May 31, 2015

The Bookseller - Cynthia Swanson


HarperCollins, 2015.


 





Five Stars


 

In 1960s Denver, Kitty Miller lives alone, running a struggling bookshop with her best friend, Frieda, and tutoring her young neighbour in her spare time. Her life is solitary, but satisfying. Then she begins to dream of another world, where she goes by the more mature “Katharyn”, which suits her role as wife and mother. The dreams seem innocent at first, an enjoyable escape into another life, one that could have been hers if she hadn’t been stood up on a first date eight years previous. It is only when the dreams become more real than her daily life that Kitty begins to question everything.

 

The first chapter of this novel actually begins in the dream world, which makes our grasp on her reality all the more uncertain. While reading, I was constantly aware of the significance of the title: Kitty defines herself as a “bookseller”, and the strength of her identity is what draws her back to reality, to her bookshop and her “sister” Frieda. However, she did not even realize that Frieda and the shop were missing from her dream world until halfway through the book (page 158), which casts doubt on their importance in her life.

 

At first it seemed that Kitty’s dreams began too suddenly, which felt like bad writing until I realized the trigger that set off her alternate reality was integral to the plot. When Kitty is faced with this trigger, she begins to lose time in the real world, too, and the psychological effects of her dreams become obvious to her and to us. Ultimately this novel is a beautifully written and entertaining experiment in cognitive stress, which made me so much happier than if it had turned out to be pure fantasy.

 

Because the story is more anchored in reality than it originally seems, some reviews have commented that both Kitty and Katharyn’s lives are boring – but I think that’s the point. All lives have ups and downs; no matter how perfect and predictable they seem, our minds will occasionally seek an escape into dreams. As Kitty realizes, “[t]he imagination, it turns out, is a remarkably clever and hardworking creature” (p. 331).

 

In my opinion, the ending of The Bookseller, and especially Kitty/Katharyn’s final words, throws doubt on everything that we think is true: “I am as sure of it as I am of everything in the [other] world” (p. 335). There are no conclusive answers and no trustworthy perspective on which woman’s life is real. Either one could be an escape into the other’s dream, and that’s what made this book so satisfying. Not to mention the excellent period details, including authentic prejudice against working mothers, fun pop culture references, and mid-century design so real I felt like I was in the room with Kitty. A great read by an outstanding new author.

 

I received this book from HarperCollins and Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review.

May 28, 2015

The Eye Stone - Roberto Tiraboschi

Europa Editions, 2015






Four Stars


In twelfth century Venice, a small community of glassmakers invokes a combination of magic and science in the name of their craft. A young cleric living a monastic life, Edgardo, becomes involved in this sinister world of glassmaking as he searches for “the eye stone” – a crystal that will cure his impending blindness. As we are drawn into Edgardo’s desperate journey, it is clear that his vision is not all that is at stake. Edgardo defines himself by his abilities as a copyist, and when he can no longer complete this important work, he finds himself in an existential crisis that leads to all kinds of bad decisions.

The author, Tiraboschi, is a screenwriter and playwright who has worked with others such as Nobel laureate Dario Fo. I think his experience with drama is what contributes to the episodic feel of the novel, with scenes that do eventually come together in the end, albeit in an unexpected way. This is Tiraboschi’s first novel to be published in English, and as such there is always the problem of translation, of whose voice we are really hearing: the author’s or the translator’s. In this case, I think it is to the credit of both that this work comes across so well. The only thing I didn’t understand was the glossary of italicized words in Italian. When the entire novel is translated from Italian, I don’t see the purpose of leaving certain words in the original language, especially when they aren’t particularly important ones. I would prefer the translations to be embedded in the text so the reader doesn’t have to leave the storyline to understand the meaning of a word.

Tiraboschi’s writing is darkly comic with a sort of dry wit that made me laugh out loud. For example, a shopkeeper’s wife turns to Edgardo for comfort when she dreams of a monster – “ ‘It was the devil,’ Edgardo said casually and with a touch of sadism” (p. 100). The shopkeeper himself describes the world around him with a pattern of adjectives and nouns: everything is “mysteriously mysterious” or “a wondrous wonder.” The only time the writing fell a little flat was in the actual descriptions of glassmaking: it was well-researched but sometimes tedious to read the technical descriptions, although I’m not sure how else he could convey the scientific aspects of glassmaking.

