THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver

 THE GIST:

A missionary family in the Congo discovers that they are ill-prepared for their work, and for the impact that Africa will have on them.

THE VERDICT:

This is one of those rare novels that is dense and lyrical, and yet impossible to put down. It follows the journey of a Southern Baptist family to the depths of the Congo in 1959, where they are forever changed. Told primarily through the voices of the four daughters, with occasional, heart-breaking input from the mother, it is about being swept away in something bigger and darker and more beautiful than you could have predicted.

The father is a hard-nosed, obsessively passionate, violent man who refuses to be flexible and understand the needs and culture of the jungle village. He pits himself against Africa in the name of God's work, and his wife and daughters become the collateral damage. Meanwhile, they are affected by the people, the attitudes towards life and death, and the very atmosphere of the Congo. Spanning one intense year and then a lifetime of repercussions, the story unfolds through sickness, war, and abuse, and explores the complicated ways people are able to live with themselves.

Kingsolver's use of imagery, particular religious imagery, to weave her story is masterful. She molds language into five distinct voices, each providing a poetic and sometimes tortured perspective on the lives of women who find themselves, at least at first, in a place where they don't belong. Even the words are distinct for each character, with one making up words at will and another using them backwards, forwards, and sideways. The story is worth reading for the creation and evolution of those voices if nothing else. Beneath the language, we see the changes that take place in young women who have their entire worldviews shattered and rebuilt around them.

THE LINK:

Barbara Kingsolver's website

THE COST:

I bought the e-book for a couple of dollars when it was the Kindle Daily Deal. It's currently $8.24.

THE QUESTION:

According to Leah and Adah, Rachel does not change at her core throughout the whole of her life. Arguably, Nathan also does not change. Do you think this is true and/or possible given their personalities?

7 DAYS AND COUNTING by Suvi Lampila

THE GIST:

Two strangers meet, possibly for the first time. Then the countdown begins.

THE VERDICT:

7 Days and Counting is my friend Suvi Lampila's debut novel. I wrote about her book launch last month, and this week she officially released the e-book edition. Her novel features an experimental structure and a thought-provoking ending. The events of the seven days are told first from the perspective of the woman, backwards, and then from the perspective of the man, forwards. The structure plays with one's perceptions and twists traditional plot conventions. Suvi proves that a story can have a satisfying climax and plenty of tension, even when you more or less know what happens "next". She goes far beyond the common practice of putting a scene from the end of the story at the beginning, and reveals surprises with each day.

There's always a danger when reviewing a friend's book that you will be too kind. However, I can honestly say that 7 Days and Counting is an extraordinarily clever piece of writing. It's short, not much longer than a novella, but it packs quite a punch. I finished reading it several weeks ago, but I'm still going over the final scenes in my mind and trying to decide how to interpret the ending. It's a book that forces you to think, and you could easily read it a second time and view it a totally different way. Part of Suvi's inspiration comes from pictures, like the one featured on the cover, that look like completely different things to different people.

Suvi's writing is precise and intelligent. She uses clean descriptions and clever dialogue to slowly reveal the lives of her characters. You get the sense that she always knows what her characters, even the  minor ones, are doing when they are not in the scene. She plays with the idea that there is usually more to people's actions than meets the eye, and human relationships are never simple. This is a book that's worth at least one read, and probably two.

THE LINK:

Suvi Lampila's website

THE COST:

$4.50 for the Kindle edition

THE QUESTION:

What other books with a non-traditional structure have you read? Did they work?

WHITE OLEANDER by Janet Fitch

THE GIST:

A young girl must deal with the repercussions when her beautiful, terrible mother murders her lover.

THE VERDICT:

Astrid and Ingrid Magnussen are not like other people, at least that's what Ingrid teaches her daughter. She is a magnetic, sometimes ethereal poet who glides through life with cold elegance. Astrid worships her mother and watches her wield power over men who mean nothing to her. When an unremarkable man loves and then leaves her, Astrid watches Ingrid plot and carry out a crime that is both dispassionate and desperate. She finds herself in the foster care system, shuffled between households, mothers and worlds, constantly in thrall to her mother's dangerous influence.

WHITE OLEANDER is viciously lyrical, exploring the pain of growing up in the foster system through unapologetic poetry. I read this novel before summer started, but the descriptions of Ingrid's cold, psychological power have stayed with me. The novel is set in southern California and explores the dry, unglamorous parts of the region with desolate honesty. Some might find the prose overdone, but I appreciated the way the author lingered over the descriptions and images, allowing them to sink and settle.

