World Party: An Uninspired Conclusion...

Well folks, September has come and gone, which means that the 2010-2011 World Reading Challenge has officially come to a close. I am proud to say I kept up with this challenge all year! Except for....now. At the end. Right at the last month.

I sorta failed.

September's month was India, and I chose to read Salman Rushdie's well-known Midnight's Children. Originally published in 1980, it won the Booker Prize in 1981, the Booker of Bookers Prize in 1993 (a special award celebrating 25 years of the Booker Prize), and the Best of the Booker in 2008, celebrating the Booker's 40th. I'd never read Rushdie and I had nothing else in mind for India, so why not go with something so prestigious? (Plus, it was available as an eBook through the Brooklyn PL, once again saving me a physical trip to the library.)

Well...this is not a quick read. The story focuses on Saleem Sinai, born at midnight on August 15, 1947, his birth coinciding with the birth of a new, independent India. Rushdie's novel is divided into three "books," and Saleem is the narrator of the story. The first book serves as an introduction to Saleem's own life—stories of his grandparents and parents, of a prophecy made about him before his birth. Then narrator Saleem slowly introduces his own birth and childhood, interactions with family and peers, with the spectacle of India's independence happening all the while in the background. Most notable about Saleem is his "special power" that allows him to enter the mind of all the other thousand "midnight's children."

I know that Midnight's Children is notable for its unique use of language, an Indian perspective on the English language. Likewise, it contains elements of magical realism and is often compared to One Hundred Years of Solitude. So language, structure, and flow may or may not be to blame here when I let you know that I DID NOT FINISH either of these books.

It is extremely rare that I start and book and put it down without finishing it. I can only think of one other book I've done that with in the past decade, and that, coincidentally (or not?), is Marquez's classic, which I started and gave up on about two years ago. But this is what happened with Midnight's Children: I was about 250 pages in with over 300 left to go, my eBook check-out expired today, and I just was not into the story enough to dedicate another week or more to this book. The structure of the story takes time; the language has a specific style and pace, one which takes focus. I've got a busy schedule and list of exciting things I want to read, and frankly, I decided this wasn't worth my time struggling. Maybe I'll come back to it someday, but for now...sorry, India. I let you down in this challenge.

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I am very pleased I chose to follow this challenge over the past year. It's actually something I have told many people about and have promoted as a good way to broaden your reading horizons. For the most part, I am happy with my reading choices. I chose some because I felt like I should read them and some because they were easily accessible. Persepolis and The Reluctant Fundamentalist were my favorites; Three Cups of Tea was inspiring at the time but has had interesting developments since I read it; and some (read: Wolf Hall) were just too smart for me. I'd like to do a similar challenge again someday, but for now I'm going to take a bit of a break from a reading schedule!

The World Reading Challenge Year-In-Review:

• October – Afghanistan — Three Cups of Tea (2)
• November – Turkey — The Towers of Trebizond
• December – Greece — Zorba the Greek
• January – Iran — Persepolis
• February – England — Wolf Hall
• March – Ireland — The Outside Boy
• April – Jamaica — The Long Song
• May – Pakistan — The Reluctant Fundamentalist
• June – Russia — Travels in Siberia
• July – Spain — The Sun Also Rises
• August – Thailand — Sightseeing
• September – India — Midnight's Children

World Party: Contemporary Thailand through many sets of eyes

Thailand was August's country of choice for the World Reading Challenge, and I chose some contemporary fiction—Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap.

Sightseeing is a collection of seven short stories that touch on issues like family tension, generational division, and cultural differences. These stories all felt very raw. They all focused on one particular moment of life—an encounter with an foreign tourist, a trip abroad with a parent, a man's experience with the draft, an encounter with a refugee neighbor—but none of these moments, these stories, felt particularly optimistic. The voices in the stories all felt...not defeated, exactly, but perhaps disenchanted. It may have something to do with the perspective of the stories' narrators. Several of the stories were written in the past tense, as if the narrator was reflecting on this past incident or moment. Maybe this is why the voices sound so detached; maybe these are memories the narrators would rather not remember.

It's also worth noting that all of Lapcharoensap's narrators—except the narrator of the final story, "The Cockfighter"—were male, and I wondered why this was. Did culture play a role in that decision or was it purely the whim of the author? Though these stories, as I mentioned, weren't very happy, I found myself sympathetic with all of their narrators. I couldn't quite figure this author out after reading a couple of the stories. Sometimes, when you start a short story collection, you quickly pick up on the author's style and realize that all the stories have similar endings—a happy ending, a bittersweet ending, an unhappy ending. For example, when I read Simon Van Booy's The Secret Lives of People in Love, I quickly learned that all his stories end with some little catch, some little amount of pain that keeps the ending from being completely "happy." Well, Lapcharoensap isn't that easy to categorize. Some stories ended bittersweet, some happy, some poignant, and some just ended without much conclusion. Overall, these stories served more as introductions to characters than conclusions. The endings were mostly open-ended, which makes these characters memorable as you wonder what happened to them.

