In the Shadow of the Banyan - Vaddey Ratner

Simon & Schuster, 2013.

 

Four Stars

 

Ratner’s novel would be better classified as a fictionalized memoir of an overlooked period of history in the western world: Cambodia in the 1970s during the Khmer Rouge revolution. Ratner herself writes that she has “chosen the medium of fiction, of reinventing and imagining where memory alone is inadequate.” (p. 318, author’s note). As a young child during the revolution, it would certainly be hard to differentiate fact from fiction when reporting on the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime.

 

The story is ostensibly told from the perspective of a seven-year-old girl, Raami, but with a strong adult slant. The point of view is inconsistent, with Raami sometimes childlike and uncertain, and at other times understanding too much about the world. Because of this, it is more like an adult describing childhood than an actual child’s voice. I didn’t mind this inconsistency at all, because it was clear that Ratner was reflecting back on her former life, putting words into the mouth of her child-self.

 

Raami speaks often of the importance of storytelling: of bearing witness to the crimes of the past. On page 82, when leaving her own past behind, she says, “It was clear to me now that while books could be torn and burned, the stories they held needn’t be lost or forgotten.” When everything seems lost, she can recall her father, her sister, and her old life by telling stories. And isn’t this why we read and write?

 

The novel begins with moment by moment detail of the first days of the revolution, then dissolves into vague swaths of time in the second half of the book. I think this is probably related to how young Raami saw the world – in the beginning, everything was sharp and new and vibrant, but as time passed, she lost her sense of place in the world and the narrative becomes unreliable. Starving and overworked, ten-year-old Raami is a far cry from the sheltered, pampered girl she was before the revolution, the girl who saw the beauty in everything. Her vivid descriptions disintegrate into the monotony of a life passing in internment.

 

Poetry is a major part of Raami’s family life – her father, a prince of Cambodia, is a poet who is targeted for his intellectualism as well as his royal connections. Raami’s voice, as well as Ratner’s narration, is lyrical also, but it does not feel overdone. I got lost in the language, in a foreign country that I have never been to but felt like I could see in front of me.

 

The horror and uncertainty of Raami’s existence during oppression is only made redeemable by the strengthening of connection between her mother and herself. They are bonded in their love for Raami’s father, who was doomed although he continued to believe in the revolution - he never stopped looking for goodness in the people who aimed to destroy him. It takes time for disillusionment to set in, and although Raami (and probably Ratner) did lose her hope for a better life, she regained it through the act of storytelling.

The House of Hawthorne - Erika Robuck

New American Library (Penguin Group), 2015

 

Five Stars

 

Often, prologues (and in this case, “interludes”) can interfere with my enjoyment of the storyline because they drop hints and give too much away. This is not as problematic in historical fiction, where there are few surprises. Regardless, Robuck manages to write a fresh and new perspective on the nineteenth century literary figure, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her prologue is intriguing, but vague enough to keep me guessing, and it sets the tone for the rest of the novel.

 

Robuck has written several novels that revolve around historical literary figures, yet she takes their story so much farther than a simple biographical retelling as fiction. While Hawthorne is the entry point into this novel, it is his wife Sophia that expands it into a story worth reading. In this case, Sophy did in fact publish their common journals and write about their life together after Nathaniel’s death. Nathaniel repeatedly asserts that words are unreliable and he doesn’t trust them, so Sophy becomes the obvious choice as narrator to his story.

 

Sophia is a painter and sculptor, and Robuck has a great talent for describing the world through the eyes of an artist. Before her marriage, she journeys to Cuba, and her interpretation of the world is so beautiful and evocative that her journal is published shortly after. Despite her travels, Sophy is extremely sheltered by her family, and naïve about the world – she is almost too sweet and innocent, yet still somehow likeable. Her recognition of her own flaws is her most redeeming quality. Every time Sophy was about to become a cliché, Robuck pulls her out of it by having her act out of character and thus becoming stronger. Sophy’s voice fits in with the Transcendentalists and other novels of this time period, yet she is distinct from the narrators of Robuck’s other novels. I love that even amongst well known historical figures, Robuck treats each of her characters as individuals with their own voice.

 

Several themes recurred throughout The House of Hawthorne, and one of them was the balance between solitude and community. Nathaniel shuns company, with the excuse that it negatively affects his writing, while Sophy attempts to find a balance between the two. Nathaniel also laments the increase of individuality in writing, as expressed by his female contemporaries, Margaret Fuller and Sophy’s sister Elizabeth Peabody. He felt that the expression of opinions lead to war and conflict (p. 264), which is the opposite of most modern philosophies of writing. In contrast, Sophy sees writers and artists as the “bearers of truth” (p. 394) which isolates them from the rest of the world, and specifically from their domestic partners.