The language is what makes this novel worth reading, but the characters are also complex, flawed and fascinating. It is not a happy novel, but the relationships and people are fiercely vivid. I'm currently working on a novel, and I've learned a lot from Janet Fitch's model while developing my characters. Ingrid is an extreme character, and the author is not afraid to make her powerful, dangerous and beautiful. I have a tendency to make everyone pretty reasonable, but reading WHITE OLEANDER has challenged me to stretch beyond that and work on creating characters who are truly memorable.

THE LINK:

Janet Fitch's blog

THE COST:

$9.99 for the Kindle edition

THE QUESTION:

What character has stuck with you the longest after reading their story? What book did you remember for the language rather than the plot?

THE ANATOMY OF A DISAPPEARANCE by Hisham Matar

London, Christmas 2010

THE GIST:

A boy and his stepmother must come to terms with the disappearance of his father and the truth about his past.

THE VERDICT:

A few years ago I was a summer intern for a literary agency in London. In the midst of reading the slush pile and going to the post office, I had the good fortune to meet a few of the agency's authors. One of them was the brilliant, inspiring and kind Hisham Matar. His debut novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2006 and it was in the process of being translated into 28 languages. Hisham said some lovely things about my own writing (I had written a manuscript report for an author friend of his), invited me to lunch along with the agents at his new writing studio, and even got me a book for my birthday (What is Britishness?, in case you were wondering).

All this is to say that I am not exactly in a position to write an unbiased review, but Hisham is a masterful writer in addition to being a singularly lovely person. His second novel, like his first, deals with a Libyan father's forced disappearance and the repercussions for his son and his young wife. The boy, who is at the cusp of manhood, is in love with his stepmother, and they are just close enough in age to make the sudden absence of his father fraught with sexual tension in addition to the obvious distress. The characters are flawed and philosophical, and their story unfolds like a dream as they try to grasp the reality of their hijacked lives.

Hisham is skilled at zeroing in on the most subtle, intricate details. His descriptions and similes are so minute that other comparisons seem clumsy. He writes about the tiniest indents in someone's skin, the flutter of sound almost at the edge of consciousness, and the barest subtleties of expression that speak volumes about the characters. This is the kind of writing that makes you pay closer attention to the tiny nuances in the world around you, and that makes you desperately want to be a better writer.

THE LINK:

A review from The Guardian with more details about the disappearance of Hisham's own father.

THE COST:

$10.99 for the Kindle edition

THE QUESTION:

Who is a writer that has inspired you, either through their writing or through a personal acquaintance?

ACCESS: THIRTEEN TALES by Xu Xi

THE BOOK:

Prolific Hong Kong author Xu Xi has just released a new collection of short stories through a new Hong Kong press: Signal 8, an imprint of Typhoon Media. I am currently doing some voluntary work with Signal 8 thanks to a conversation with Xu Xi herself. It's an exciting opportunity to get some extra publishing experience as I pursue my goal of working as an editor full-time. Meanwhile, I get to read some very cool new books and help to promote them. Because of my affiliation with Signal 8, I won't write about ACCESS in my usual review format.

The collection explores different kinds of tales: tall tales, old wives' tales, fairy tales, circular tales and beastly tales. A majority of the characters are women, and they struggle with family dynamics, aging, relationships, and the balance between independence and duty. Xu Xi's characters are usually mobile, international Chinese searching for an identity in a global context. The tales feel open-ended in the same way that real life is open-ended. She leaves her characters with unanswered questions and unrealized resolutions, while creating compelling pictures of the way people live and struggle for access. My favorite tales were Famine, To Body, To Chicken, and Lady Day, which is a provocative masterpiece.

This is a thought-provoking, thoroughly modern collection that I recommend without hesitation.

THE LAUNCH:

On Friday evening, Xu Xi officially launched ACCESS at City University. She read selections from four of the tales (Famine, Access, Iron Light and To Body, To Chicken) to a fully engaged audience. Xu Xi has a powerful reading voice, and it is always a privilege to hear her in person. She discussed her work with the publisher of Signal 8 Press and answered many questions from the audience, which included students of Xu Xi's MFA program as well as local writers and academics.

Xu Xi spoke about the sprawling nature of her tales as opposed to tight, classic short stories. She is interested in creating whole worlds, even though short tales may only capture a slice of those worlds. A student asked about the writing life in Hong Kong, and she acknowledged that it can be a difficult place to be a writer, although the literary scene has improved since she first began pursuing her writing career. She discussed the future of the publishing industry, and she is interested in exploring the possibilities of ebooks by writing shorter works and essays to supplement her long career as a novelist.