A good selection for the World Reading Challenge, and a good collection of short stories for readers interested in exploring unfamiliar (or at least, different) cultures.


Only one month left in this year-long World Reading Challenge, and I have to pat myself on the back here for successfully keeping up with it! September's country is India, and I haven't chosen a book yet. Any suggestions?

World Party: Corrida de toros...olé!

About a week before the end of the month, I realized I had not yet read a book for the World Reading Challenge! July's country was Spain, and, though I'm sure there are much better books representative of Spain by actual Spanish authors, I chose The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; I'd never read any Hemingway and the library had tons of copies immediately available. [What did I read in high school, you may ask? Apparently not the classics.]

One reason I'd never read any Hemingway is because I was intimidated by his writing. I always perceived it as difficult—full of symbolism and themes and motifs and all that crap that makes it a high school English requirement. I thought he was something like Faulkner with the rambling and incoherence. But I was quickly informed that is not the case with Hemingway. He writes in short, staccato sentences with lots of short dialogue. Apparently this is his trademark. Thanks, high school English, for teaching me about important American authors.

Another reason I'd avoided Hemingway kind of goes with my first reason; I assumed his books were all depressing and serious. Since this is the only book I've read of his up to this point, I'm not sure I've been all wrong on this assumption, but The Sun Also Rises is less dark and difficult than I'd expected. It's more Kerouac and Salinger than Faulkner in terms of writing style and character. Youths of a post-war generation aimlessly wandering the world...eating, drinking, dating, and thinking of little else. The power struggle between young men and women. These are the same youths of other high school reading classics that just seem so miserable and never admitting it, so lost on their quest to find something of meaning in the world. These characters are never particularly likable. They drink and smoke and have intellectual conversations and arguments usually over nothing, and are generally just so lonely.

The Sun Also Rises is probably most well-known for its focus on bullfighting (hence Spain). I'm trying to read into this book as I would have in high school [by reading the Sparknotes alongside to figure out what the hell someone can interpret from this and test me on]. The bullfighting, I'm certain, plays a huge symbolic role—seduction and danger that parallels character drama in the text. But frankly, that is not what I thought of as I read it. I thought, and call me stupid if you want, "They always kill the bulls in the end???" I've seen the bullfighting arenas in Valencia, Madrid, and Cordoba, but I guess I just never gave them that much thought. I didn't know they always killed them. Poor bulls.

Other than the geographical setting and focus on the bulls, I didn't feel much sense of place (of Spain) with this book, which is why I'm certain there would've been better options for this month's country of choice. I guess I'm glad to have read this so I can now actively participate in a Hemingway discussion. [Coincidentally, I just read an article about him and his Ketchum, Idaho, home in an in-flight magazine.] Can't say I'm too inspired to read any of his other works, though.

World Party: An ambiguous Siberian tourism endorsement

It's been a long, travel-filled two weeks for me. After spending a week in New Orleans for ALA, then a night in El Paso for more work-related things, I'm now in Nashville for the week before heading to Florida's Gulf Coast on Saturday for REAL vacation.

You know what all of these places have in common with Siberia? NOTHING, because it is cold there. At least, that is the impression I got from Ian Frazier's travelogue, Travels in Siberia, which was my June Russia pick for the World Reading Challenge. Frazier is most well-known as a writer for The New Yorker and has a slew of other travelogues published.

Siberia is an interesting place. Just to put the size in perspective, in Frazier's words: "Three-fourths of Russia today is Sibera. Sibera takes up one-twelfth of all the land on earth. About 39 million Russians and other native peoples inhabit that northern third of Asia. By contrast, the state of New Jersey has about a fifth as many people on about .0015 as much land." That's a big mass of land, one that I know very little about. It just seems so...remote, desolate, and cold. And that's sort of the impression I got from Frazier's notes—a land so rich with resources but so sparsely populated, with living conditions and lifestyle so contingent upon the environment.