 

Sophia begins the novel as one of these “bearers of truth” in her painting, yet she is eclipsed by her famous husband. Historical fact aside, I was extremely disappointed that she never returned to painting, even after Nathaniel’s death. She entered her marriage with the hope to create a perfect union of artist and author, yet she was condemned to tend to domestic life. As much as she asserts that her children were her works of art, she is ultimately unsatisfied with her creative process. Even in the artistic capital of Rome, Sophy faces the frustrations of trying to express herself: she holds a broken pencil, heavy with symbolism, and admits that she “must suffer with the blank page” (p. 351).

 

Finally, Sophia invokes “the final word” (p. 395) by publishing her life with Nathaniel; however, her final work of art was to chronicle her husband’s life, and not her own. Robuck once again does a beautiful job of showing her readers the women who propped up the famous literary men in their lives, and giving women such as Sophia Hawthorne just a little of the recognition they have always deserved.

 

I received this book for free through Penguin Books and Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review.

Kindred - Octavia Butler

Doubleday, 1979.

 

Four Stars

 

First of all, I loved the premise of this novel. A black woman, Dana, living in the 1970s, is suddenly and repeatedly thrown back in time to the 1820s Antebellum south where she must try to survive in a world of slavery and oppression. Not only that, but she soon realizes that the white slave owner who is calling her back in time happens to be her ancestor – as such, she is forced to save his life over and over again (he is especially accident-prone) in order to preserve her own existence. It is a thought-provoking construct in which the reader is forced to look at how much the world has changed, and how much the issues of racism are still with us today – not only in the 1970s but here in 2015.

 

The constant shifts between past and present destabilize our concepts of history and our separation with the evils of the past. It is also a reflection on human nature: both Dana and her white husband, Kevin, are frightened by how easily they adapt to their roles as slave and slave-owner. It is easy to look back at history and say we would never condone slavery, but Dana concludes that the acceptance of evil is easier than we think, and thus slavery was maintained with minimal force.

 

Although I loved the novel as a thought-experiment, I found it somewhat lacking in plot and character development. The aspects of time travel could have been much more thoroughly explained, although that didn’t bother me since I am not a sci-fi fan to begin with, so I accepted it as simply a clever device to contrast slavery with our modern world. However, I couldn’t get past the oversimplification of the characters and their relationships.  There were so many opportunities for complex psychological exploration that were simply skimmed over. I found it hard to believe that Dana and Kevin’s relationship could survive what they went through, because I felt like I didn’t know anything about them, or whether they really had a strong bond to begin with. Also disconcerting is the fact that neither of them seems all that concerned about their inevitable time travel – Butler tells us that they are upset, but it felt too detached. Similarly, the characters that populated the past could have been fleshed out much more.

 

The ending of Kindred was very abrupt, but it was also the only possible scenario, in my opinion. One thing I loved was the ultimate uncertainty about which world is real for Dana and Kevin, especially after life goes back to normal. It made me feel like there could be all sorts of people who accidentally travel through time, then go on living normal lives. Ultimately, despite its weaknesses of character development, this novel is a beautiful philosophical experiment in ways of looking at the past, and why the study of history will always be relevant so as not to repeat it.

The Gathering Night - Margaret Elphinstone

Canongate Books, 2009.

 

Four Stars

 

I have to admit that I snooped through the afterword before beginning this book – and I’m happy I did. Elphinstone’s perspective and motivation were very helpful in understanding the context of the novel. I found out that the story is set in Mesolithic Scotland, not the Pacific Northwest as I would have assumed from the coastal setting. I highly suggest reading the afterword first, it will certainly enhance the story.

 

The characters of The Gathering Night are focused on hunting and gathering for survival in 400 BCE, and as such, there is no written literature. Elphinstone narrates her novel with many voices, as each family member tells stories around the fire. The verbal storytelling feels very authentic to the time period, as their historical account of events changes with each new voice. My only complaint was that the voices were perhaps not distinct enough.

 

The general outline of The Gathering Night seems plausible to me – there is no anachronistic romance or other contemporary influences. The tsunami that sets all following events into motion is the only true historical event in the novel, but it is completely believable that this could have been a story passed down through generations, retold around the campfire at the gathering. There is no modern omniscient narrator telling us how the characters would have thought or felt, so all we have is their seemingly authentic story.