Physical deformities as a representation of sin are a recurring symbol in The Eye Stone. Edgardo’s twisted figure causes him to disappoint his own father, starting his fall from aristocrat to cleric to eventual beggar. His father’s disappointment is echoed by his betrayal of God, as he partakes in one sin after another. In fact, the entire city of Venice seems to be invoking the wrath of God as disfigured babies are born and corpses rise from the canals with stones in their eyes. These ill omens were blamed on the sins of the people: “Disorder was spreading and nature was rebelling against man. The Lord’s wrath was at its peak and a disaster would befall the whole of humanity” (p. 175). Edgardo feels personally responsible for at least part of this apocalypse.

Following Edgardo on his journey is ultimately rewarding, and the ending is unexpected and completely satisfying. In his own words, “It had been a ruinous, inexorable fall,” (p. 224) like a tragedy we can’t turn away from. The writing is sharp and clever, and will be great for fans of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.


I received this book for free from Europa Editions and Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review.

May 24, 2015

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson


Back Bay Books, 2013.


 





Five Stars


 

Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is the story of Ursula Todd, a woman who is born over and over again, living every possible version of her life. She also dies in every possible way, in spite of the premonitions of her past that haunt her. It is a study in quantum mechanics, in which all versions of Ursula are living (and dying) simultaneously, depending on the choices she makes – or the choices that are made for her. Atkinson’s writing is structurally playful – a risky choice that could become gimmicky, but I think it worked well. The novel explores whether fate can ever really be changed, as Ursula faces new challenges and narrowly avoids the ones that she didn’t survive in the past.

 

I was captivated from the first scene of Ursula’s life, and I think it was a great choice to start her story in the middle of the action, as opposed to her birth. It was unpredictable and created some nice foreshadowing, as well as a connection to historical events. In the opening instance of Ursula’s life, she sacrifices everything to potentially thwart Adolf Hitler’s plans before he can enact them, in 1930. The chapter ends ambiguously, with Ursula born again on the following page. Regardless, the figure of Hitler looms large throughout the book – even when he is not physically present, the Todd family are living in the shadow of war. Upon meeting him, Ursula reflects that Hitler “was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become” (p. 360). However, one of the great themes of this novel is whether we can ever choose who we become – Ursula’s outcome seems inevitable and almost predestined.

 

Envisioning the struggle to carry on a normal life in the face of war is the real strength of this novel. It is historically well-researched but not exhaustingly so – the reader is not pushed out of the plot with endless facts. Instead, I felt like I was really there, trying to live a relatively normal life during the London Blitz. The story returns repeatedly to Ursula’s birth in 1910, to the pastoral life of the Todds before the wars, so we approach the war through new eyes with each life she lives. The birth scene starts Ursula’s life again and again, but also creates new chances for the entire country and ultimately the world – it causes us to question whether one woman’s actions could have changed the outcome of World War II.

 

Life After Life is a reflection on the mortality that we face daily, and leads us to question how often in a lifetime we narrowly elude death. There is no definitive ending to Ursula’s cycle of rebirth. She continues to be born, and does her best to bear witness to the daily disasters of war, bringing purpose to her many lives: “the practice of it makes it perfect” (p. 509). Not only thought-provoking, this was also a well-written story that was a joy to read. I am excited to read Ursula’s brother’s story in her upcoming novel, A God in Ruins – but which of Teddy’s realities will be portrayed?

May 22, 2015

Ink - Hari Kunzru


Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2015.


 





Four Stars


 
A short review for a short story:
 
I don’t usually like reading short stories – unless it is a volume of interconnected stories – because I read so quickly, I feel like I’ve just begun when it’s all over. However, I wanted to give this one a try because I just picked up a novel by the same author, and thought this might inspire me to read it.
 