Frazier's Travels is Siberia blends his own travel notes with Siberian history to paint the pictures of just how 'out there' Siberia really is. And why it is that, despite Siberia's sad and violent history, it's still so captivating. Some of my favorite, memorable lines or passages (you can skip reading this part if you want):

• I believe the tropical poster is the most common indoor decoration in Siberia.
• In Russia, writing is so revered that no one had had the nerve to interrupt me in what might have been an act of literary creation.
• Beneath a surface layer of unbelief or Orthodox Christianity, Russia is an animist country. Ordinary physical objects are alive in Russia far more than they are in America, and however Russia's religious or political currents flow, this native animism remains strong...In Russia the windshield wiper on your car isn't called a mechanical name--it's a dvornik, a word whose more common meaning is "custodian." What we call a speed bump in America the Russians call lezhashchii politseiskii, which means "lying-down policeman."
• What struck me then and what still strikes me now was the place's overwhelming aura of absence. The deserted prison camp just sat there--unexcused, un-torn-down, unexplained. During its years of operation it had been a secret, and in some sense it still was. Horrors had happened here, and/or miseries and sufferings and humiliations short of true horrors. "No comment," the site seemed to say. / I thought this camp, and all the others along this road, needed large historical markers in front of them, with names and dates and details; and there should bne ongoing archaeology here, and areas roped off, and painstaking excavation, and well-informed docents in heated kiosks giving talks for visitors. Teams of researchers should be out looking for camp survivors, if any, and for formers guards, and for whoever had baked the bread in the bakery. Extensive delving into KGB or Dalstroi files should be showing who exactly was imprisoned here when, and what they were in for, and what became of them. The zek engineers and builders who made the hand-constructed bridges should be recognized and their photographs placed on monuments beside the road, and the whole Topolinskaya Highway for all its 189 kilometers should be declared a historic district, and the graves, of which there may be many, should be found and marked and given requiem. / The fact that the world has not yet decided what to say about Stalin was the reason these camps were standing with no change or context; the sense of absence here was because of that. / The world more or less knows what it thinks of Hitler. Stalin, though, is still beyond us. As time passes, he seems to be sidling into history as one of those old-timey, soft-focus monsters--like Ivan the Terrible, like Peter the Great--whose true monstrosity softens to resemble that of an ogre in a fairy tale.
• Thus I was once again convinced that the Russian car is the most reliable in the world, because it is possible under necessity to replace any part in it with a piece of wire or with a nail.
• I had not flown Aeroflot since the nineties. Now the complete absence of smoking, in accordance with revised policy, made a real change in the airline's tone. Russians not smoking!...Everything about the Boeing 767 we flew in was better than what I remembered of their former planes. Now they had real seats, not lawn chairs. Nothing about the interior looked beat-up or shabby.

The memoir sections are naturally more interesting than the history lessons, but they both serve their purpose. If you like Bill Bryson books, this is probably one you should check out. Frazier has an eye for the little details that make a place what it is. His observations will introduce you to the same culture and make you feel just as awkward as Frazier often felt.

I've always gotten the impression that Russia (and Siberia) is a fascinating place. But I can't confirm that I've ever actually heard a recommendation to plan a visit. I think this book just confirmed that sentiment. Interesting country; spend your vacation days elsewhere.

World Party: A one-sided conversation with a reluctant fundamentalist

For May's World Reading Challenge pick (Pakistan), I read Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This was a quick read, one I quite enjoyed, and one I finished a few weeks ago...yet I've been struggling on how to write about it.

Here's the premise: At a restaurant table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man is conversing with an American stranger who seems visibly uncomfortable. The novel is the narration of this conversation but completely one-sided; we, as the reader, never hear a word the American says. The Pakistani, whose name we learn is Changez, tells the American his story...

Changez grew up in a privileged family in Lahore. He attended college in the US at Princeton and immediately secured a well-paying corporate job in Manhattan right out of college and a love interest, a fellow student and upper-class New Yorker, Erica. Bottom line: America treated Changez well, and he was proud to consider himself a "New Yorker." Then 9/11 happened, and Changez's feelings about his new, adopted city began to get more complicated.

This is where I thought the story really got interesting. The book's synopsis led me to believe that Changez's relationship with the US changed as a result of persons viewing him differently; that was not the case. The change was completely internal, as Changez found himself torn between the traditional values of the society in which he was raised (the East) as opposed to the conflicting values of his new life and home (the West). He began to resent the country that had so warmly opened its arms to him and shown him success because of its contradictions to his native country. The point that struck me the most and that has really stuck with me:

"Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted underground sewers, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians. Now our cities were largely unplanned, unsanitary affairs, and America had universities with individual endowments greater than our national budget for education. To be reminded of this vast disparity was, for me, to be ashamed (p. 34)."