 

The mystery of the tsunami and its influence, whether direct or subtle, is slowly built up throughout the novel, and the development of characters is advanced at a similarly plodding pace. Part of this is due to the repetition of scenes, shown through the different perspectives of each storyteller. This device is a little tedious, yet it does illustrates how the individual voices merge into a collective voice of the community.

 

The group’s interactions with nature could be a commentary on our present disconnect with wildlife. There is a concept of agreement between hunters and animals that is not a sacrifice but a compromise between the two: the animals were not afraid because “they knew [none] had agreed to give itself that day.” This phrasing is repeated throughout the book, and I think it is a beautiful way of describing the fact that the hunters only took what they needed, and nothing more.

 

I was expecting that the tsunami would have a bigger role in the novel, and I felt my interest in all of the minor conflicts dragging in the middle of the novel. However, everything picked up as the loose ends began to tie together in an unexpected way. The concept of life continuing on after death was so important to these people living just to survive, and this is why storytelling is so important for the community. Whether the deceased are truly reincarnated or not, they live on through their stories. The ending justified the means of telling this story, and pulled it all together.

The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri

Mariner Books, 2004.

 

Four Stars

 

Like her short story collection, The Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri’s novel The Namesake is an exploration of the space between conflicting cultures. Gogol Ganguli is torn between the familiarity of his parents’ Indian traditions, and his need to fit in with his American peers – and he cannot manage to belong anywhere. Throughout the novel, he tries different methods of escaping from his family and his past. In his relationships, he jumps fully into the women’s lives, in an attempt to avoid his own reality. However, Gogol will never be happy until he can accept where he came from and use these experiences to make a life that is completely his own.

 

Gogol receives his strange name due to his father’s love of Russian literature, and the significance of a train accident. The motif of the train – moving from one city/culture/language to another – recurs throughout the novel. As much as Gogol tries to distance himself from his family, he is never more than a four hour train ride away from his childhood home. The act of travel is especially poignant regarding the immigrant experience, but the journey from childhood to adulthood can be just as traumatic. Gogol’s father recognizes this as they walk out to the end of a breakwater together, and he implores his son, “Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”

 

Lahiri emphasizes the notion that everyday events are more important than the extraordinary when looking back on a life. On page 287, she sums up this idea:

 

“And yet these events have formed Gogol, shaped him, determined who he is. They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.”

 

It is a comment on the randomness of life, how the events that shape us most might never have happened, that the petty details are what compose a lifetime of memories.

 

Apparently this novel was initially written as a novella and published in The New Yorker, and only later expanded into a full length novel. I think this explains a lot of the structural issues and the long stretches of writing without a lot of useful plot. However, it isn’t all bad – the summarized chunks of time create a sense of distance between narrator and reader, and almost make the writing feel nostalgic, as if Gogol truly was remembering a life lived so far, and utilizing his past to forge a clear path forward.

The Well - Catherine Chanter

Simon & Schuster, 2015.

Five Stars

I loved the atmosphere of this novel. It was dark and sinister and I felt like I couldn’t trust the narrator to tell me what was really going on – best of all, she couldn’t trust herself. I appreciate that the author didn’t spoon-feed any information to me as a reader. Having to slowly piece together the mystery added to the ominous feeling that hovered like a raincloud over this story of drought and disaster.

Ruth Ardingly and her husband Mark decide to start a new life at the Well, a rural property in the United Kingdom. They leave London to escape accusations against Mark, but end up becoming further ostracized by their new community. For unexplained reasons, the Well is one of the only properties in the U.K. that still has water, and the Ardinglys are held accountable for this mystery. They serve as scapegoats as the drought that is destroying the U.K. escalates for the next two years, sparing their farm. Meanwhile, their relative physical comfort is contrasted with issues that may destroy their marriage and ultimately their family.

We enter the story after the events of the drought, including the arrival of a fanatic religious sect that leads to an act of unthinkable violence, and ends with Ruth’s house arrest at the Well. As Ruth struggles with her memories, the reader is led down a dark trail made all the more forbidding with the uncertainty of who to trust: Ruth, Mark, the religious Sisters of the Rose – any one of them could be responsible for the crime Ruth is charged with. Like Ruth, we are limited by her lack of knowledge of the outside world, which makes it easy to understand her frustrations and her motivations.