THE LINKS:

Xu Xi's website

Signal 8 Press

My reviews of novels HONG KONG ROSE and HABIT OF A FOREIGN SKY

THE COST:

The Kindle edition is $8.99 (in the US) and the paperback is $15.95 on Amazon.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

THE GIST:

The House of Buendia rises and falls as its members are born, make love and war, and die or refuse to die.

THE VERDICT:

This seminal work of magical realism by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez follows one family and its many denizens through a hundred years of life and death. The people are bitter and passionate and powerful, and each one is doomed to solitude in some form. Throughout the life of the house they explore debauchery, invention, and mysticism, and fall into the strange and passionate cycle of the House of Buendia. Each one has a fatal weakness, a supernatural strength, and a destiny that is shaped by their membership in this singular household.

Despite how quickly life passes through this family, the characters are rich and intricate and memorable. The golden thread that holds the story together is Ursula, the mother and prescient stronghold of the family. As each character cycles through the novel, Ursula is constant and aware of the ebb and flow of the family's fortunes. She takes the supernatural knowledge and extraordinary qualities of the family and its ghosts in stride. She is the anchor in this turbulent collection of relationships and feuds and failures.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez captures the passage of time in a vivid and passionate style. He takes a story of myth and magic and makes it feel real because each character is so fundamentally human. He describes each conflict, loss of innocence and flight of fancy with rich language that makes it possible to tell a single story in which many generations grow old and are forgotten. Reading this novel makes all the problems of the world feel momentary, because they are just episodes in a much bigger picture. I am obviously not the first person to love this book, but seriously, you must read it.

THE LINK:

Everything you ever wanted to know about Gabriel Garcia Marquez

THE COST:

I bought the paperback English edition at the magical Eslite Bookstore in Taipei for about 10 USD

THE QUESTION:

How does solitude drive the destiny of this family? What does it mean to be alone in a world full of people?

HABIT OF A FOREIGN SKY by Xu Xi

THE GIST:

A businesslike woman in Hong Kong loses her family and has to navigate a world of money, corporate deals and new men while figuring out what she actually wants.

THE VERDICT:

This is the second work by Hong Kong-based author Xu Xi that I have read since I moved here. HABIT OF A FOREIGN SKY takes place in Hong Kong, New York, Shanghai and the skies in between. Gail Szeto is a no-nonsense businesswoman orchestrating the merger of two international investment banks. She keeps a tight reign on herself, and tries not to dwell on her family's humble (and shady) origins. When she loses each member of her family in quick succession, she finds herself unsure of what to do next.

Family is a major theme in this book, just as it is in Xu Xi's earlier novel, HONG KONG ROSE. Gail reconnects with her American half-brother, who is also a character in HONG KONG ROSE, and he reminds her of her painful past. For the first time in many years, she also associates with her mother's old friends from her dance hall days. Gail is a woman who is used to not needing anyone, but she finds that she relishes the connection with other people. This is a novel about softening and opening up to others in the midst of tragedy.

The story is intricate and complicated, just like real life. Xu Xi leaves loose ends and open questions, but she takes the reader through complex, modern relationships and circumstances with sharp assurance. She explores the world of international business deals and reveals the faces and messy lives behind those jet-setting power suits. She recreates the business and personal worlds of Hong Kong with uncanny insight. The writing style is confident and thorough, demonstrating Xu Xi's mastery of the craft of storytelling.
THE LINK:

Xu Xi's website
My account of Xu Xi's talk at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival

THE COST:

I bought a paperback copy of this book at the HK Literary Festival (and had it signed). The list price on Amazon is currently $11.70 US.

THE QUESTION:

Do you think that women have to be cold and controlled in order to be successful in the corporate world?

THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood

THE GIST:

A woman is relegated to the role of breeder in a dystopian pseudo-biblical society.

THE VERDICT:

Margaret Atwood's well-known story explores a nation in which a woman's exclusive purpose is to bear children; not to raise them or care for them, just bear them. She creates a world where women have lost their hard-won rights and are confined to color-coded roles. The narrator of the story has the role of a handmaid who, like Abraham's Hagar, is forced to serve as a surrogate mother for a powerful couple. She is enslaved by her biological capabilities and must struggle against the society's insistence that the only valuable aspect of her womanhood is her body.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this story is that the narrator can remember what life was like before the dystopian society arose. She had a life full of freedoms and loved ones and education, so she knows exactly what she is missing under the new order. Future generations of women would have an easier time in their restricted roles because they would not know just how different their lives could be. The author emphasizes that women should not forget the fragility of their positions and suggests that it is all too easy to accept a reduced place in the world.

