Review of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Note: The Book Stop is on vacation!  This post was written in advance.  But please feel free to comment.

This was my second book by Haruki Murakami, and it blew me away.  There’s so much in this book, I don’t know where to start. Last year I read Norwegian Wood, which was very good.  I started there because bloggers said it was an “easier” Murakami read – more linear, less weird.

Wind-Up Bird was definitely weird.  Much of this book was like reading a dream – if I could put my dreams into writing, which I can’t.  But Murakami clearly can.

The story, briefly, is that Toru Okada is searching for his wife’s beloved cat, when his wife Kumiko goes missing as well.  It appears that she’s left him, but he’s not sure, and all he knows is that he has to figure out what went wrong to get her back.  Only figuring this out seems to involve some very strange women with psychic powers, the sixteen year old girl down the street, the dried-up old well down the street, and Kumiko’s strangely evil brother.  Oh, and two World War II veterans who fought in China.  Okada goes on a strange, mystical journey to figure out what happened to his cat and his wife.

I have to say I have no idea what a lot of the book meant, but I really like the way Murakami writes and the way he thinks.  There’s something really clear and honest about it.  I may not get the symbolism, and I certainly got lost in all the Japanese/Chinese war history, but Murakami’s writing about basic human emotions, like love, betrayal, abuse, people’s need to connect with others, and the ability to feel too much or too little.

For example:

What most moved me in his letter was the sense of frustration that permeated the lieutenant’s words: the frustration of never quite being able to depict or explain anything to his full satisfaction.

This person, this self, this me, finally, was made somewhere else.  Everything had come from somewhere else, and it would all go somewhere else.  I was nothing but a pathway for the person known as me.

And my favorite:

What happens in between the time when you push the switch and the microwave rings?  You can’t tell what’s going on under the cover.  Maybe the instant rice pudding first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody’s looking and only then turns back into rice pudding.  We think it’s only natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but for me that’s just a presumption… Maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it’s all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin.

This was a huge book, something you really sink into.  And sometimes Murakami’s divergences were hard to get into (he likes his characters to tell long stories) but most of the time I was completely enthralled.  And “enthralled” is a word I rarely use about a book.

In the end, I can’t say enough about this book, nor can I adequately say anything meaningful.  I can say this: Wind-Up Bird was the rare book that I highlighted again and again (electronically, that is) because there are parts I want to experience again.

One thing about Murakami is he does seem to have strange views about sexuality, from both of the books I’ve read.  His female characters seem to be completely overwhelmed sexually, like it’s either something painful or horrific, or they can’t get enough of it.  I’m not sure if this is a weird distorted view of women’s sexuality or Murakami’s trying to make a more subtle point.  For the record, I do understand that defilement in this book isn’t generally about sex.  But I still think he portrays women’s sexuality very oddly.  Thoughts?

I really liked the main character – sometimes a character is so passive it’s annoying, but in this book, Okada isn’t really passive at all.  He’s following his instincts even when that means taking action by doing nothing (say, by climbing into an empty well to meditate).  He never stops searching, never gives up faith that he’s on the right track.

My favorite character was May Kasahara, the teenage girl down the street.  He writes her with such a unique voice, unlike the other characters who seem to blend into each other at times.  Most of the quotes I’ve used in this review come from her character.

I haven’t read a lot of Japanese writers, so at times the writing style seems very foreign – and at times not at all.  I know some of that comes from the translation, and some of it may just be cultural differences.  Regardless, I enjoyed this step outside my comfort zone, and I will definitely read more of Murakami’s books.  This may have been my favorite book of the year so far.

Review of The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

I liked the movie but not as much as I expected to.  I loved the book.

The movie was well-cast, well-acted, and rose way above the typical rom-com.  And yet… it was, in the end, a “dance movie”.  Why do movies insist on acting like dancing will heal everyone’s problems?

Without going into a lot of detail about how the book differed from the movie, I’ll just say this: the dance part happens in the middle, not the end.  Pat and Tiffany have issues that can’t just be danced away.

What I loved about this book: Pat Peoples is an amazing character.  He’s not perfect, and he’s not terribly smart, but he’s someone you’ll care about.  I love the way he thinks about literature.  I love that he cries.  And that he loves his wife.  And that he cares about his mother.  And that he’s working towards “being kind, not being right”.  I like that he thinks about what it means to be mentally ill, and how people with problems are treated by society.  And what it means to be a friend.