Aside from the personal relationships, there is the issue of the drought. It is a mix of modern ecological disaster – so believable that it is hard to even be shocked by the extremity of the drought – and threatening religious undertones – sort of a reverse Noah’s Ark where life remains only where there is water. The characters at the Well show a range of fairly realistic reactions to the impending apocalypse, from optimistic religious fervour to ambivalent denial. The novel also hints at the powers taken by government agencies during times of emergency, mocking the bureaucracy that takes advantage of people’s fears in order to exert control.

The story of the Well was extraordinary in its portrayal of disastrous events made ordinary, as well as the individuals who live through these disasters, both personal and on a global scale. Beautiful, believable and hauntingly prescient.

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

Inside the O'Briens - Lisa Genova

Simon & Schuster, 2015.

 

Four Stars

 

Inside the O’Briens was a great read, just as heart-wrenching and character-driven as Genova’s other novels. I have read and enjoyed all of the author’s work so far, and this one didn’t disappoint either. Her stories of coping with medical issues are extremely well-researched and I always feel like I’m learning a lot – however, her descriptions of the symptoms of a disease can sometimes be a little heavy-handed and perhaps take something away from the story. On the other hand, I knew going into this novel that Genova’s background is medical, so it wasn’t surprising that facts were emphasized more than plot.

Genova does an authentic job of giving us Joe’s voice as he responds to a diagnosis of Huntington’s Disease, loses his job, and deals with the effects of these issues on his family. While his character is a bit of a stereotype (the Irish Catholic Boston cop), he becomes more fleshed out as the book goes on. It was in part two that I got more into the novel as a story and less as a medical text. The shift in perspective to Joe’s daughter gave the characters more feeling and personality. Katie is believable and realistic, and she shows us the way Huntington’s affects a whole family and every aspect of life – on a very emotional and personal level.

While Inside the O’Briens is heavy with fear, depression and heartbreak, it is also about hope, and what remains of a life with Huntington’s. Spending time with his growing family, Joe realizes that new life is always beginning, and his disease is only a small part of it. In understanding their genetic risk, Joe’s children also must accept the fact that death is inevitable – even if they test gene negative, they could get hit by a bus the next day. Knowing how we will die does not change the fact that we will eventually die. We can either give up on everything, or focus on living life to the fullest, regardless of the risks. The emphasis is on living intentionally, with love and gratitude, as exemplified in Katie’s yoga practice. As we learn from the O’Briens, there cannot be a happy ending with Huntington’s Disease, but there can be hope.

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

Self - Yann Martel

Vintage Canada, 1996.

Three Stars

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Life of Pi, but from what I remember, this novel is completely different. Self is self-consciously postmodern, and seems almost like a series of experiments in writing that were thrown together into a novel. There is some absolutely beautiful descriptive language – such as the recurring metaphor of love as fish swimming in our eyes – and these passages are much more enjoyable than the novel as a whole. I re-read certain sections, savouring the words, but overall the story fell flat for me.

The issue of gender is obviously an important one in Self. Martel is able to convincingly get inside the child’s mind, and the narrator’s early sexual confusion – he thinks that each person has their own gender, and we are made to fit with only one other, whether boy or girl – reminds us that gender doesn’t matter to children. However, I found it problematic that he does not differentiate between physical sex and one’s identifying gender. The narrator physically changes into a woman, but his/her world view was still very masculine in my opinion, so much so that I kept forgetting about the gender change completely.

The change in gender seemed like an unnecessary construct within the novel; the plot could have stood alone with it. Alternatively, much more could have been done with the change. I do think the way it was handled – no one seems all that shocked that this young boy is now physically a woman – was ahead of its time. Self was published almost twenty years ago, and issues of gender and identification are much more accepted now than they were then. As the narrator tells us, “Gender in matters of love struck me as of no greater consequence than flavours in ice cream.” (p. 60)

Parts of the novel read almost like a writing journal, where Martel is using the narrator to explore his own unusable story ideas. Fortunately, I found some of these ideas quite enjoyable to read on their own. Overall, the language and ideas were strong enough to save this novel from its other weaknesses of plot and character.

The Infinite Plan - Isabel Allende

Harper Collins, 1991.

