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.