The movie does a nice job of conveying those things, but the book does it better.

Somehow the book did a better job of not only helping me understand Pat, but also making Tiffany likeable.  She’s not the main character, so you don’t have to love her, and you don’t even have to understand her.  You just have to sympathize.  I found that easier to do in the book than the movie, mainly because the book doesn’t revolve around the dancing quite so much.  Mom is also a more interesting character in the book.

There’s a lot of football in this book, which was a good thing — except while I love football, I hate the Eagles.  Both the book and the movie made me dislike them even more.  Eagles fans seem just fine with beating non-Eagles fans to a pulp.  No, they celebrate it.  Yes, my Redskins have a racist name that bothers the hell out of me – but in general I like our fans.  It’s not easy being a Redskins fan, but at least my life doesn’t revolve around whether they win or lose (although some Sundays it seems to).

This book is funny, smart, romantic and thought-provoking, all in the guise of a rom-com type read.  It never takes itself too seriously even while dealing with serious subjects.  One of my favorite parts is where Pat gives us his version of the dance movie montage (he has to learn the word first from his therapist).

So except for confirming my perception that Eagles fans are basically thugs (the only one that isn’t is the guy who spent years in a mental institution), I liked everything about this book.

In fact, if I wanted to compare this book to something I’ve read recently, I couldn’t.  It’s just different.  You have to like a book where a “dumb jock” reads The Bell Jar and appreciates it.

Pat says he’s living the movie of his life, and he expects it will come out happy.  Only everyone around him says that life doesn’t work that way.  It’s this back and forth about what it means to live in the real world and be a good person, that makes this book so worth the read.

Review of Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace

I picked up a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley, but really the suggestion came from Bethany at Subtle Melodrama, who said it was nice to read something a little light when most books are so heavy.  And having recently read books about World War II spies, Sudanese civil war, and the blood and gore that is George R.R. Martin, something light sounded pretty damn good.

In some ways, Charlotte Street is the London version of Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell.  By that I mean it’s sort of a rom-com, or at least it’s what you wish passed for a rom-com these days.  In a direct comparison, I think Attachments has a leg up on Charlotte Street but both were fun reads.  I’ll explain.

Jason Priestley (not the actor, as he has to constantly tell people) is a near-30 freelance reviewer for a local free paper in London.  Despite having a very cool job, he’s floundering, professionally and personally.  He finds out from Facebook that his ex is engaged and that sends him into a tailspin.  Until he helps a girl into a cab one night on Charlotte Street and becomes obsessed with finding her again.

The mystery girl drops a disposable camera with 12 photos as she gets into the cab.  Priestley tries to find her to give it back, until his friend Dev talks him into developing the photos instead.

I’m going to start with what I didn’t love about this book.  The main character is kind of an ass.  Not in a stalkerish way like it suggests on the cover; that didn’t bother me.  No, he’s just selfish and annoyingly passive most of the time.  And here’s where my comparison to Attachments ends.  Attachments had Lincoln, one of the most endearing male characters I’ve read in a modern rom-com type story.  Jason is insensitive to his friends and co-workers, and completely unethical at work.  For example, he posts reviews that are overly negative because that gets him more attention as a writer — but those reviews actually hurt people’s businesses.  It doesn’t bother him, but as a reviewer, it bothered me.

One more thing: I think I was supposed to like the ex, but I hated her.  If there’s one person in this book that’s stalkerish, it’s her.  On the other hand I loved Jason’s friends Dev and Matthew.

What I liked about the book: Wallace keeps the plot interesting and fairly original.  It’s cleverly written and the side characters (most of them) are really the entertaining ones.  There’s also a level of detail in the writing that brought this book to life.  For example, Dev owns a used game shop and he’s a gaming expert.  Jason writes reviews and we get to see the ups and downs of the life of a reviewer, and we also learn a lot about his life as a teacher.  And I love all things British, so to be honest, just reading about the guys going to get a pint or kebabs after work makes me happy (even though we have those in the U.S. too).