What I did like about this story was that it didn’t try to be anything more than a momentary glimpse into one man’s life. Short and sweet, we meet the narrator as he boards a plane on his way to a business meeting – he is about to give up his business, which he doesn’t seem to feel much attachment to, in exchange for financial gain to continue forging a marriage that he doesn’t seem too concerned with either. He claims not to want all of the trappings of an American lifestyle, including a home in the Hamptons, as he has come from a more austere British upbringing. So why is he working so hard to attain the lifestyle? We must question his reliability right from the start.
 
The narrator spends his trip not preparing for his meeting, but instead reflecting on a boy that was bullied in his English public school. He participates in a violent and disturbing dream of these past events, which may change all of his motivations in life. These changes remain ambiguous, and allow us all room to reflect on the past and how it has affected the way we live now.
 
I received this book from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

May 20, 2015

Palace of Treason - Jason Matthews

Simon & Schuster, 2015.


 





Four Stars


 

Espionage thrillers are definitely not my favourite genre, and not something I would usually pick up. However, I was willing to suspend disbelief for Palace of Treason, mainly because the author, Jason Matthews, is a former CIA officer – thus I thought this novel might be mostly based on fact and not completely over the top with action scenes and explosions. Well, I was kind of right. Some of the scenes do seem to be thrown in just to meet the action quota, but for the most part, the characters and their reactions to their circumstances seemed believable.

 

This novel is actually a sequel to Matthews’ first one, Red Sparrow. It follows the same main characters as the original: Dominika Egorova, a Russian double agent, and her handler, Nathaniel Nash. I was at a disadvantage because I have not read the first book, but to be honest I don’t think it was necessary to read the prequel – Matthews did a great job of using flashbacks and other references to bring us up to speed on the events of the first novel without it feeling like a boring summary [Update: I found a copy of Red Sparrow at a local book sale, so I will edit this review after I have read it].

 

As I began this novel, I expected a fast-paced, action-packed ride. However, the writing was actually filled with lovely poetic descriptions that seemed somewhat out of place in the genre. The language also frequently crossed over into the verbose: for example, Nate’s family is “clannish, boorish, patriarchal, violently competitive, and invidious” (page 32). That is only one example of many like it, and while the vocabulary is impressive, I would rather see some real emotion instead of being told by a thesaurus how the characters feel.

 

The relationship between Nate and Dominika was well-written and fun to read. Their interactions were very natural, considering the unusual circumstances in which they found themselves. Other minor characters lightened the mood and put a human face on the CIA. However, just as I was getting into the Nate-Domi storyline, the novel abruptly shifts to multiple other points of view. I could see how these characters would fit into the plot later, but it still interrupted my enjoyment of the original story. These later additions to the story also felt more like caricatures, where the line between “good guys” and “bad guys” was perhaps too clearly drawn – the Russians were all scheming and evil, being compared to dwarves and toads, while the Americans were all “aw shucks” good old boys.

 

I did like the mystical aspects of the novel, such as Dominika’s ability to read auras and receive guidance from spirits – it was the perfect detail to take this novel from traditional spy novel into the realm of literary fiction. Another unusual element of the book were the recipes found at the end of each chapter – I wasn’t really sure how they related to the narrative (aside from the fact that the food was eaten in that chapter), although maybe that’s something I’m missing from the first book.

 

Overall, Palace of Treason makes me want to give spy thrillers a chance. The political perspectives on Putin and Russia’s role in the world were intriguing, and the characters’ actions seemed fairly believable and realistic – there was no James Bond extremism to be found here. With an ambiguous ending that leaves plenty of room for a sequel, I look forward to picking up Matthews’ next book.

 

I received this book for free through Simon & Schuster and Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review.

May 15, 2015

The Sound of Glass - Karen White


NAL (Penguin Group), May 12, 2015





Four Stars


A Southern Gothic setting and a heart-wrenching family drama: we are in classic Karen White territory with her newest novel, The Sound of Glass. This is the story of Merritt Heywood, a widow who inherits her grandmother-in-law’s home on the shores of South Carolina. Along with the house, she discovers new relationships with her estranged stepmother and half-brother, as well as the brother-in-law she hadn’t known existed. While the importance of family is the strongest theme of the novel, there is, of course, a little romance as well.