That's all I'm going to say on this book. I think it's a fabulous choice for book clubs, required reading, etc. There's plenty you could analyze and discuss in much more depth than I am going to go into. The main characters struggles with his own identity and how it relates to family, history, religion, and patriotism, and he holds nothing back. A politically-charged book without feeling like too much 'politics.'

Have you read this one? What did you think of the writing format?

World Party: When 'freedom' doesn't really mean 'free'

For April, the World Reading Challenge country was Jamaica, and I wanted to pick something historical. The most recent novel of note having to do with Jamaica is probably Marlon James' The Book of Night Women. However, it's pretty long and, to be honest, pretty graphic—something I did not want to read.

Therefore, I went with Andrea Levy's The Long Song, a story of Jamaican slavery and its abolition in 1834 as told by Miss July, a "resourceful and mischievous" slave on the Amity sugar plantation.

July is the daughter of a slave, Kitty, and a white overseer. She was separated from her mother as a young child and moved into the plantation house to work as the personal slave of Miss Caroline Mortimer, the sister of Amity's owner and a widow recently come from England. July, dubbed 'Marguerite' by Miss Caroline because it sounds better, learns how to keep herself in the good graces of her mistress and become an indispensable hand. When a new English overseer arrives at Amity to handle the newly "freed" slaves, July's world shifts as she meets a new kind of white man, unlike any she's met before.

The format of this story is that of a novel within a novel. July is writing her story for publication for her son Thomas, a well-known publisher in latter half of the 1800s. Her style always reminds the reader that they are, in fact, reading HER story. She tells her story through her own perspective, based on memories and relationships. July's voice was simple, straightforward, without reflection, and with a wry sense of humor. Though the perspective is that of July's, Levy created a more complex novel with the inclusion of Richard Goodwin, that new English overseer. The son of a minister, Goodwin has a somewhat humanist approach to dealing with the former slaves, but his views become conflicted the longer he's at Amity and the more he has to deal with.

I was surprised at the amount of cruelty and brutality described in this book, especially since all comments I had seen before reading noted the humor in its narrator's voice. But I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise; it seems that all books I found on Jamaica that were exemplary of its history and culture focused on slavery. I am glad I read a book about an important aspect of Jamaican history, but I hope next month's country of choice is a little less depressing. (It's Pakistan, so my hopes aren't too high on that one.)

World Party: A gypsy father, a missing mother, and Finnaula Whippet

Ireland was March's country of choice in the World Reading Challenge, and I chose to pick a book up off my shelf that I've had since BEA last year: The Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins. [I mean, I sure as hell wasn't going to read any James Joyce.]

The Outside Boy is about a young 12-year-old Pavee (gypsy) boy in 1959 who travels from town to town with his father and extended family, carting all their possessions on wagons. William Christopher Hurley, "Christy" for short, has never met his mother, as she died in childbirth, and it's a burden he's carried his whole life. However, when his grandfather dies and the family decides to temporarily set up camp in a small town, the exposure to a different way of life inspires Christy to explore his past and find out about his mother.

I'm glad that I picked this one. It was exciting to read a story that focuses on a such tiny blip in the history and population of Ireland (not that I know that much Irish history in the first place). It's definitely a coming of age story for Christy; Cummins tells the story from his first-person perspective to give the reader and understanding of his thoughts and thought processing. The conflicts within Christy's own perception of himself are universal. He wants the stability of a house and home, but he feels stifled and aches for the outdoors when he's inside one; Christy understands his father's love for him, yet he begrudges him for his mother's absence. Christy realizes he is "an outside boy," not sure where he belongs nor how he fits in. His quest for answers and self-searching tugs at the heart strings but with an energetic spunk to keep the reader deeply involved in the story.

Beyond Christy's individual story, Cummins addressed the Pavee/traveller culture as a whole, and how they fit into society and are perceived by the stationary population. Pavees possess an intricate culture and language of their own, yet they're often perceived as unintelligent vagrants and addressed with derogatory terms. I was surprised to read that this group is still prominent in Ireland; over 22,000 travellers were reported in the 2006 Irish census, as well as significant populations in Great Britain and even communities of the United States.

I really enjoyed this book. It's good for a bit of a culture and history lesson and a good character story to boot.


Next up, Jamaica....

World Party: Why I would probably like Showtime's The Tudors better

England was February's country of choice in the World Reading Challenge, and I chose the recent Man Booker Prize winner, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

Setting: 16th-century Tudor England, during the reign of Henry VIII. Mantel chronicles the King's split from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and pursuit of Anne Boleyn as he splits from Catholic Rome and declares himself Head of the Church of England—all this because he wanted to sleep with another chick!