An example of what makes this book engaging comes when Jason takes out an “I Saw You” ad in his paper.  Those are the personal ads (in big city papers, at least) where people hope to contact someone they ran into and liked but didn’t have the nerve to actually say something.    When I first moved to DC, I was semi-obsessed with the “I Saw You” ads.  It’s a fantasy – we want to think that momentary bump into someone cute on the Metro actually meant something.  We want to think that somewhere, someone made eye contact with us for a minute and really liked what they saw.  Of course the bigger fantasy is thinking that person might actually read your ad among the thousands of other ads, recognize themselves in it, and actually want to contact you.  Still, it could happen, right?

No eyes meet across a crowded room, no two people think precisely the same thing, and if only one person actually has that moment, is it even really a moment at all?

We know this, so we say nothing.  We avert our eyes, or pretend to be looking for change, we hope the other person will take the initiative, because we don’t want to risk losing this feeling of excitement and possibilities and lust.  It’s too perfect.  That little second of hope is worth something, possibly forever, as we lie on our deathbeds, surrounded by our children, and our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren, and we can’t help but quickly give one last selfish, dying thought to what could have happened if we’d actually said hello to that girl in the Uggs selling CDs outside Nando’s seventy-four years earlier.

In my opinion Wallace hits this dead on.  The “I Saw You” ad is like a microcosm of all our hopes, insecurities and desires, all wrapped up in 28-words.  And this is the kind of detail I appreciated in this book.

So in the end I have to give this a mixed review.  Points given for cleverness, creativity and a fun story, and points taken for an annoying main character and some fairly obvious lessons (like valuing the friends around you more than some girl you saw in the street one day).

Review of What is the What by Dave Eggers

It’s not very often you read a book that really changes your perspective on the world, but this was one of those books.  Now admittedly, I tend to stick my head in the sand when it comes to foreign affairs.  We have so many tragedies at home on a daily basis, how can I wrap my head around the civil wars, massacres, even genocides that happen in so many countries?

But of course we shouldn’t close our eyes to those things, even when there’s little we can do to help.  I read this book to learn, and learn I did.

This is an unusual book because it’s presented as a novel by Dave Eggers, yet it’s really an autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng.  In a Reader’s Guide posted on Valentino’s website, Eggers explains the reason it was written as fiction.  First, they wanted it to be in Valentino’s voice, but his English wasn’t strong enough to write the story.  Second, because he was very young when most of the events of the book happened, it wasn’t realistic to think his story could be considered strictly factual.  Third, in order to humanize the suffering of Sudan’s people, they felt it necessary to write creatively (for example by inventing dialogue).

In my opinion, they succeeded at what they set out to do.  First and foremost, their goal was to tell Valentino’s story and raise awareness of the plight of the South Sudanese.  This book really brought that story to life, in a way that was devastating but also inspiring.

The book tells the story of the Second Sudanese Civil War, a conflict that took place in the 80s and 90s, between the Sudanese Government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army.  Eggers explains that the Government is primarily the Arabic population of the North.  The Southern population of the Dinka people were mostly enslaved or killed.  This is the story of the Lost Boys, children who were orphaned during the war and walked hundreds of miles to find refuge.

I lifted this description from Valentino’s website:

The conflicts between northern and southern Sudan are often understood through their historical roots: centuries of exploitation and slave-raiding by the “Arab” north against the “African” south, followed by Britain and Egypt’s imperialist meddling. Arab tribes first arrived in Sudan from Upper Egypt and across the Red Sea during the Middle Ages, and colonial occupation began in the nineteenth century. However, it is impossible to explain Sudan’s recent conflicts from any single angle or with any simple terms. While religion, race, economic exploitation, and colonialism are all major elements in the crisis, none of these factors fully explains the situation.

Valentino is a young boy when he’s torn from his family and forced to run for his life.  He ends up with the “walking boys”, a group of boys who are being led across Sudan to safety in Ethiopia.  These boys walked hundreds of miles in horrible conditions to get out of the country alive.  As they walk, Valentino sees close friends die of starvation, disease, and murder. There are thousands of boys, walking in different groups, and when one boy drops, the others just have to keep going.

This book is vivid and graphic, but Eggers balances out the devastation with the occasional positive moment of people helping each other any way they can.  But even that can be devastating, because seen through Valentino’s eyes, he never knows when someone is going to give him food or fire a gun at his head.  He experiences both.  Yet through it all he maintains an optimism in human nature that’s naïve but believable.