The novel is framed as a fragmented retelling of the woman's experiences. Atwood revels in the art of storytelling, and reminds the reader than any story is necessarily a reconstruction of the truth. The narrator sometimes offers several different versions of the same event and some of the scenes are out of sequence. This form highlights the subjective nature of storytelling and of history itself. It is not a pleasant novel to read, but it is a thought-provoking and intelligent work.

THE LINK:

Margaret Atwood's website

THE COST:

$8 for the Kindle edition

THE QUESTION:

This book was published in the mid 1980's. Do you think that any of Atwood's fears about the future of women's rights have been realized in that last 25 years?

RHUBARB by Craig Silvey

THE GIST:

A blind girl and a reclusive boy connect and learn to heal from personal trauma over cello music and rhubarb.

THE VERDICT:

This is a sweet, sad, but ultimately uplifting story about the aftermath of tragedy for two young people. They are each stunted in some way by their experiences, and they struggle with the insomnia and ignominy of memory.

At its heart, this is a love story. Silvey explores themes of loss, betrayal, healing, music, and family. He includes many funny moments and a few very memorable characters. He uses animals (a guide dog, two possums, a hermit crab) to personify and enrich the lonely worlds of Eleanor and Ewan.

The style of this little novel is lyrical and poetic, full of repetition and alliteration. Silvey has a unique way of using words to create images and emotions that are original and endearing. His very vocabulary makes you think, and it makes you want to keep reading.

THE LINK:

This is Craig Silvey’s website

This is my account of Craig’s event at the HK literary festival

THE COST:

I bought the paperback edition at the literary festival event and it was expensive (really expensive). The book was imported from Australia and it is not available on Kindle (yet).

THE QUESTION:

Do you think we need to connect with other people in order to overcome grief, or can we heal in solitude?

ROOM by Emma Donoghue

THE GIST:

A young boy spends the first five years of his life in a single room with his mother, and then they escape.

THE VERDICT:

This is an enthralling book about a fictional woman who spends eight years imprisoned in a shed. For five of those years she raises her son Jack. Their entire world consists of four walls, necessities, and the visits of Old Nick, their captor. Despite the dark nature of their situation, this book contains powerful moments of hope and light.

Jack narrates the story in a voice that is both innocent and precocious. Donoghue artfully shows us this small world through the eyes of a child, while still communicating the desperation and determination of his young mother. Ma emerges as a very real and powerful character, and I felt that this is really her story, even though Jack is technically the main character.

Everything in the world except for Room is not real or "TV" to Jack. When he learns the truth he has to figure out how to live in a world that he believed did not exist. In the second half of the book, Jack tells us about his first interractions with the outside world: family, space, speech with people that are not his mother, etc. Ma's decision not to tell Jack that the outside world is real raises thought-provoking questions about our perceptions of reality.

THE LINK:

Author's website: Emma Donoghue

THE COST:

Kindle edition $11.99

THE QUESTION:

On what do you base your ideas about what is real and what is not?

*Note: This author will be featured in the Hong Kong International Literary Festival from March 8-18.

THE FINKLER QUESTION by Howard Jacobson

THE GIST:

In this smart, contemporary tale two aging men cope, or fail to cope, with the loss of their wives and their identities. The third man doesn't have either one, but he too mourns.

THE VERDICT:

The men in this book find themselves at loose ends. They have lost their footing, or else they never had it in the first place. Julian Treslove grasps for a sense of self and decides that being Jewish is his strongest source of identity, despite the fact that he is not actually a Jew. Sam Finkler is a Jew, but he struggles to separate himself from 'them' and flounders. Libor just misses his wife and mistrusts the tenuous safety of the Jews in Britain.

I did not like Treslove at all, though I am not convinced that you are supposed to like the protagonist in this story. Everyone needs something to ground them, and I found Treslove's way of swirling and eddying through life infuriating. However, his assumptions about and encounters with Jewishness are thought-provoking, revealing the complexity of the modern Jewish (Finkler) question.

Jacobson is at the top of his game in this book, which earned him the Man Booker Prize in 2010. The writing style is clever, poetic, and often funny. He explores themes of grief, jealousy, aging, and collective guilt. The story did not feel resolved in the end, probably because the complexities of the issues cannot be tied up into neat little packages.

THE LINK:

Profile on the Booker Prize site: Howard Jacobson

THE COST:

I borrowed this book from a friend in paperback format.

THE QUESTION:

Where do you get your sense of identity? Relationships? Nationality? Religion?