MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND, by Helen Simonson

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson, is an excellent first novel, but felt as though two writers were struggling to work together and bind the simplicity of the first chapters to the romantic and dramatic events of the last. I believed the characters wholeheartedly and thoroughly enjoyed their quirks, humanity, and genuine emotion--except for the events following the knitting-needle fiasco. At that point, the reader is led through a series of action scenes incongrous from the rest of the book. However, Simonson recovers her tone and her story for the epilogue.

Despite the few scenes that make you wonder if you accidentally switched the channel from As Time Goes By to a movie adaptation of Ethan Frome, the book is both charming and sad: a portrayal of life in change that at reaches a surprising and resounding poignance. There is a persistent heartache as you read about the Major's disappointed expectations, which contrasts nicely with the Major's conservatism and elitism. He isn't a character you believe to always be right--and indeed, some of the most believable passages show the Major's understanding of his own prejudices, often pointed out to him by the women he loves--but he is a character that you want to win.

Perhaps the saddest, and at the same time, the most lovely and true writing occurs when the Major has flashbacks contrasting with his present reality. It is so easy to relate to his emotions and experiences during these times; remembering fondly a time his wife told him what was what, regretting a moment that he did not fully appreciate, and so on. These flashbacks--in tandom with his lively, sensual, tangible relationship with Mrs. Ali--make the book successful.

Mrs. Ali and her family are similarly endearing, and though the book is written solely from the perspective of the Major, the reader feels keenly for this character who is forced to experience both the prejudice of her town--the members of which appear especially daft as they persistently address her as a foreigner, though she points out she grew up in Cambridge--and the conservatism of her family, which denies her the independence she enjoys during her marriage and later ownership of the village shop. Mrs. Ali truly drives the novel, either by her keen perception and bold action, or by her ability to inspire action in others.

The true winners of this novel are the women, and for every Gertrude, Amina, and Mrs. Rasool that exists in the world, one hopes there is also a Grace, whose eventual realization of her own natural beauty, personality, strength, and self-worth is not only the spark that sets the novel on the path to a happy ending, but also the least one could wish for every woman.

Also, because I am that person, I have to point out that the novel successfully navigates a breadth of relationships--from the obvious multicultural and multiracial, to the more subtle differences of individuals who are presumed by the masses to share the same heritage and race, yet see the world from a unique and valuable perspective.

If you like this book, try:

As Time Goes By (TV show)
A Month in the Country, by J. L. Carr
The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan

Mixed Thoughts: Banned books and more dangerous thoughts

I found this article while searching through lists for Banned Books Week, but it brings up many frustrating and personal issues. Please read (or skim) the article before reading this blog so you understand the context of my post.

    As someone who never received curriculum based on a multi-ethnic heritage (did the school board ban all the books written about people with multiple ethnicities?), I somehow survived. Probably because it is harder to rally all those JapaSpanIriPolFrench people out there to create such a curriculum, you just take what you get and accept that your heritage is going to be what you create every day. I had some incredible history and literature teachers growing up, and even with their intelligence and appreciation for representing diverse populations, there were gaps. As a student who has always been completely full of myself, I took the initiative to fill those gaps with family history and the research I could accomplish with the books and websites available to me.

    This is why I feel personally insulted when I hear that resources are banned for their controversial nature. Just because I'm bringing it up, some government official is going to ban Sherman Alexie, Haruki Murakami, James Joyce, Wislawa Szymborska, and Victor Hugo--just in case I start getting ideas. I don't usually wax political, but when people mess with the books in a country founded in ideals of freedom, it's just not cool. I'd rather live in a country in which multi-ethnic literature studies is possible, even if it remains an idealistic dream, even if I conduct and create it myself, than a country that bans books so we can avoid standing up for the teachers who share such books or the rights of the creators to write them.

    If people do not have the personal strength or education to retain their ideas and values without forcing those ideas and values upon others, there are many countries in the world that do enforce silence and appreciate cultural homogeny, and perhaps such people belong in such countries. If we in the United States are not willing to support an education system that teaches people how to critically analyze information representing multiple viewpoints, even if those viewpoints do not represent our own--if we can not somehow teach our future generations to agree to disagree while coexisting in the same space--then we deserve all the one-dimensional, egregiously exaggerated caricatures that represent us.

For those interested, here are some banned book links.

The official website for Banned Books Week

A Google map of the most recent challenged/banned books

Frequently Challenged Books of the 21st century

GAME OF THRONES, from series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, by G.R.R. Martin

When I visited Hadrian's Wall in the Spring of 2007, I saw a UNESCO World Heritage Site that hinted at civilizations, feuds, and bodies long disintegrated, as had the once foreboding wall. As exciting as it was to explore the history of Hadrian's Wall, I saw this:

My own picture. My caption at the time: 

"the actual wall of roman awesomeness that doesn't go much 

of anywhere anymore but is still completely frikkin' cool."

Enough of that . . . Here's what G.R.R. Martin saw: 

http://gameofthrones.net/resources/48-images/589-the-wall-hbo-game-of-thrones.html

. . . a 700-plus foot wall made of ice, meant to discourage unwanted tourists, such as undead White Walkers with frosty blue eyes, and the "children"--a people of long forgotten magic--who watch through the blood-red eyes of the white weirwood trees.

And this must be how G.R.R. Martin imagines his toilet.

http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/2011/1/16/latest-photo-the-iron-throne.html

Martin's ability to dream on a grandiose scale is what makes some compare him to Tolkien; his ability to cruelly obliterate hope is what makes the reader realize that this is not another Tolkien novel.  The environment may be a fantasy, but the characters are all too realistic, leading Anne McCaffrey to describe Game of Thrones as a "fantasticorical" (and other readers to try and force the two words together in less fantasticorical ways). 