One of the most striking (and thought-provoking) aspects of this book is Egger’s contrast between the dangers of living in the U.S. with the dangers of life in Sudan.  The boys in the book spend years dreaming of moving to the United States, yet life as a refugee in the U.S. is far from easy, and he’s provided with mentors and a support network for a while.  The book begins with Valentino opening his apartment door in Atlanta to a woman who needs to make a phone call – only he ends up robbed, beaten, and tied up on the floor.  Valentino wonders why it suddenly feels like life in Sudan was safer.

What I appreciated about this book was that it really put the events of Sudan in a context I could understand.  And that’s saying something.  Eggers uses a lot of “fictional” techniques to help the reader understand, like having the walking boy’s leader explain to Valentino the conflict between the Northern and Southern Sudanese (the Arabs and the Dinka).  I can describe it best by saying it reminded me of the movie Titanic, where James Cameron spends a lot of time having his characters explain how the ship works and what went wrong.  It feels a little forced but you need the information.

Eggers effectively puts the events in Sudan in a global context, explaining that the Islamic extremists actually sheltered Osama bin Laden during this time period and then he ties that to the events of September 11.  Similarly, Eggers writes a lot about aid workers who helped the refugees, and the impact of basketball star Manute Bol (also Sudanese) on the boys.  He also explains how the policies of other countries like Britain have impacted the war in Sudan and its likely outcome.

In the end, what gives this book such a punch is the voice of Valentino.  Whether fact or fiction, Valentino is absolutely someone you’ll root for.  Sometimes you think he’s going to conquer the world, and then you realize just how hard it is for him just to survive each day, whether in Sudan or the U.S.

Reading this book, I found myself looking up information about Sudan and wanting to know what happened between the time the book was published (2007) and today.   I also wanted to know how this book has impacted Sudan, and what happened to Valentino.  This is a book you’ll read and then look for a way you can help.  Valentino’s Foundation, or Eggers’ Voice of Witness site, will give you plenty of ideas.

Thanks again to Giraffe Days, for prompting me to open my mind by reading about other countries.  This was an excellent book and one I recommend highly.  It’s also my first book by Eggers, and I plan to read more.

Review: Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

Please Look After Mom is a widely acclaimed Korean novel by Kyung-Sook Shin, which tells the story of a family who lose their mother in a Seoul subway station.  Park So-Nyo is an elderly wife and mother of five who gets separated from her husband in a crowded station and disappears.  The family’s efforts to find her are described from the perspectives of her son, her daughter and her husband.  We experience not only their sense of loss and their treasured memories, but also the conflicts that come with any close family relationship.

A portrait of “Mom” emerges – she’s a mother with high expectations who spends her life feeding and caring for her children and husband, often at the expense of her own needs.  She’s been struggling with severe headaches, and it seems likely that she’s lost “mentally” as well as physically.  Everyone in the family struggles with not being a good enough son/daughter/husband to Mom, and wondering whether they’ll have the chance to make it up to her.

Obviously this is a book that will make you think a lot about your own family.  If someone you loved disappeared, what would you do?  How would you look for them?  What amount of effort and sacrifice would be enough?  And what regrets would you have about your relationship?

I tend to avoid books and movies I think fall into the category of “emotionally manipulative” and at first I worried about that with this book, but I found it raised so many questions and issues that it really rose above the tear-jerker “you don’t know how much you love someone until you might lose them” kind of story.

This novel asks a lot of tough questions, not only about family relationships, but about motherhood itself.  Is this generation of mothers different from the ones that went before us?  Are we more focused on our own happiness versus sacrificing for the needs of our family?  Or, is our pursuit of “happiness” a function of economic stability rather than a generational change?

I expect this is a very different read if you’re a mother yourself.  I couldn’t experience the book in that way — but I can tell you the ideas of sacrifice and putting your children above yourself are things I thought about when deciding whether to have children.

An issue I found compelling was whether motherhood means taking care of everyone else in the family but yourself – is that noble self-sacrifice or unfair to the family?  Is the family willfully blind to her health concerns, or does Mom go too far in resisting any kind of help?

The siblings wonder whether Mom’s life has been a happy one, and this book has no easy answers.  Does motherhood mean not being seen as an individual?  Do we ever really know our parents?

Much of the book is written in second person, which I found distracting from an otherwise well-written and thought-provoking story.  Why are two sections written in second person and one in third?  Who is the narrator?