Starting this novel, I worried that it would be too much like White’s other novels. The plot and main character immediately felt familiar to me – a proud, lonely woman ends up as a damsel in distress in an atmospheric southern home, where she is forced to interact with the perfect man; romance ensues. However, there was also a lot of room for mystery in this plot: locked doors to creepy attics, sudden deaths and an uncertain connection between Merritt’s family and her husband’s. Other mysteries, such as Merritt’s stepmother Loralee’s motivation in reuniting with her stepdaughter, were a little too transparent for my taste.

The sea glass of the title – and the beautiful cover – serves as a metaphor for the multiple abused women in this novel. Fragile glass made strong with the beating of waves, the glass wind chimes stand for survival in the face of suffering and domestic abuse. Healing is an important aspect of this novel, and as the main character discovers, it is much easier with the support of family. Merritt struggles with allowing herself to let people in, and she is terrified that she will not be able to sacrifice for her family as her mother did for her. In facing her fears with the love and support of her newly found family, she is able to accept her past and find peace in her future.

While the mysteries of this novel are multi-generational, so are the mistakes the characters make. However, the domestic abuse cycle was perhaps a bit overdone. Almost every character in the book was either victim or abuser. It was also a little too convenient to kill off the abusers in unrelated events before the novel actually begins – because of this, the act of escaping abuse never needs to be dealt with.

I found the characters formulaic, although at some point without me realizing it, they did become real to me and I truly felt their pain. They were clumsy and emotionally inept, yet still charming. While I would file this novel under escapist fiction, I would still recommend it in the context of the genre. It doesn’t require a lot of thought or participation from the reader, yet I was still emotionally satisfied at the end. I do like my fiction a little more dark and gritty, but anyone who enjoys the women’s literary fiction genre will love this one.

 I received this book for free through NAL (Penguin Group) and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

May 13, 2015

The Bear - Claire Cameron


Little, Brown and Company, 2014.






Four Stars


 

As it is also narrated by a five-year-old, this novel will inevitably be compared to Emma Donoghue’s Room. I thought that Room was fantastic, and The Bear compares favourably in my opinion. The immediacy of the danger in this novel is even more effective when written from a child’s view. It is hard enough to read about the outright terror of a bear attack, much less hearing it from a small child who has no real sense of the danger they are in – talk about anxiety-inducing for the reader. All we can do is observe as Anna and her two-year-old brother Alex (nicknamed “Stick” in Anna’s idiosyncratic use of language) face off against the dangers of the wilderness of Algonquin Park in Ontario – everything from the direct threat of the bear to the more insidious concerns of sunstroke and dehydration, while they wait for rescue from a mom and dad who may never arrive.

 

As Cameron tells us in her author’s note, the novel is based on a real event that took place in Algonquin Park in the early 1990s. A bear attacked two humans for no discernable reason – the campers had done everything right to avoid provoking bears. In the case of violent wilderness attacks, we always search for someone to blame, and if there is no one, our fear escalates. Justifying the attack is the only way we can continue to live alongside wild animals, and this sort of incident is beyond unsettling.

 

Anna, in her own young way, also tries to justify the events she witnesses, and the aftermath that leaves her struggling for survival. Uncomprehending of the full scope of things, Anna narrates in a stream-of-consciousness style: she is easily side-tracked by seemingly petty memories of play-dates and dolls, which is frustrating for the reader who wants her to focus on survival. Nevertheless, she is well-intentioned in her care for her little brother, in spite of being easily distracted. Anna shares so many memories for one so young that it may be unrealistic, but I found it authentic to the scattered, non-linear thinking of a busy child.

 

The device of a child narrator could so easily turn gimmicky, but Cameron manages it well. I think anyone’s enjoyment of this book will hinge on their acceptance of Anna’s voice – and I accepted it whole-heartedly. The immediacy of her observations and the twists of an undeveloped mind were intriguing. Anna’s desire to be good was heart-breaking, especially as she felt she was being punished by the disastrous series of events that befell her. It was difficult to witness her attempts to be brave, alternating with a fear that she has been abandoned for being “bad”.