Among the 2,529 customer reviews on Amazon.com (not counting the 4,000+ "likes" for some of the reviews) and the 4,908 reviews on Barnes and Noble, one can find the enraged, embittered, offended, disgusted leavings of readers who were looking for Frodo and Richard Rahl, only to find the gross, disappointing, conniving, broken, and utterly human characters true fans have come to love. 

"Love" is a light word in this case. For what Twihards have in volume and soprano range, Game of Thrones fans have in sheer devotion, following Martin's five-book series over fifteen years. Thank goodness Stephanie Meyers didn't force her adolescent following to wait six years for Breaking Dawn, which is the length of time Martin spent writing book five, Dance with Dragons.


The release of Dance with Dragons coincided with the start of the HBO TV series, the re-release of the board game, the creation of the role playing video game, and the emergence of fans old and new on a Martin-esque scale (as evidenced in part by the 274 patrons still in line to read the first book on AACPL's e-book waiting list). Moreover, 2011 experienced the thorough integration of Game of Thrones into modern culture's most precious commodity, social media: the ability to make, remake, comment, like, and share. If you haven't seen the Game of Thrones characters as presidential candidates on Facebook yet, here is your link out of the stone age: Click here to rejoin society. 

If you are one of those 274 people on the waitlist for GoT (or another rare being who has avoided the book as of yet), here are a few spoiler-free details to summarize what you're up for:

1. You should know that there's lots of sex, nudity, violence, drinking, swearing, and other things gory, vulgar, and grim. 

2. Your moral compass will flip out, as will your expectations. As Lev Grossman says in his review, "The only way to tell the heroes from the villains is that the hero is the guy with the knife in his back." 

3. You will have to work hard for a book that is not nice, fun, or uplifting. If you aren't in the mood for ploughing through a dense thicket of words that leave you disheartened and frustrated and dismally awaiting the sixth book, there is plenty of enjoyable book candy out there. Go pick up a Xanth novel. Or a Harry Potter.

By the way, I did not read every single one of those 7,437 reviews mentioned above. I will leave that for you, voracious reader, if you are one of the deprived souls suffering from both the end of HBO's Game of Thrones season and the seemingly endless wait for the sixth book, The Winds of Winter. If you fit this description, you are likely reading this review solely in a vain attempt to quell your vampiric thirst for more Martin. I likely know who you are.


In the meantime, the rest of us bookworms will just have to suffer through more of this.

If you liked Game of Thrones, I recommend:

• Shakespeare's Macbeth
• Lost or The Sopranos (TV)
• Historical documentaries, biographies, and autobiographies (like the U.S., France, and Great Britain between 1900 and 1939. Or Ghengis Khan.)
• The game Risk

Enjoyable trivia:

On Tuesday, July 10, 2012, an exact word search in the New York Times Book Review for "Game of Thrones" returns Nuns Behaving Badly, apparently listed under Children's Books, about nuns who train as assassins. Review by Jessica Bruder, published April 6, 2012. Gotta love web searches.

Sources:


Grossman, Lev. G.R.R. Martin's Complex Epic for an Ambivalent Age
NPR Staff. Author George R.R. Martin 'Playing For Keeps'  
Jennings, Dana. In a Fantasyland of Liars, Trust No One, and Keep Your Dragon Close.
Amazon: Game of Thrones (book)
B&N: Game of Thrones (book)

THE SHADOW OF THE WIND, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruis Zafon . . . Anything I say about this novel can not approach the experience you will have reading it. And you should read it. My advice to you: take notes. The plot is thick, tangled, and fascinating, connecting even small, unexpected characters the way life does every day. I found myself turning the pages backwards as often as forward.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a genius. He is able to see through the eyes of a young man who speaks with the voice of a poet and receives wisdom from the most unlikely corners of life. I read the translation by Lucia Graves, and the words are elegant, poignant, sometimes startlingly vulgar; clearly, the writer loved every one of them, selecting only the choicest morsels for his readers to devour. Check out his website, and read his explanation for why he writes. Carlos Ruiz Zafon is an artist, and his work-even the gnarly bitter parts--is beautiful.

The novel walks through Barcelona and its layers of history, describing a tangible place affected by true events, occupied by people whose lives--though fictional--are woven into the life of the city itself.  There is a sense of reality in the way changing times impact the characters, in small details like the introduction of television to larger events like the weight of the World War.

But underlying this veracity is a world of shadows, filled with drama, anguish, torment, blood, death, revenge, and all the best elements of a nineteenth-century gothic novel brought into the twentieth-century. It's as though the author is reminding us that even when we think world grows ordinary, familiar, and mundane with the passing of time--even as wires and hard science tell us how the world works--no matter what era we live in, the mystery never truly subsides. There is something in us that yearns for the intensity of greatness: profound love, grotesque horror, devastating loss. Guided by the perspective of a curious young man, readers interact with the city and its people knowing that the presence of otherworldly events and characters is constant, that myth and dreams shape the world as much as bullets and cinema.

And perhaps that is where the book steps in, because a crucial theme of the novel is a love of the actual, physical book: its ability to hide in the depths of the Cemetary of Books, on your own shelf, or somewhere in your past; the contrast of the material printed page and the ethereal word, added to the suspense of the unexpected only discovered if you turn the page. We may be able to translate the content of an authors work into multiple media, but there is something special about the book that transports us and adds to our reading. There is a sense of sadness in the novel as the presence of a modern author's consciousness converses with the narrator of the past, watching the world of books begin to slip away.

I loved this book, and I highly recommend it!

If you liked The Shadow of the Wind, you may also like:

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Caleb Carr, The Alienist
Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles