Eric Pallant's Fiction Book Reviews Home Fiction Reviews Nonfiction Reviews Jewish Books Mystery To Read Links Fiction Reviews All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou **** (of 4) Using all her gifts as a poet, Angelou recounts a period in the 1950s when she joined a community of ex-patriot African Americans in Ghana to search for connection to the continent of her ancestors. Obviously, her true ancestors, torn from their parents and their history, cannot ever be located. While searching Angelou provides a history of the heady days in Ghana just after it became the first independent black African nation. Having visited Ghana twice in the last two years, however, it is sad to see how little of Ghana's initial promise has come to fruition. June 2008. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon Written for a thinking reader, treats you like you are intelligent, though he could have used a bit of editing to cut some of the excessively long passages. American Pastorale by Phillip Roth Another great piece of Phillip Roth writing about father-daughter relationship in the turbulent 1960's era of revolution. The Attack by Yasmina Khadra **** (of 4) The Arab wife of a Bedouin Israeli physician straps a bomb to her waist and blows up a restaurant where Israeli children are celebrating a birthday party. The shocked physician, after performing emergency surgery on the survivors, embarks on an investigation to learn how his wife arrived at her decision. Khadra makes us compare the life of a successful Arab doctor, is feted by Israeli establishment, but thinks nothing of the struggle of his people to his wife who has been given everything by her husband's success except the capacity to live fully freely in Israeli society. Khadra's entrance into the minds of suicide bombers emerges clearly even after the book has been translated from its original French.. March 2007. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress ** (of 4), by Dai Sijie Listened to on tape, December 2004. It was a good story, but had two strikes against it. The author is Chinese. The book was written in French. The reader was Chinese. The reader wasn't very good and neither was the translation. Unusual adjectives showed up frequently because the translator didn't know how to take the appropriate liberties with language. The story is of two friends banished from their educated city life to the mountains of rural China during the cultural revolution. There they meet unusual characters, a beautiful mountain girl, and the rigidity of Maoist constrictions against books and the arts in favor of manual labor required to "re-educate" intellectuals in the mold of peasant laborers. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett About a Peruvian hostage crisis and a love affair between two hostages, one of whom is an extraordinary opera singer. My father, mother, and sister-in-law loved the book. I couldn't get into it. I didn't really care about the characters enough. Betrothed by S.Y. Agnon A wonderful little novella that I listened to on tape about a botanist who arrives in Palestine in 1909 (I think) is quickly surrounded by six lovely and lovable Jewish women and his abiding love for his childhood sweetheart. Birds without Wings by Louis DeBerniere I tried. I read 100 pages but could get no further. An excessively detailed description of the disintegration of a town of Turks (Muslims) and Greeks (Christians) who get along and then are split apart by World War I or II, I can't recall. Read Corelli's Mandolin instead, by the same author, because it is one of the best books I've ever read. May 2007. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak **** (of 4) Death narrates the story of Liesel Meminger, abandoned, nine-year-old daughter of a communist, who escapes death's grasp during WWII in the German city of Molching. She survives in a foster home with German parents who also hide a Jewish boxing champ in the basement. The book made me sympathize with Germans who were not Nazis, a distinction I don't usually make when considering German responsibility for the Holocaust. Zusak's book is original and creative. It won the Book Sense of the Year Children's Literature Award, but it is a lot more than a children's book. May 2007. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz **** (of 4) What a masterful, entertaining (if one can use such a word for such despicable deeds), and unique way of telling the story of Trujillo’s dictatorial devastation of the Dominican Republic and the impact it continues to have on the Dominican Diaspora.  Oscar Wao, the protagonist, is a nerdy, Dominican fan of Sci Fi growing up beneath the dark shadow of his homeland and his mother’s experience of political tyranny.  Oscar’s tribulations taught me much about the Dominican experience in the U.S. and on the island.  