At 651 pages, this was a book. I started it once, got to page 70 or so, and decided to start over and really concentrate. This is not a book to casually read on the subway. Wolf Hall is definitely a well- and interestingly-written novel, foremost because of its perspective. The entire book is written in the third-person present-tense, focusing on Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to the King. What's confusing is that in the narrative, he is not addressed by name, unless as part of a quote; Mantel simply refers to Cromwell as "him," which can be very confusing at first. Once you get into the swing of that, the book is pretty easy to get through.

I think Wolf Hall definitely deserves its mark as "prestigious-book-award-winner," but frankly, I was a little bored with it, completely because of personal taste. I have never had an interest in this time period of history. I find the ages of medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment—the height of royalty in Europe—to be rather dark and barbaric, too much so for my tastes. Therefore, I didn't have enough of a background or interest in the subject matter to really enjoy this book. Aside from the very basics about Henry VIII and his wives, I could not recall many details about the outcome of these individuals (my AP Euro teacher would be so disappointed). I refrained from Wikipedia-searching until I had finished, because I figured the end would have a climactic conclusion, but no. Mantel seemed to cover only one aspect of Henry VIII's reign—his split with the Catholic church—and left out all the drama on which most recent literature focuses.

I wish I had read this as part of a book club or at least been able to discuss with someone who enjoys this time period and had a different perspective while reading. [Has anyone else read it?? Please comment if you have!] My Google-searching on Henry VIII and his six wives made for an enjoyable afternoon at work, but because it's the scandal and drama that piqued my interest, I'd probably prefer to see Henry's story on Showtime. Minus all the beheading.

World Party: How learning history from a graphic novel made me feel like a bad friend

Iran was the country of choice for the month of January in the World Reading Challenge, and I chose Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, the well-known graphic novel turned movie. It was pretty disgraceful of myself that I had not read it yet, especially considering the graphic novel kick I had last year.

Persepolis is the essentially a memoir of a girl and her relationship with her home country, Iran. Satrapi was a child living in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution that began in 1979. Born with a rebellious nature, Satrapi naturally defies the new rules of clothing and entertainment set by the Islamic Regime. But when her parents see this teenage rebellion could actually land her in jail or, worse, dead, they send her to Vienna to attend high school, avoiding the war that has broken out between Iran and Iraq. She later returned to Iran where she attended university before finally self-exiling from her homeland and moving to France.

Despite having a best friend whose father hails directly from Iran, I knew little about Iranian history and culture. [I am ashamed.] As an American child of the nineties, the middle-east is inextricably linked in my head with war and conservative Islam. So I  was absolutely astounded to see and learn that Iranian culture prior to 1980 looks no different from American culture. Once I did further Google Image searching and found that Iranians in the seventies had mustaches and wore white disco pants just like Americans, my mind was blown. It's so amazing to think that a country and society I know as dominated by a conservative religion is only a tiny blip in Persian history.

The history of Iran was, without a doubt, my favorite part of Persepolis. In fact, the section in which Satrapi was in Austria during her teen years was way less exciting than hearing first-hand accounts of this huge, society-altering revolution. Satrapi has a powerful voice and she was never afraid to stand up for both herself and what she saw as logic and fairness, despite the constant risk of arbitrarily being thrown in jail. Reading along as grows up and makes sense of what's going on in her environment felt as rewarding for me as it would've been for her as she reflected on her past writing this book.

I know that the mental image I have of Iran—with conservative Islamic veils and beards—is not at all representative of modern Iran, and that a rich, vibrant culture does exist despite years of rule by the traditional Islamic Regime. But this is now a place I am seriously curious to learn more about, and that's exactly what I've hoped to get out of the books I read for the World Reading Challenge.

What I've read lately...

I've read a few things over the last month that a) weren't compelling enough to post about individually, or b) I am too lazy to write about individually. Ergo, compilation post.

For my December book club meeting at Idlewild, we read Carlo Collodi's classic, Pinocchio. [Sidenote: this may be the worst NYRB cover in existence.] I was under the assumption that this book is very different from the Disney movie known by all. Well, it is somewhat different, but not in the extreme way I thought it would be. Many of the plot points were the same. However, this story is much darker—too scary for Disney audiences. The cricket's appearance is too brief to even warrant him the name "Jiminy," and Pinocchio is....ANNOYING. Collodi obviously wrote these stories as lessons on behavior to children, which were published as chapters in a weekly magazine. But when all the chapters are compiled into one book, the lessons get repetitive and Pinocchio becomes unlikable because he seems to never learn! [More points found here in this NYRB article that I never actually read.] It was a quick easy read, but, to be honest, I can't even remember what we discussed about this book because I was too excited by the pita chips and wine.

In Nashville for Christmas, I read Joy in the Morning, the other well-known work by Betty Smith. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is in my top 3 books of all time, so I'd been meaning to read this for a while. It's a lovely story of a young Brooklyn couple in the late 1920s who were just married and moved to the midwest where Carl, the husband, is a law student. Annie is immediately endearing, as she's uneducated yet bright and eager to learn. This book should be required reading for newlyweds because it's uplifting in a non-cheesy, unsentimental way—in a way that reminds you that things happen but you get through them. It's a simple story but it sucks you in with likable characters while throwing some important life lessons in there about enjoying the small things and stuff like that. Not too much to say about this besides it was highly enjoyable.

The World Reading Party's country for the month of December was Greece. After a long search for Greek literature that turned up little more than mysteries or chick-lit or really long novels, I opted for the Greek classic, Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. It's the story of a traveling Englishman who meets an elderly (if 65 is "elderly" by today's standards—my dad certainly would not like to think so) vivacious Greek man named Zorba who aims to live life to the fullest and drags our narrator out of his shell. Supposedly this is a book about the philosophy of life and contains some important message on how to live it—which may or may not be something along the lines of "live how you want." But the only lesson I got from this was, in a nutshell, "Eat a lot, drink a lot, and sleep with a lot of women." I've read comments that this book is the book for some people, but I guess I am not one of those people. It was just meh to me. I didn't even learn that much about Greek culture, which is my aim with this reading challenge, so boo on that.

World Party: The "Pat" situation as it appears in Trebizond

November's country in the World Reading Challenge was Turkey. I decided to search NYRB's collection, because I figured I could depend on them for some authentic world lit. So, one stroll over to Idlewild and I walked out with a copy of Rose Macauley's The Towers of Trebizond.

This is one of those books that I feel a review can't do it justice. Not because it blew me away with out-of-this-world amazingness but because it has so many angles to it. It's serious. It's religious. It's a statement. And it's actually quite funny.


Laurie is the narrator, traveling through the back country of Turkey—from Istanbul to Trebizond—with quite an eclectic English group. Aunt Dot, the middle-aged Anglican free spirit with a camel, out to reform middle Eastern views of women; Father Chantry-Pigg, traveling entirely to convert Muslims to Anglicanism; and occasionally Halide, an independent Turkish woman reformed from Islam yet preparing to marry a Muslim man. Throughout their journey, they come across many policemen who think they are spies and Billy Graham on tour with Southern evangelists. Quite the adventure.

It took a bit to fully get in engrossed its pace and language, because the writing has the quality of someone verbally telling a story. Lots of sentences full of commas that just seem to keep going, like the narrator suddenly remembered something else to say. It allows for a great subtle sense of humor, present in what-would-be the narrator's "under his/her breath" comments.

If you picked up on my ambiguity around the name "Laurie," that was intentional. Because to be honest, I STILL don't know the gender of the narrator. I read the entire book assuming it was a man. Laurie could certainly be a manly English name (c'mon, Hugh Laurie!) and the life Laurie leads is definitely not something I would expect of a 1950s English woman—traveling alone, socializing with men, drinking, training monkeys (yes, training monkeys). Yet, Laurie has a lover—a man—which came as a surprise to me at the end, particularly because that would mean this was 1950s English gay literature and it would seem far ahead of its time. But then I am reading other Goodreads comments on this book and people are using that same surprising ending to determine Laurie is, in fact, a woman. So I have no idea, and I'd rather leave it at that right now than research it. I gotta give props to the author for creating so ambiguous of a character! But like I said, this book has a lot to offer and could stand for a good second read down the road.

Reading Notes: More tea, please.

Photo Credit: Flickr

I know my first comments on Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea were less than stellar. And surprising to me, a lot of you agreed! But literally, about three pages after I left off my comments, things picked up, and I ended up finishing this book on the subway, trying to hold back tears so I wouldn't be that crazy person crying on the subway. I know. I was as surprised as you.

Yeah, so the dual author thing is still kind of weird (though I hear that Mortenson is the only author on his next book, so maybe the dual author thing was common criticism). But I wonder if writing from a first person perspective on this whole experience would make it sound more...narcissistic. And my thoughts are—it probably would.

So a lot happens in the second half of this book. Mortenson gets held quasi-hostage for a few days; he seriously expands his school-building efforts thanks to the formation of an official foundation, the Central Asia Institute; and 9/11 happens and changes a lot in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Suddenly, he's not the only American interested in the region, as the cities he frequents are now flooded by news media. But the contrast of intentions between Greg and everyone else is like night and day, which is pretty telling in how our nation thought and reacted immediately after an attack. One reporter who happens to meet Greg and hear his story ends up writing an article in Parade magazine that seriously boosts Greg's notoriety. While the funds in his foundation's bank account receive a big surge, he also gets a lot of threats and negativity about his efforts from a conflicted, sensitive American public.

