Revealed Lives

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This novel is tightly written and strings the reader along as the author reveals, not just an aspect of history not well known, the painful past of the characters and how some of them seek resolution in their old age.  This is  Esi Edugyan's second novel and it was a finalist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, a well-deserved honour.  Check out her website. 

A Lost Opportunity

Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Simaite by Julija Sukys

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book had so many possibilities for greater success! The letters and diaries of Ona Simaite reminded me of Victor Klemperer's "I Will Bear Witness" diaries: the difficulties of daily life, the minutia, the ordinary, let alone the extraordinary, these are invaluable lessons. I felt the author, Julija Sukys, couldn't decide how to deal with so much material and began to take the work too personally, projecting too much of her own needs/thoughts/ideas to make it about Simaite. There were also numerous dating/time passage errors and grammatical errors that ought to have been caught by a good editor.

Grace in the midst of evil

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When the world claims to not know, we are all complicit.  This book is not just a testament to the power of survival and grace, it is a demonstration that when humans are trapped in evil it takes courage for someone to stand up and say no.  Read this book and contemplate the evils of the 20th century and the current evils we are abetting by not standing up and saying no.

Censorship in Africa: the Chinese Influence

Thanks to Mohamed Keita, the Africa advocacy coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, for his opinion piece in today's New York Times.  The title of his commentary is "Africa's Press Problem".   This press "problem" is one is related to other "problems" I have commented on in previous posts and concerns...China.  Yes, not only is China bribing its way into Africa's vast resources, promising jobs, growth, development in the African nations it is exploiting, but now it is engaging in the censorship of the press corps of Africa's nations.  So, while China complains of interference by foreigners in its affairs regarding Human Rights and other Universal Rights, claiming that Chinese history and culture exempt it from scrutiny and judgement by the rest of the world, it not only interferes in politics and economies of  Africa, but also in those very same rights it claims is hands off to the rest of the world.  Talk about double speak and duplicity.

Breezes

                                                                           
                                                                 Bamboo rustles
                                                          The soughing eucalyptus
                                                                Thoughts of Ariel     

Cypress Trees

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book is told in two concurrent parts:  Anthony Shadid's family history as shaped by the Levant and the emigration to America, and his restoration of his family's home in Lebanon, also in the context of the disappearance of the Levant and the rise of the troubles of the Middle East.  I enjoyed the story of his family more than the repetition and trials of the difficulties of renovation.  I appreciated the importance of the restoration to him and the arc of the story, but it needed further editing.  This book is most important now as a testament the the loss and absence of this remarkable reporter, so young in his years.  There is a creepy foreshadowing in his restoration:  he was warned not to plant the cypress trees so close to his home, they were trees meant for a cemetery:  doing so meant an early death.

The San Andreas Fault

It is very strange to visit the San Andreas Fault.  I blogged about this last year upon seeing it from above at Joshua Tree National Park.  Here is a photo seen from there:

The two photos below show the Fault at ground level in the Coachella Valley Preserve:  those butte-like formations in the foreground is the Fault

Overlords and the Underworld

Interesting commentary in Sunday's New York Times about the leader of North Korea and his family: while the people of North Korea starve, the members of the Kim family have been acting like mafia dons:  they have put millions into criminal enterprises.

There have also been both print and radio reports about the increase in criminal activity regarding endangered wildlife species.  As more Chinese get wealthier, the demand for elephant tusks, rhino horns, etc as gone up exponentially.  The access to poachers has been facilitated by the large numbers of Chinese working in Africa on resource and infrastructure projects.

Slaves at sea

A horror story:  an investigation of chartered commercial fishing vessels.  Shame on the government of New Zealand.  Shame on the chartered commercial fishing vessels.  Shame on the slave runners. Read the story by clicking on the highlighted sentence above.

How Rome almost succeeded in burying Lucretius

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

Such a great romp through the classics: history and literature; complete with scheming and corrupt churchmen, book hunters, purges, and discovery.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dislocation

Shards by Ismet Prcic

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The crazy-making that is war.  The warping that is the result of growing up in war.  The living in the present-past, past-present.  The misshapen soul that results from all the above when children have to invent themselves over and over and try to survive.  This book describes it well.

Truth is better than fiction!

Perusing today's New York Times, I found an amazing selection of news items in the category of Wonders Never Cease.

1.Russia Plans to Prosecute Dead Lawyer in Tax Case

2.Myanmar's Guerrilla Golfers Take Time for a Few Rounds

3.Putin to Cut List of Officials Who Can Flout Traffic Rules

4. Letter: Tar Sands and the Pipeline  (aah, those Republicans)

5. Iran's Achilles' Heel  (the best commentary out of Israel in a looong time)

Syria: Beauty and Pain

A great story on PRI's The World today  about Syrian composer Malek Jandali

And here is another video of a different type from PRI

A story of Stegnerian reach......

On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A book of utter and astonishing beauty and sadness and poetry.

Snow in the Northwest

It is so quiet, due to almost no traffic, it really is like living deep in the woods.

The ANC turns 100

The 100th anniversary of the founding of the ANC is a milestone to be contemplated and considered.  That it took 82 years to bring about the official end of Apartheid, as South Africans had their first free election in 1994, says something about the difficulty of  change and the tenacity of the freedom fighters.  Two articles this last week, one in the New York Times and another in the Financial Times, highlight many of the issues and problems facing the organisation today.   The biggest challenge they face today is themselves: cronyism, nepotism, greed, corruption, unfulfilled promises, and authentic leadership.

Nelson Mandela (stamp)

Helen Suzman

Desmond Tutu

Seattle Rings in the New Year

The last post of 2011: South African bureaucrats must be rubbing their hands with glee....

.....at potential kickbacks and the US government should be ashamed of itself. There is an article in today's NYT on the proposal by Shell Oil and others to start digging for gas under the Karoo. This is as bad as, if not worse than the rape of the tarsands of Alberta, Canada. The oil companies are using the bait of employment to assuage whatever qualms the South African government may have (and they don't have many) about environmental degradation of the deep aquifers under the Karoo. The US government has been promoting the development and export of fracking technology abroad, even as concerned citizens and scientists here have exposed the negative effects both here and Canada of the use of this technology.

Strange Relations

In the Department of Politics makes Strange Bedfellows, here is a recent article in the Seattle Times on the close relationship between Turkey and Native Americans and the negative response from the Armenian American community.  And, not only is this relationship quite long standing, but Democratic and Republican legislators have joined together on each side of the issue, depending on whether they have large numbers of constituents who are Native American or Armenian American.

When we visited Aleppo in June 2010, we visited an Armenian Church.  The young man showing us around lectured us for over 20 minutes on how the US government has not yet recognised the Armenian Genocide committed by the Turks.  The fact that Congress supported such resolutions did not make any difference:  a formal condemnation was required.

Armenian Church, Aleppo, Syria 2010

An excellent novel exploring the complexities of Armenians, Turks, and the two in America is The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak.

Reality According to Assad

The BBC aired the ABC Barbara Walters interview with Bashar al-Assad early this morning (Pacific time).  Later in the day, BBC interviewed Barbara Walters regarding this:  it is worth listening to her comments and outrage.   The only factual error she made and the only grain of truth Assad said, was regarding Assad being part of a dynasty:  Assad said he was not groomed by his father to take over the regime; Walters fulminated at this statement in her interview on BBC.  Assad's brother was the one groomed to take over, as Bashar was seen as too weak.  The brother was killed in an accident; Bashar apparently was reluctant.

Be sure to also listen to the interview on NPR that Kelly McEvers did with a Syrian activist who had been tortured and is now still active but in hiding.