June 2009. City of God by E.L. Doctorow Stream of consciousness, not very good, especially when compared to his other books. It's like he wrote this one as an experiment or wrote it for other writers, rather than for readers. The Coffee Trader by David Liss *** (of 4) A Jewish escapee from the Spanish Inquisition makes his living on the Amsterdam stock market, where shrewd trading skills run up to the border of legality, morality, and safety. The book's strength is its insight into the lives of Jews trying to maintain their religious and economic identity with the memory of Spanish persecution fresh in their minds. Moreover, the description of how stocks, in this case coffee is making its very first appearance in Europe, are bought and sold is fascinating. The plot is rather ordinary, however. It is a quick read. April 2007. Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres **** (of 4) On its surface it is a story of the Italian occupation of the Greek island of Cefalonia during WWII. Captain Corelli, of the Italian armed forces, is billeted in a simple Greek home inhabited by a doctor, his sagacious daughter, and a pine martin that acts like a cat. De Bernieres incomparably constructs characters through who's eyes we see the dehumanization of war and the simultaneous unfolding of love between father and daughter, and daughter and Captain; a love built, as the doctor says, "when the roots of neighboring trees intertwine to form an inseparable entanglement." I laughed out loud in places, and in others, I was glad I was listening to the recorded book alone, so no one could see the tears welling in my eyes. July 2006. Crabwalk by Gunter Grass. A slow, intelligent, patient novel I listened to on tape about how three generations of Germans relate to Nazis. The central theme is the sinking of an ocean liner in which nearly 10,000 people lost their lives making it one of the greatest ocean catastrophes of all times. There's a Stalinist grandmother who lived in East Germany, her liberal, apologist, knee-jerk anti-Nazi son, and his neo-Nazi son. I skipped one of the five tapes by accident and that may have helped prevent the story from becoming too tedious. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon **** (of 4) Christopher Boone has Asperger's Syndrome and Haddon's book is the best portrayal of what goes through the mind of a young teen who is simultaneously a brilliant mathematician and incapable of comprehending facial expressions, other people's emotions, or jokes, to name just a few symptoms. The book follows Christopher's attempts to write a mystery book about a murdered dog and does an astonishing job of describing what a wonderful kid he is and how unbelievably challenging it is to live with him. January 2007. The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat **** (of 4) Danticat impeccably captures the voices and inner thoughts of Haitian peasants, and first and second generation Haitian immigrants to New York and Florida. Violence lingers in the background of the story as it does in real life in a country ruled by dictators, which makes the book readable, rather than gruesome. There are several literary references to lost sight, deafness, and voices gone silent, reflections, I believe, on Danticat's view of the Haitian plight. Characters are complicated mixtures of emotions and priorities. I listened to this book narrated by Robin Miles who distinguished half a dozen Haitian accents so effectively that I felt I knew each protagonist personally. The book is understated, rather than a two by four, subtle and complex enough that it should really be read twice or by a book club. May 2006. Dragon Bones by Lisa See a very good mystery with archaeology in the Three Rivers Gorges of contemporary China. East of Eden by John Steinbeck **** (of 4) A retelling of the stories of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel transposed to three generations of two families living mostly in Salinas, California during the turn of the nineteenth century.  Steinbeck, with good reason, won the Nobel Prize for this book.  It contains a complete geography of place, mind, and character:  Not a falling leaf, nor a raised eyebrow escapes his notice and his recounting makes every leaf and eyebrow unflaggingly important for six hundred pages.  Particularly interesting to me, is that the crux of the story hinges on a Jewish analysis of Genesis (related to readers from the original Hebrew by a Chinese protagonist) and how that contrasts with English translations used by Christians. Hoo Ha. An unbelievably excellent read. June 2006. The Emporer of Ocean Park by Stephen Carter * (of 4) Feh. What can I say other than my review may divulge more about me than the book. Ostensibly a best selling novel of murder, law, and personal intrigue among elite African Americans I didn't last 100 pages because the characters were boring and the plot felt like it was on an elastic band stretched to cracking. Carter created suspense by putting off clues, rather than revealing them little by little and I got bored wading through mediocre writing to find the answer to a question raised 20 pages earlier. October 2006. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer I really enjoyed this book, but I have to admit I didn't understand it. The story line kept coming in and out of focus. Nevertheless, his descriptions of shtetl life in eastern Europe were as authentic as any that Isaac Bashevis Singer or his contemporaries writing 150 years before Foer ever put together. Foer was a master at creating scenes that came to life. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (* of 4) has received excellent reviews from Newsweek, New York Times, New Yorker, and my mother, but I couldn't read even half of it, so take my review with a grain of salt. A nine-year-old genius of a boy searches the wonderful niches of New York City to learn more about his father who has died in the World Trade Center bombing. I think if you can suspend disbelief enough to believe the kid is really a genius, then the book is full of insight for post-9/11 New York. June, 2005. The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat ** (of 4) The dismal lives of Haitian peasants working for insensitive Dominicans goes from bad to worse in this depressing story that feels like an early Danticat work; something from before she really shined in books like The Dew Breaker and Breath, Eyes, Memory (an Oprah book I haven't read.) In Farming of Bones, Danticat's Dominicans are stock characters. Her Haitians are three dimensional. Even not at her best, Danticat is worth reading, if you're in the mood to feel sad. October 2006.. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry **** (of 4) The title refers to the fine balance between hope and despair for four Indians surviving emergency rule, poverty, and the caste system in India ruthless crackdown on disorder by Indira Ghandi during during the 1970s . The chaos of the street appears mostly offstage while the action occurs like a play in the tiny house of Dinabai, a widow trying to live independently after her eyes fail. She takes on a boarding student and two tailors to generate revenue. Mistry's writing took my heart from my body and placed it in the toiling hands of the four protagonists struggling against unfathomable odds. Both sweeping in scope and microcosmic in its examination of daily life this is writing that in my opinion is destined for a Nobel Prize in literature. November, 2005. The Finer Points of Weiner Dogs *** (of 4) A German professor of philology with a specialty in irregular Portuguese verbs is mistaken at an academic conference for a veterinarian with a similar name that happens to be the world's expert on weiner dogs. It's a madcap parody of academic pretentiousness. Reminiscent of Carl Hiassen, only without a plot. August 2006. Good Scent from Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler Short stories on Vietnam and Vietnamese living in Texas. I read about half the stories. They were good, but they were all short stories. It wasn't like reading a novel. Jumpa Lahiri's short stories on the other hand were like reading novels. One after the other. This book did win a Pulitzer, however and again LEP and my sister-in-law thought the book was terrific. The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton *** (of 4) In one of Crichton's earliest books, he retells the adventure of professional, upper crust burglar who spends a year and a half masterminding the heist of gold bullion bound for British troops fighting in the Crimean War of 1854. What makes this book so readable is the expert story telling. Crichton mixes fictionalized conversation with testimony from Pierce's trial, sprinkling the text with fascinating information about trains, British class consciousness, dog fights, and Victorian criminology among other topics. January 2007. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie ** (of 4) I was so disappointed. The book is billed as the great retelling of the Igbo battle for their independent state of Biafra separate from the oppressive, corrupt, military regime of 1960s Nigeria. Maybe the book finally gets to it, but first there are more than 150 pages of love story to establish stock characters: a wealthy, educated Nigerian princess in love with a firebrand African nationalist, her elusive business woman, twin sister in love with an impotent Brit (get it?, impotent British boyfriend in love with Nigeria, but incapble of acting appropriately beyond being in love with business opportunities), and a poor servant boy. After 200 something pages I gave up because the characters seemed drawn up for a graduate writing class and I didn't really care enough about them to find out how the war would impact their love lives. The book has won awards and received amazing reviews so many others like it a lot more than