 

Parts I and II were action-packed and adrenaline-inducing, but I found Part III to be the most interesting. The psychological aftermath of the attack on its survivors is deep and dark, and it is intriguing to see that Anna understood much more than she realized about the attack. PTSD materializes in unusual ways in a five-year-old, as Anna struggles to cope with her undeveloped emotions. In the park, Anna was forced to confront her fears of “the black dog” – her impression of the bear – and even when she returns home, she feels its weight, telling us “The black dog is inside me.” (p. 144) The trauma of the bear attack will always be with her, and the way she expresses her traumatic experiences is what makes this novel so powerful.

May 10, 2015

Ruby - Cynthia Bond

Hogarth (Random House), 2015.






Five Stars


Ruby is a violently beautiful novel, so lyrical and filled with well-crafted imagery that it is worthy of being read out loud. The poetry of Bond’s language belies the fact that this is her debut novel – it is such a heartbreaking portrait of race and relationships in the 1950s American South that the author is being compared favourably with Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. That being said, the characters do fall a little flat in the first part, although they develop greatly into flawed yet likeable individuals as the novel progresses.

The story revolves around the title character of Ruby, who is afflicted with “haints” – the ghosts of her own past as well as the stories she has taken on from others. She is victimized not only by these emotional hauntings but also by the real physical people in her community, whose sins range from neglect of the mentally ill to outright sexual abuse. As Ruby reflects, the monsters who abused her “were also normal men, which made it the most horrible of all.” (p. 318) It is a comment on an ostensibly tight-knit religious community who value nothing more than their appearance at church, yet ultimately turn against those in need of their Christian kindness.

With the help of childhood friend Ephram, Ruby searches for redemption from the cycle of victimization. As her stories unfold, it is difficult not to react viscerally to the devastating horrors of Ruby’s life, especially the knowledge that it is rooted in reality: our collective history of the atrocities that took place only half a century ago in the darkness of the American South. As one character sums it up, “Hell, ain’t nothing strange when colored go crazy. Strange is when we don’t.” (p. 71)

There has been much discussion about whether the violence in this novel is gratuitous, but in my opinion, it is just enough to show the full extent of why Ruby turned out the way she did: mentally ill and unable to understand love. Her emotional trauma is summed up by her words to her ghost children: “The womb or the earth. Only two places children be safe.” (p. 104) Even so, Ephram works hard to show Ruby what love is, and the sweetness of the interactions between the two of them is heartbreaking. She is so honoured by his simple attentions, such as brushing her hair, and she finds it almost unbelievable that he could care for her. He forces her to recognize her own self-worth: “She could never again pretend she had not felt her worth. It would always haunt her.” (p. 264)

The way Ruby blossoms under Ephram’s care makes it even worse that he waited eleven years to rekindle their relationship – in fact it seemed like his decision came out of the blue, and it did feel like the plot was unnaturally paced for the first part of the novel. On the other hand, it also showed the true extent of Ephram’s weakness and his unusual relationship of submission to his sister-mama.

Once Ruby and Ephram did come back together, the novel bloomed as well, and expanded to include many more characters. There were so many hints about interesting women such as Ruby’s cousin Maggie, as well as both Ruby and Ephram’s mothers – I would love to read more about them in the future. I especially enjoyed the way the story was told once, and then retold through multiple points of view until we finally have enough to piece together the truth. Everyone knows more than they let on and they handle this truth-telling in different ways. I felt like there are many stories yet to be told by Cynthia Bond, and I look forward to reading them.

May 07, 2015

Elijah's Mermaid - Essie Fox

Orion Publishing Group, 2012.





Three Stars


Elijah’s Mermaid is an extremely well-researched historical novel – as evidenced by the extensive end notes – but it is perhaps too obviously researched, too self-consciously Victorian. While it has many classic Gothic elements (visions of horror, a woman in distress at the hands of a tyrannical male character), it just wasn’t dark and atmospheric enough for me to really feel the Gothic creepiness. It was more like the author was telling me, “See, this is a Gothic novel, it has all the right parts.” They just weren’t put together quite right for me.

The plotline follows two parallel love stories, both based on love at first sight and completely unconvincing. The lovers barely speak and in fact the majority of their relationships are based on memories of their first meetings. In Elijah’s case, he idealizes his “mermaid” just as much as the tyrant he is attempting to rescue her from. Although the reader is told about all of this great romance, we aren’t really shown any emotional responses – unless they jump straight from ambivalence to hysteria.

There is an obvious juxtaposition between the two female main characters, who alternate in narrating the novel. It is a contrast between the high-brow world of art and literature as it dips down into its parallel, the underworld of London, illustrated with the typical brothels and freak show tents. These clichéd settings felt overwrought, and while they were highly descriptive, it was often overdone. The contrast continued between the two narrators: while Pearl is born in the seedy underbelly of the city, populated with sinister pimps and well-intentioned prostitutes, Lily is raised in the country, in a life of privilege and familial love. However, the two women’s voices are so similar that when my attention wandered (and it did), I had a hard time figuring out which one was speaking.

I could have overlooked the heavy-handed Gothic setting and the unemotional characters if I had been more excited by the mystery aspects of the novel. However, Fox doesn’t seem to trust the reader to put together any of the plot elements on their own, so it is laid out in narrators’ speeches and everything is tied up in a neat package at the end. The postscript polished up any remaining loose ends, and overall the ending was just too convenient and contrived.

Despite this seemingly negative review, there were certainly aspects of it that I enjoyed. It started out with great intrigue – the discovery of a web-footed little girl and two orphan twins – but as it slowed down I lost interest. I do love the Gothic themes, albeit when they are carried off with a lighter touch. I think most of all I was disappointed because this was recommended to me after reading Rosie Garland’s The Palace Of Curiosities, which I loved. Elijah’s Mermaid did not measure up. It will certainly be enjoyable for hardcore fans of Victorian fiction, and I will definitely try more by Fox in the future – this one just didn’t quite work for me.

May 04, 2015

A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki


 

Penguin Books, 2013.


 





Five Stars


 

A Tale for the Time Being is the story of an author on a small Canadian island who finds a Japanese schoolgirl’s journal washed up on the beach. It is the simple story of a connection across time and place, and yet it is so much more than that. Between Zen koans and quantum physics, Ozeki weaves a tale that I could not get enough of. The author/narrator, also called Ruth, tells us that she has to force herself to slow down while reading Nao's journal, and I felt the same way about this novel. There is so much substance that I will have to read it several more times to grasp it all, something that I look forward to doing.

 

I admired most every facet of this novel, and there were a multitude of shiny facets to admire. It is a novel of ideas, many ideas, and all of them somehow fit together. The fact that quantum physics, Buddhism, environmentalism and teenage suicide can all be woven together – or become entangled, in quantum language – illustrates one of Ozeki’s main points, which is the non-duality of the world and all of the ideas in it. Seeming opposites are in fact the same, or as Nao’s great-grandmother Jiko would say, “Not same. Not different, either” (p. 194). Jiko, a nun, lovingly offers the Buddhist world view to Nao and to the reader. Ozeki herself is an ordained Buddhist priest, yet she manages to present these teachings in an everyday context, without coming across too heavy-handed.

 

In fact, none of the intricate details of science, philosophy or religion felt too heavy – they were woven into the story line and interpreted with Nao’s openness and acceptance. Nao, who at first seems like a happy, normal teenager, soon becomes darker as she faces the extreme bullying of her classmates and the suicide attempts of her father. The choices she makes create new realities for her, and we never exactly find out which reality she ends up in, although her final correspondence does seem hopeful. Much of this hope comes from her great-grandmother Jiko, who endows her with the idea of superpowers that can be as simple as accepting oneself as we exist at this moment in time.