I finished this book feeling both inspired and frustrated, which is how, I'm sure, a lot of people walked away from it. And it wasn't frustration from anything about the writing or the structure—I forgot all of that once I got into the meat of the story. It was that this is such an inspiring story, such evidence of how (as lame and cliche as it sounds) one person can make a difference. But what's frustrating is that people don't care. Some people have such a limited view of the world that they don't realize the logic in Mortenson's efforts; and the people in charge don't see how small gestures are more effective than sweeping, expensive power-trips. And beyond mentality, most people will never take such risks to do something like this (myself completely included).

So I am left here in my comfortable, privileged apartment feeling completely inferior and unhelpful. But, that's why there are people like Greg Mortenson who can share their story, hopefully enlighten a lot of people, and get enough continued support from the people like me who aren't about to pack up and head to the Middle East to keep doing what he does.

I think if I was a librarian or a high school teacher, I'd make this a book club selection or required reading. Because, it's a story that contains a great look at a different perspective, which is something I think is always necessary to seek out and explore. I actually do want to read his follow-up, Stones into Schools now.

Reading Notes: After one cup of tea, we're still strangers.

Photo Credit: Flickr

My reading experience of Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea (my October Afghanistan pick for the World Reading Party) is taking a lot longer than expected. I'm sure it's partly due to moving and that when I get home from work, I spend time unpacking or straightening up rather than reading. Also, my commute is shorter, so I have less time to read on the subway (not gonna lie...kind of a bummer; never thought I would want a longer commute). But mostly I just can't seem to get into it.

A friend's husband recently read this book and raved about it. I thought I'd feel the same in that do-good warm and fuzzy kind of way, while also getting a thrill out of enjoying a good nonfiction work. But you know the thing? I'm a little more than a third done, and the real author, David Oliver Relin, just won't shut up about Greg Mortenson. Seriously, with the detail and descriptions he gives, it's like hero worship here. And all these descriptions would be fine if you felt like it was Mortenson writing his first-hand experience, but it's weird reading someone's story, the someone who gets top billing in author credits, and it's written from another person's perspective. Why not just write it from first-person, Mr. Mortenson? It is your story.

Also, he hasn't even started building the damn school yet, and I'm on page 130 out of 331. I get that it's a process. I get that you went through a lot of trouble and many setbacks to fulfill your dream. And I have so much respect for your motivation and dedication. But at the same time, in all these pages, I'm finding out more about the specific materials needed to build a bridge and build a school, when I'm not a contractor and I don't care about that stuff. I want to know, in depth, about how the people of Korphe felt, how Mortenson interacted with them, what exactly drew him to this village over all the others. I'm reading words, but I'm not feeling anything yet. And this is the kind of stuff that could make me bawl just from sheer overflow of emotion. So far, I think it's the writing's fault.

Hopefully we'll become friends after another cup of tea.

The party has officially begun again.

You know what I am totally psyched for? The rebirth of the World Reading Party! Jill over at Fizzy Thoughts partied too hard the night before (or was a party pooper...I opted for the nicer 'party' pun) and put the challenge up for grabs. And luckily, Suzi at packabook picked it up, tweaked it a little, and changed the schedule, giving me lots more time to plan my books and (maybe) actually read them! My participation the last go around included only one lonely title.

The NEW 2010–2011 World Reading Party:

October – Afghanistan
November – Turkey
December – Greece
January – Iran
February – England
March – Ireland
April – Jamaica
May – Pakistan
June – Russia
July – Spain
August – Thailand
September – India

And I already have some ideas. Afghanistan: Three Cups of Tea. Already own it, but haven't yet read it. Easy! Iran? Persepolis! Have needed to read that for a while now. England: gotta read some Georgette Heyer. And I'm really excited to discover Russia. I'm only bummed Palestine isn't on the list, because I've been wanting to read Mornings in Jenin for a long time, and this would've given me motivation.

Idlewild, you will be seeing me soon.

World Party: Communist Cuba

Finally...I fiiiiiinally read a book for the World Party Reading Challenge. The country assignment for May was a choice: any one with a Communist history, past or present. Well, I wasn't about to devote months of my time to old Russian literature, so I opted for Cuba with Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban. I don't know much about Cuba beyond Castro, so, why not?

