearance at the end of the tale? was it only because she happed to be available, recycled from an earlier short story? does the fact that she lives in an area where polyandry is indeed practiced make the emphasis on her two husbands and sexual desires more or less palatable?). Despite the female characters’ limitations, it’s clear that Kipling means the reader to ultimately value their contributions to the novel and on Kim’s behalf.

         What do I take away from Kim? It is in many ways a relic of a historical worldview with continued global implications. It utilizes all the elements of a story and is able to weave in consideration of politics and religion, too. In its dense descriptions, its affectionate wealth of detail, its panorama of places and personalities, it’s a book that places understanding of others high amongst the values (not all so noble) that it champions.

Fortunes Wagered

A Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir earns the “Austen-esque” description its sepia teacup cover seems to court, delivering a rare example of well-done third person omniscient POV. Harris, a Pakistani who’s spent more than half of his life in England, receives the title sum as a divorce settlement from his wealthy English wife and must decide where to bestow it – on his daughter Alia (who has dropped out of med school without telling him), the cousins he left behind in his impoverished home village, his alternately caretaking and scheming cousins in Northern England, or perhaps an investment in one of his friend Omar’s international business deals. Aside from a few moments in the storyline centered around Rashid (the Pakistani cousins’ eldest son, whose English education Harris has supported), A Small Fortune avoids melodrama, painting the flaws and foibles alongside the enthusiams and kindnesses of the entire cast, from Alia’s English boyfriend to Dr. Farrah, a widowed literature professor and potential romantic interest for Harris. In a comedy of manners it can sometime be easy to forget how deeply our manners reflect our values; with stakes both large and small, the dry but affectionate and totally believable A Small Fortune remembers.

***

In another novel that concerns itself with both money and national identity, English school Headmaster Percival Chen of Saigon (born Chen Pie Sou in Shantou province, China) clings to the belief that, with the proper bribes, his business can prosper under any political system – be it colonial French, colonial American, or even Vietnamese. Though his more politically savvy lieutenant and his Vietnam-born son challenge this belief, Chen stubbornly holds faith, blinding himself to the changes taking place around him while enjoying all the restaurants, clubs, gambling parlors, and high class escort services Saigon (and Cholon, its neighboring Chinatown) can offer. History will not, however, leave the headmaster untoched, and tensions build – and then break and splatter and settle a bit and rise almost reluctantly again – as we journey with him from 1966 to 1975. Though the novel includes some elements that would suit a Bond or Tarantino film (kidnapping! hookers! brutal imperialists! secret police! casinos! communists!), the close focus on Percival’s daily life (noodle dishes! loan payments! mah jong! bribe packets!) makes this a subtler, psychological story. In other hands (or with a truly omniscient POV instead of a distant but perceptive limited third), Percival might have emerged as the most unlikeable of protagonists, but Vincent Lam’s storytelling leads you (or, at least, me) to truly care for this often frustrating character. Ultimately, The Headmaster’s Wager is a tale of fathers and sons and what’s important in life – from the distant ancestor who found good luck and greener passages on Gold Mountain, to the father who left young Chen Pie Sou behind in order to establish himself in Vietnam’s rice trade, to the legacy Chen hopes to leave his sons as it becomes ever more uncertain where their futures will take them.