I did. June 2007. The Human Stain by Phillip Roth One of the best pieces of literature I've ever read with multiple layers about an African American who disguises himself as a Jew becomes a college professor at (Williams) and is accused of racism, sexism, agism, and in the end anti-semitism, nearly none of which are true. Very complex characters. The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh *** (of 4) An American-born ecologist of Indian immigrants travels to the Sunderbans to study the Irriwaddy Dolphin. She joins three additional main characters -- a translator, an unlettered fisherman of the tide country, and nature. As a scientist she is so painfully American I must believe that Ghosh's accounts of the others in the book are equally accurate. It's a fine story full of area legends, sights, history, and aromas of islands that submerge to their treetops at every tide, enhanced by the outstanding narration on Recorded Books by Firdous Bamji. August 2009. I am the Messenger by Markus Zuzak * (of 4) Feh. Zuzak's means well. An Australian teenage no-goodnik performs saintly deeds for friends, acquaintances, and strangers transforming himself from a messenger of love to the message of love. But the book is stale and ponderous. It's written for young adults, but It doesn't have the carrying power of a Harry Potter or The Book Thief (also by Zuzak), one of my favorite books of all time. February 2008. Inheritance by Natalie Danford ** (of 4) A too carefully crafted book of remembering and forgetting. A 30-something daughter of an Italian immigrant father with Alzheimer's returns to Urbina, Italy to discover herself, a cousin, a sexy, 30-something Italian lawyer, and her father's secret encounters with the Nazis. In contrast to great literature Inheritance feels like an over-extended short story, or the formula for writing a novel. All the appropriate components are present, but the book lacks vitality. February 2008. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri **** (of 4) Remarkable short stories. Each one feels like a complete novel of Indian immigrants making their way in the new world. Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea *** (of 4) Three spritely teenage girls and an ebullient gay restaurant keeper from the fictitious town of Tres Camarones (Three Shrimps), Mexico make their way to Tijuana. Their goal is to sneak into the U.S. to retrieve men who have left their coastal village defenseless against narcos. It is a comic book approach (without pictures) of the dehumanizing life of poor and emigrated Mexicans while at the same time a celebration of native Mexican culture. June 2009. Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen *** (of 4) An assistant Reform Rabbi slowly loses touch with God while she falls in love with the son of a Holocaust survivor who slowly finds God while the two of them find one another. A nice portrait of the essential tenets of Reform Judaism that what matters most are your actions in life and how the adherence to ritual can help you maintain your religiosity even when - as all Jews do - you must wrestle with the utility of believing in God. The story and the characters seemed real, but the writing was a little stiff. I could put the book down whenever I wanted to. December 2004. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseni There must be a reason it's on so many reading club lists. I tried this book and after fifty pages thought this is too depressing to read and I've read better books on Islam. April 2007. The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden *** (of 4) I didn't see the movie, but listened to a recorded book expertly narrated by Mirron Willis. The reason to read this is for Foden's probing insight into the mind of one of the original African megalomaniacs. Amin's charisma is alive on the page (or at least in the voice of narrator Mirron Willis.) Violence and gore hover in the background as it must have in the lives of many Ugandans, yet rarely appears in the book, except when necessary for the plot. My complaints are comparatively trivial: loose ends tie up a little too neatly and the doctor central to telling the story, Nicholas Garrigan, never quite satisfies me when he stays on in Uganda long after he should have gotten out. Nevertheless, the author's attention to the small details and the big picture, his story telling and thorough research, make it a worthwhile read. July 2007. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel I loved it. A great piece of storytelling. Sure, there were plenty of bits worth analyzing-science vs. religion, first world vs. third world, true vs. false-but I liked it most of all because it was a great adventure. Lying Awake by Mark Salzman ** (of 4) A short novel, or long exercise, about a Carmelite nun in an LA cloister. Nun meets God, nun loses God, nun finds medicine, nun finds God, nun loses God and I won't tell you how it ends. An investigation into the nature of faith and how doubts infect everyone, even women who have forsworn all earthly pleasures to be in monogamous relationships with Jesus/God. Maybe this book about doubting the nature of God's intent could only have been written by a Jew. June 2007. Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam **** of 4 Islamic Pakistani immigrants struggle with isolation from their homeland and one another. Aslam's writing is so replete with metaphor and cultural insight that every page is like peeling an orange. Beneath the skin there is the filmy white pith, a thin membrane about each section, and as the sections are removed, and juice is squeezed from within, he reveals not just the seeds, but individual cells. Aslam's masterpiece is a highly detailed tapestry of emigrant Pakistani culture caught between the old and new. Like all intricate weavings it takes time to construct, but as the plot slowly develops, so does each character's relationship to Islam. Thus, this is the best book I've read on how Islam is practiced by real people, albeit fictional ones. See also, Guests of the Sheik, The Shia Revival, Persepolis, Reading Lolita in Tehran, December 2006. The March by E.L. Doctorow **** (of 4) The march is General William Tecumsah Sherman's subjugation of the confederacy as seen through the eyes of carefully crafted, wholly believable, fictitious characters: freed-slaves, plantation owners, plantation wives, army physician, dirt-poor soldiers, and the historical figures they interact with. The plot is compelling and the story-telling is vintage Doctorow, a page turner. August 2007. Martin Dressler: The tale of an American Dreamer, by Steven Millhauser *** (of 4) The title character, Martin Dressler, is the son of German immigrants in New York City who's dreams and successes coincide with the burgeoning of the city from sheep meadow to incomparable metropolis at the beginning of the 19th century. In many ways the most interesting character of the book is the description of architectural eclecticism personified in hotels that simultaneously embody every new invention - electricity, steam, skyscraping fortitude - and retain the comfort of the old, staid plans of European majesty: candelabras (with electric lights), marble floors, heavy drapes. Martin succeeds until he threatens God with his final hotel, the Grand Cosmo. Millhauser won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. October 2006. Martyr's Crossing, by Amy Wilentz (** of 4) Not great writing, but very informative about the checkpoints in Middle East before the Second Intifada made them even worse. A Mercy by Toni Morrison **** (of 4) A novella told mostly in the first person perspectives of an enslaved African woman, her daughter, a trader from the north, his wife, a Native American, and an addled child that escapes the wreck of a slave ship. Yes, it's confusing at first because Morrison doesn't explain who's doing the talking, but her descriptions of the handful of lives involved feels more authentic and less contrived and romanticized than any accounting of early colonizer life I've ever come across.  June 2009. Mila 18 by Leon Uris **** (of 4) One of my absolute favorite books about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. A real page turner with wonderful characterizations. Middlesex by Peter Eugenides ** (of 4) Both Sue and LEP say this book is an excellent story, my prerequisite for any book worth reading and go figure I couldn't finish it. It might be that mid-semester I couldn't focus on the story of a hermaphrodite's history across three generations. The story-telling is terrific including the history of Greek-Turkish strife in Smyrna and the early industrial history of Detroit at the time auto manufacturing was king and prohibition made it difficult for workers to numb their senses to becoming part of Henry Ford's assembly lines. For me, however, the stories were strung together too loosely and I couldn't find enough tension or plot to make me want to pick up the book often enough to find out how it ended. March 2006. The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg **** (of 4) Ostensibly a yound adult book, but like all of Konigsburg's works, her protagonists may be young adults, but her themes are fully matured. Man, can she write, too. In this short mystery a 12-year-old Jewish boy uncovers a drawing by Modigliani that is almost certainly a piece of art looted by the Nazis. It appears under questionable circumstances in the home of a retired opera star. The question is how did the diva come by the drawing and why did the Nazis persecute Jews, gays, and gypsies to acquire it. November 2008. Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis. **** (of 4) This short collection of short stories is a wonderful piece of honey cake with a glass of tea. A Jewish Russian immigrant to Toronto describes the transition he makes with his parents and uncle and aunt as they climb from helpless newcomers to weary acceptance of life in the new world, without ever losing the cultural imprinting that Russia plants within its citizenry. The book is full of smiles of recognition, truthful while remaining fictional--but who knows where autobiography is replaced by a little relish -- and I think quite accessible even to people who neither know Russians or Jews. In fact, it's probably a wonderful introduction to both. The book is short, the stories chronological, the characters continue to grow from one to the next, yet it's not quite a novel with contiguous chapters. July 2005. Netherland by Joseph O'Neill ** (of 4) A young, wealthy, Dutch bank analyst moves to New York City with his British wife. Soon after the World Trade Center is destroyed, his wife leaves him and takes their three year old son, his apartment in lower Manhattan is abandoned, his son has developmental issues, and he has no friends. Who would want to read such depressing drivel? It's the same genre as Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth: despair and post apocalypse desolation, only this book is pretentious, too. O'Neill reaches for every multi-syllable word he can find in his thesaurus. Hard to say why this book made so many top-10 books of 2008 lists. April 2009. Nuremberg: The Reckoning, by William F. Buckley. (* of 4) It was surprisingly bad. I learned a fair amount about the Nuremberg trials after WWII, but was shocked by how trivial the plot was and how uninspiring the writing was. I expected more. Old Men at Midnight, by Chaim Potok. Enigmatic. I went back and forth between thinking the three short stories were too simple, too typical, not completely unique recountings of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and Pogroms and Russian Revolution and being totally captivated. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz *** (of 4) A larger-than-life father, a household dictator, terrifies his 1920s Cairo household into submitting to his divine will. Divine, in the sense, that his actions are supported by the expectations and practices of Islam. His wife is so subservient, neither she nor her two daughters, have left the house for twenty-five years. Yet, Dad, as strict as he is spends his evenings drinking and carousing with women. While he is gone his three sons make their way in the world and share their visions with the women of the house. If strict Islamic domination of women and children is hard to bear, Mafhouz's detailed descriptions of life in the house and on the blocks surrounding it in Cairo in the 1920s are so luridly painted I have to believe that his family descriptions must be equally accurate. Written in 1965 before political correctness might have softened his writing, the book works as living history. Despite a somewhat stodgy translation I can see how Mahfouz is destined to become a Nobel laureate. August 2008. The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason A novel about tuning pianos in 1856 British Army in Burma. I found it painfully slow and predictable. A remake of the Heart of Darkness. I didn't finish it. My mother and sister-in-law enjoyed it a lot, however. QBVII by Leon Uris About a trial of a libelous author who writes about Nazis, autobiographical. Uris is a class-act story teller making big books go by in quickly. Red Sea by Emily Benedek *** (of 4) A well-researched post 9/11 thriller with Middle Eastern jihadists sending dirty nuclear bombs toward American ports while being hunted down by an Israeli secret agent, an FBI operative, and a 30-something, good-looking female reporter all operating outside legal channels. Red Sea is Benedek's first novel and it isn't anywhere as smooth as the more accomplished masters of the genre like LeCarre and Crichton, but she'll get better with time and the book is still a decent enough page turner. April 2008. Saturday by Ian McEwan ** (of 4) Both of my parents, and the critics, raved about this book, so take my review cautiously. The story revolves around the meticulously described single day of a neurosurgeon in London as he wrestles the inner demons we all face -- self doubt, fatigue, the challenge of ageing, parenting -- and the external terroristic demons of the post 9/11 world. The author provides exceptional insight into the protagonist's state of mind while playing off a turbulent backdrop of an anti-Iraq-war protest in London. A squash game covers a dozen pages and is described so accurately you can hear the ball pop off the front wall. In fact, you'll be breathless and perspiring by the fourth of five games. On the upside, too, the main characters are all nice people. The neurosurgeon's family, in contrast to the depressing majority of recent publications, is entirely functional. Perhaps, it was my mood, however, but all the detail left me impatient for action. At least