Three Stars

 

Isabel Allende is one of my all-time favourite authors, but I just couldn’t get in to this one. I appreciate that Allende was trying something new – it’s her first novel set in America, as well as the first with a white male protagonist, although he is still somewhat marginalized, growing up in the L.A. barrio and confronting racism from his community. While her other novels are full of passion and magic, the story of Gregory Reeves was very dry. His life is a series of tragedies and adventures, but it reads more like a biography, which is essentially what it is: a fictionalized version of Allende’s husband’s life. That’s why the plot doesn’t seem as well-constructed as her other novels – it is more like the retelling of a series of separate events.

The third person narrator (who *spoiler* turns out to be Allende herself, but that’s obvious to anyone who knows the book is about her husband) shows no passion for the story. The only exciting parts to read were the first person narration by Gregory, and even then it was difficult to identify with him. He was kind of unlikeable, and didn’t seem to learn from mistakes, in spite of the tragedies experienced by his family. The best parts – and in fact the only parts I didn’t skim over at all – were Gregory’s narration while in Vietnam. In those sections he at least showed some passion and excitement.

I found myself wanting to know more about the interesting female characters in this novel: Judy, Gregory’s sister with a passion for parenting in spite of childhood abuse; Olga, a self-described gypsy; and Carmen, Gregory’s childhood best friend who creates her own happiness in life. All three seemed like they would have had a much more interesting interior voice than Gregory, and Allende is at her best when writing female characters with a little magic in their lives. Unfortunately, she was focused on her husband’s perspective. His story is a good one, but it could have been great if narrated by one of the women. Allende limited herself to bare facts, and I wish she would have taken it farther into her usual world of magic realism.

“The Infinite Plan” of the title – a philosophical lifestyle preached by Gregory’s father – loses course throughout the novel, and I wish there had been more about the actual philosophy behind it. Gregory realizes the Plan doesn’t exist, “just the strife of living.” He doesn’t find anything real to replace his father’s plan, therefore he cannot be the hero of his own life, and I was uninspired by his journey.

Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011.

 

 Five Stars

Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward’s 2011 reflection on Hurricane Katrina, was so beautiful and yet so difficult to read – I found myself lingering to enjoy the language while at the same time wanting to close my eyes to escape the circumstances of these characters. The poetry of Ward’s storytelling is shockingly beautiful, especially when set against the horrors she describes.

This is the story of the Batiste family in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. While you might start this novel thinking that the effects of the hurricane will be the most powerful part of this novel, it is in fact only the culmination of a series of violent and savage incidents. A brother’s birth and a mother’s death, dog fights and fights between friends, not to mention everyday acts of existing in an impoverished and unfeeling world: these all become equally important acts of survival, pushing the plot forward, gathering strength along with the hurricane winds.

The children – and they are children, in spite of their brutal experiences – seem to live a feral life, half wild like the dogs they train to fight. With an absent mother and a father who might as well be, Esch and her brother Randall do their best to keep the family life stable for seven year old Junior. Meanwhile, Skeetah identifies more with his pit bull, China, who – emotionally at least – fulfills the role for him of mother as well as romantic partner. He seems to care for nothing more than his dog, but when tested in a shocking way during the hurricane, Skeetah sacrifices everything for his family.

Esch is a perfect choice for narrator, naive though she may be. Her passive dialogue is in direct contrast with the strength of her interior voice. She speaks few words out loud, but her narration is descriptive, intelligent and above all perceptive. She is able to compare her experiences to a book of Greek mythology – which she hides from her family, much like she hides her true self. She doesn’t yet understand herself or her role in the world, so her perspective moves in and out of focus, resolving itself as she overcomes her circumstances.

While the subject of family is a major theme of this novel, it is motherhood in particular that is problematic for Esch. Her memories of her own mother are faded, and her example of maternal instinct is the pit bull China, who commits atrocious acts against her own puppies. China’s birthing scene is as violent as any dog fight that comes later in the novel. Esch has her own reasons for maternal curiousity, and during an especially intense climactic scene between China and her offspring, she thinks, “Is this what motherhood is?”

Even after the wreckage of the hurricane and the ambiguous ending for the Batiste family, I still feel that the ultimate message of this novel is one of hope: salvaging the bones, creating a life out of what is left behind after tragedy. Like Skeetah telling China to “make them know” in the dog pit, Esch tells her story to make us know her strength – that it can be honourable to be savage, to fight for a place in the world, and create life in the face of disaster.

 

Books and more books!

Hi! I'm Kelsi and I have a book addiction. From collecting (ok, hoarding) to researching new reads (hours and hours lost in the maze of the internet) to reviewing, it's time to turn my obsession into something that could be helpful to other compulsive readers. I hope someone out there can use my reviews to find their next favourite read!