 

The contrast between Nao and Ruth is also one of east and west, innocence and experience, spirituality and science. Although they never meet or even interact in the same “time being”, the existence of the other gives them both meaning. Their interactions through time begin to feel more authentic to each of them than their present reality – Ruth even forgets that the story in Nao’s diary is happening in the past and thus it is not “urgent” to save her from the 2011 tsunami, which occurred several years earlier. Speculative theories of time are illustrated as Ruth feels time fluctuate and finally collapse in the dream world she constructs to interact with Nao.

 

Then we come to Ruth-as-character versus Ruth Ozeki the author: their shared biographical information place us in the realm of metafiction, and yet perhaps it is instead an alternate quantum reality. In which reality does “Ruth” find Nao’s diary? Is she really Ruth-the-author, existing on another quantum plane? This line of thought causes us to question the reliability of almost everything, including our present reality and the immutability of the past. Nao’s journal, her great-uncle’s letters, and even Ozeki’s novel all show that acts of reading and writing both create and destroy – both the reader and the writer have agency over the other, and every creation/interpretation inevitably destroys an alternate possible reality.

 

At one point, Ruth’s husband’s cat goes missing, and we don’t know if he is dead or alive – the cat’s name also happens to be Schrodinger. The husband laments that it is the not-knowing that is the worst, although he eventually opens the metaphorical box and finds the cat alive. Alternatively, we never learn what happens to Nao conclusively, and so she becomes another example of Schrodinger’s quantum thought experiment: until we open the box, the cat (or Nao) is both alive and dead. I think the not-knowing is the point: all we can do is be happy now, in the instance of life we currently inhabit, as a being in time. Jiko’s final words are an imperative call to live, “For now. For the time being” (p. 362) and that is all we can really do.

 

Ultimately, this is a story about being, now, in this time. It is a tale of magic realism, grounded in quantum physics and speculative theories of time, with a generous dash of Buddhism and ecology. It is truly amazing that the narrative does not get dragged down by its many themes, and I think this is because these themes, like everything in life, are entangled and inevitably connected. Ruth Ozeki is an incredible story teller, and I cannot wait to read more!

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May 03, 2015

Ru - Kim Thuy


Bloomsbury, 2012.


 





Four Stars


 

This book was the Canada Reads winner for 2015. It is a thinly veiled memoir classed as fiction, although I see it as more of a reflection or lullaby (which happens to be the Vietnamese meaning of the title). Thuy uses short vignettes to show the importance of memory in preserving her culture and her family. Reading these small fragments was much like travelling through the memories of a stranger; a boat floating down a foreign river (and there’s the French meaning of the title). Often non-chronological, we can sometime see the connections between the unnamed narrator’s memories, but other times the order is simply based on those illogical links that our brains like to make.

 

Despite Thuy’s childhood during the Vietnam War, this novel is focused on her family’s escape, and the immigrant experience upon arrival in Canada. Like a child looking back on her short life, the narrator of Ru focuses on specific details that make childhood memorable, instead of the big historical events she survived. Coming to Canada on a boat from Vietnam is briefly recalled, but more emphasis is placed on trying to fit in to life in Montreal.

 

Not all of the memories are seemingly connected to Vietnam and her family’s role as refugees, which shows that the narrator is not only defined by this experience. This is a non-conventional novel in which the series of memories are perhaps difficult to connect with – each memory has a specific meaning for the storyteller, but as an outsider, the reader may not be able to gather much significance from these fragments of memory. The narrator moves from upper class Saigon to Malaysian refugee camps to Quebec, and finally returns to Vietnam, but we must track this journey through disjointed memories.

 

The narrator writes that her parents didn’t have a lot, but they “passed on to us the wealth of their memories” (p. 41). Proust and his famous madeleines are also recalled in the author’s quest for remembrance of things past (p. 52). Each memory triggers the next, leaving the reader with a sense of dislocation. I found that each passage was best when handled separately and read out loud – I think it would be perfect to read this book in one sitting, then dip back in and savour certain memories as the pieces of poetry that they are, until you come to a place “where a country is no longer a place but a lullaby” (p. 140).