for the first half of the book, the part I read, not much of consequence happens. It's just one long day, Saturday, in the life of a doctor. Obviously, if you're in the right mood, this book could be a winner. July 2005. The Secret River by Kate Granville *** (of 4) The British caste system of the 18th century was unendurable for average citizens and petty crime was often a necessity. Read Dickens, for example. In this book a British family hits rough times and is pardoned from the gallows only to be banished to the British penal colony of Australia. Brits make a go of colonization. Aborigines suffer. A country is born. Granville's history is accurate and sympathetic to everyone involved. Being an immigrant is hard. Being an Aborigine is harder. The story is well told, but there are no shattering insights. August 2008. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut ** (of 4) As a twenty year old soldier Vonnegut was one of the few people to survive the allied bombing of Dresden in World War II. For more than twenty years he wrestled with how to tell the story of the senseless and overwhelming destruction of a city and vritually all its inhabitants. What he decides upon is a fictional account of the absurd life of Billy Pilgrim, a soldier-nebish who travels in time and space and conjoins with science fiction characters. The book's success is the novelty in which it portrays the absurdity of war by being an absurdist book. Or, it fails as just another late 60s acid trip of a tale. July 2008. Small Island by Andrea Levy **** (of 4) There's a reason this book won the Whitbread Award for best book of the year, one of Britain's most prestigious literary awards. It captures the huge themes of racism and class by examining the minutiae of the lives of just four characters: two Brits and two Jamaicans who are struggling to live in England immediately following World War II. The book succeeds because it reads like a play with perfectly captured dialogue and emotion. In fact much of the action takes place inside a single house as if the house were a stage. The Jamaicans leave their home island because it is too small and confining only to discover that England is also a small island. Cold, too. June 2005. Snow by Orhan Pamuk ** (of 4) Ostensibly there is a plot based on the return of a Turkish exile to his small eastern hometown where the national debate about the politicization of women's headscarves has reached a murderous pitch. Secularists and Islamists vie for supremacy while teenage girls commit suicide unable to bear the pressure placed literally on their heads. But the story is Absurdist. Characters appear and vanish without reason. Their thoughts and actions illogical, unpredictable, and without respect for the hours of the day, at least as we consider time in the West. Pamuk may have won the Nobel Prize, but after 200 pages I was too lost, smothered by the protagonists' despair, and frustrated to continue. Febuary 2009. The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth (* of 4) Winner of the Booker Prize totally boring Midrash of the Iliad. I couldn't finish it. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemorovsky. Translated by Sandra Smith. ** (of 4) According to the NY Times, this stunning book contains two narratives, one fiction and the other a fragmentary, factual account of how the fiction came into being about life in France under Hitler's occupation. I don't get what all the hype is about, however. Nemerovsky completed two-fifths of what she imagined to be a five parter, like a symphony. The first describes the Nazi invasion of France, seen through eyes of upper-crust Frenchmen forced to do without some of their accustomed privileges as they flee with the chaotic hordes to the rural areas around Paris. The second is life under occupation, and the interactions of French families with billeted Nazis. Both accounts feel like first drafts. The characters and action are superficial; I found it difficult to connect. A far better account of the war and Nazi occupation can be found in Corelli's Mandolin. I think what makes the critics react are the appendices. Nemerovsky sensed she was going to die at the hands of the Germans. She had an excuse to be writing in a hurry. That sense of reality hanging over the book is more powerful than the book itself. July 2006. The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra ** (of 4) A poetically written account of life under the Taliban extremists of Kabul Afghanistan. It's written by an Algerian, not an Afghani, with a self-described vendetta against extremist Muslims. The story wrings true enough compared to news reports, but is utterly depressing. All four main characters, two men, two women, go crazy and die horrible deaths at the hands of the Taliban. November, 2004. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini *** (of 4) A bottomless well of hopelessness, despair and background warfare in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion of the 80s through the American invasion post 9/11. Seen through the eyes of two women who lose nearly everything they can imagine either blown to bits around them or whose common husband senselessly beats them. And yet. Hosseini's crystaline writing and, in my case, Atossi Leoni's heart wrenching reading simultaneously suffocated and repelled me. I wanted to stop the pain, but could not turn away; instead I lay awake for nights praying for salvation for Leilo and Miryam, two women who endured. December 2007. The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey An Irish western outlaw in 1870s Australia. I think the book won some famous prize. I found it unreadable, predictable drek recommended by Terri Laufer Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri *** (of 4) Compelling in the way of an auto crash. I could not look away, but I definitely felt worse for having partaken. Like her Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri delivers a compendium of short stories about the first and second generation lives of college-educated New England Bengalis. Only thing is by her accounting their lives consist nearly entirely of remorse, despair, despondence, regret, cancer, alcohol , duplicity, and disloyalty. March 2009. Waiting by Ha Jin *** (of 4) A love triangle compromised by the Cultural Revolution in China told in exquisite detail. While I was reading I could smell manure in the fields, hear insects pollinating flowers, taste freshly steamed sweet breads, and agonize with a man and two women all of whom deserved better relationships than they were forced to live with. Reviewed January 2005 War Trash by Ha Jin * of 4 A second rate book by a first rate author. Jin read everything he could find on the fate of Chinese prisoners of war during the Korean conflict then invents a chinese protagonist capable of speaking English to serve as the author's mouthpiece. But Jin ends up with a book that lacks immediacy or urgency. Instead, War Trash feels like a forced piece of fiction with implausible connectors to get the protagonist from one scene to the next so Jin can fictionalize, thinly, true events. I suppose it's news to discover Chinese POWs weren't treated well, but Jin doesn't even succeed in making war feel like hell in this book. Better off reading Waiting, or better still, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. April 2006. What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers **** (of 4) It's hard to comprehend how anyone survives what Valentino had to in escaping Arab militiamen in southern Sudan and comes away only with excrutiating headaches. Moreover, Eggers is brilliant in retelling Valentino's story as a novel that treads the line between despair and hope, being neither too depressing, nor too optimistic. I'm told that Valentino (who came to Allegheny for a semester) and Eggers went with the novel because the true story is even more difficult than what is printed here and because so many people were involved that the two of them figured it was easier to combine a few stories rather than ask readers to keep a surfeit of characters straight. Like a novel it's a page turner, but in the back of every reader's mind is the knowledge that the story of thousands of young boys walking for weeks across Sudan's deserts chased by lions, bandits, militiamen, and hunger is all to true. July 2007. The White Tiger by Arivan Adiga ** (of 4) Hard to imagine why this book won the 2008 Booker Prize, England's Pulitzer. The protagonist is a low-caste Indian who makes good, but most of the book is supposed to be an antidote to the lyrical prose of British writers who focused on genteelity and upper-crustism in India. But after forty pages of filth, corruption, poverty, and disease we get the point. After 140 pages, enough already. Read A Fine Balance, instead. That book covers much of the same despair and hope, but is a written by a future Nobel Prize winner. October 2008. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks *** (of 4) The plot is contrived and straight as ruler and the characters are one dimensional, but the book is still a great read. Like Brooks' People of the Book Year of Wonders covers a piece of history I knew nothing about. She presents her exceptional powers as a researcher in a totally palatable manner. Year of Wonders gives us the lives of a small English town in 1166 just as bubonic plague arrives. We squirm not so much because half the towns people die, but because the impact on the survivors -- the elderly, orphans, widows without means of support -- is so psychologically devastating. I read the whole book thinking about how Native Americans must have suffered as whole villages succumbed to European diseases. February 2009. Eric Pallant, Department of Environmental Science, Allegheny College/updated 12 August 2009.