When I opened the book and saw a family tree before the first chapter even began, I knew I was in for some trouble. Oh god, how many people am I going to have to keep track of? Well the answer to that is about 5. No, include spouses; make that 9. No, 10. And include children. 15. 14? I lost count.

There's not much plot, just a set-up of the characters: Celia and Jorge are the head of the family tree. They have three kids—2 girls and a boy, but the boy we don't really hear from so much (unless I totally missed it). The two girls, Lourdes and Felicia, have their own husbands and kids and their own mess of issues. Sometime in the 1960s (I think?), Lourdes left Cuba for Brooklyn, NY, and Jorge eventually followed because of illness. So only Celia and Felicia (and the absent Javier) are left in Cuba. And Felicia is pretty crazy. Certifiably. Crazy as in, she sets fire to her first husband's face, burns a woman's scalp at a hairdresser, and throws another husband off a rollercoaster. She practices black magic; her kids think she's crazy and seek out their dad. Meanwhile in Brooklyn, Lourdes runs a bakery; her daughter Pilar is mostly Americanized and completely late-70s punk; and the two fight all the time.

The meat of the book lies in all these characters and their differences in relation to their homeland of Cuba...mostly their feelings toward the revolution. Celia is very pro-revolution; Lourdes is very anti-; Pilar just kinda rolls her eyes at the whole thing since she never had to live amidst it, and she'd rather just get back to Cuba to visit her grandmother. Aside from the key phrases about the Cuban revolution like "Castro" and "Communism" and "Cuban Missile Crisis," I don't know very much about it. In fact, Castro is never referred to by name—simply as "El Lidar"—and it took me a bit to realize that's who Garcia was referring to. While reading this, I felt like a needed a whole 20th century history lesson so I could understand the full social, political, economic context of it all (that's what Wikipedia is for). While Celia and Lourdes' characters focus a lot of Cuba's politics, Felicia's illustrates more of Cuba's culture—the religion, the spirituality, the relationship between men and women.

Celia is obviously the rock of this novel—rock in the sense that everything kinda radiates out from her. We learn the most about her through her present-day perspectives and a series of letters she wrote for decades to her lover of young adulthood. Between Celia and Pilar, we see two completely opposite representations of what it means to be Cuban from different generations and different lifestyles; every drop of Celia's blood is Cuban, while Pilar lives in American and can't figure out where she belongs.

Each section of the book contains a narrative focused on each family member—Celia, Felicia, Lourdes, Pilar—but sometimes they're told in first person by the character, sometimes told in third person from an omniscient voice. It takes a while to get a grasp on each individual, and I was well into the story before I could focus on what was happening, rather than the structure. I think if I read it again, I'd get more out of it.

I'm often intrigued by stories of multi-generational families, some of who immigrate. My story is pretty boring in comparison...generations of my family have been in one city and are still in one city (not that that's bad...I'm the lone drifter and sometimes I wish I was in that city). I don't have a very colorful palate of experience when it comes to culture shock. So to me, it's interesting to read about the differences between the generations of a family who has come from the same place, because the differences are based on their own experiences. It makes me feel all warm and worldly inside, which may just be the point of this reading challenge.

It's a Party, I'll read about the world if I want to!

In case you missed that last post I just wrote about my desire to read more world literature, I have recently come to the conclusion that I want to read more world literature. And then, while reading Eva's blog, I came across her post on the World Party Reading Challenge, hosted by Fizzy Thoughts. Oh, what serendipitous timing!

This challenge runs for 12 months and requires reading 12 books, one for each month, on the chosen country. I've pretty much missed April at this point, so I'll start with May and try to stick to the monthly schedule. However, I'm not one of those people that reads 20+ books a month (not even 10 books a month), so I'm not making any promises about strictly sticking to the schedule. I'll just amend the official rules for my own challenge of hitting each country!

Looks like it's time for a trip to my beloved Idlewild, and I'll post a proposed list in the future. And if you need some book suggestions for this challenge and you're attending BEA, be sure and give them a visit! And no, they aren't paying me for advertising...I really just love this bookstore that much!

EDIT: Here's the challenge schedule, which I probably won't be stick to, but at least I can keep track of what I've done through this post.

• April — April Fool's Day — France
• May — May Day — a communist country of your choice, past or present
• June — Juneteenth — Liberia
• July —July 4th — Rwanda
• August — Women's Equality Day — New Zealand
• September — Native American Day — any sovereign Native American Tribe
• October — Columbus Day — India
• November — Thanksgiving — Turkey
• December — Happy Holidays — choose your own country
• January — Martin Luther King, Jr Day — Cambodia
• February — Valentine's Day — England
• March - Saint Patrick's Day — Ireland