I enjoyed reading about the holidays, food, and culture of Korea.  The setting is different but the themes are universal – love, family, home, food, parenting.  The book is translated from Korean, so I did wonder at times whether the parts that were difficult to understand may have been a translation issue.  That didn’t happen often.

I’m being pretty restrained so I don’t tell you too much.  This would be a great book to discuss in a book club so you could really get at all the different issues.  I imagine people react to this book in very different, but very personal ways.  An excellent read.

Review of The Tortilla Curtain by T. Coraghessan Boyle

The Tortilla Curtain might not be my favorite T.C. Boyle, but like his others it poses interesting issues, great writing that blends emotion and sarcasm, and even though it was written in 1995 every issue it raises is meaningful today.

Curtain takes place in Los Angeles’ Topanga Canyon.  It’s a story of contrasts, between an upper-middle class white family and two recently-arrived illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Delaney Mossbacher is a liberal white guy who lives in a nice home in Topanga Canyon with his wife Kyra and her son Jordan, their two dogs Sacheverell and Osbert and cat Dame Edith.  Delaney has his dream job, writing a daily column on environmental issues in the Canyon.  Kyra is a workaholic real estate agent but also a semi-obsessive parent who worries about what her kid eats and whether he’s safe.  She’s a little bit of a caricature but one we can recognize and relate to.

Boyle sucks you into this book with a startling event.  Delaney, on a perfectly ordinary day, is driving through the Canyon when he hits someone with his car.  It’s not his fault, the guy jumped into the road.  What should he do?  He’s heard about people who jump in front of your car so you get out and they steal your car and your wallet.  But he gets out anyway and looks for the guy.  What if he needs help?

After searching around the Canyon he finds Candido, who’s badly injured but speaks no English.  In broken Spanish Delaney says he’ll call a doctor, but Candido, being illegal, shakes his head no.  He says one word, “money?”, and Delaney, not knowing what to do, gives him a $20.

So what would you do?  If you call the police, Candido gets medical care and a ride back to Mexico, which isn’t what he wants.  If you say nothing, you just gave a guy $20 bucks after you hit him with your car.  Delaney does the latter, takes his car to the dealership and says he hit an animal.  He’s deeply troubled by the incident but even more troubled by what he’s seen in the Canyon – illegal immigrants camping out, leaving trash, running into traffic.  He’s torn between caring about their plight, and resenting their intrusion and damage to his beloved environment.

Where Boyle excels in this book is in creating a vivid contrast between the lives of the upper middle class and the lives of the very poor.

I always appreciate a book that reminds me that I have no idea what it’s like to be desperately poor; and that in this country, we think it’s easy to move up, but everything fights against you when you have nothing.  Candido and wife America have no papers so any money they earn is cash that can be easily stolen.  They have no home, so they are vulnerable to the rain and cold.  They rely on their ability to work, yet they have no health care, no sick days, no healthy food.  They rely on a day labor system designed to underpay them (they’ll take anything) and mistreat them (they have no legal rights).  Plus there’s no guarantee they can even find work from day to day.

When you drive past that corner with guys lined up for day labor, are you uncomfortable?  Why?  Is it knowing these guys might be illegal?  Or knowing they’re being taken advantage of economically?  Or is it just – let’s be honest here – not being comfortable with a large group of Mexican guys standing around on a street corner in our neighborhood.

Another interesting thing Boyle does is introduce two other Mexican characters who are genuinely scary.  Delaney and Kyra, who start out being fairly sympathetic of the immigrants in general, have some encounters with these two characters that end up shaping their views of other Mexicans.  Which of course is unfair to Candido and America, but can we honestly say we aren’t inclined to do that?

The other contrast which I really appreciated is between the issue of environmentalism and human or immigrant rights.  I like to think I’m an environmentalist but I also like to think I put the needs of human beings before those of animals or local plantlife.  On the other hand, sometimes environmental issues are a lot more global than issues facing a single family.  Boyle seems frustrated with environmentalists who don’t care for the actual lives of human beings, but he portrays this as the delicate balance I think it is.

I found Delaney very sympathetic, and my problem with this book was that Delaney goes off the rails a bit and becomes a whole lot less sympathetic, which makes the book a lot less complex.  The way Boyle sets it up, no one’s a hero or a villain.  Delaney isn’t racist, he’s just trying to weigh environmental concerns, the needs of his family, and what he thinks is right.  I also completely get Delaney’s frustration with living in a gated community where everyone wants to keep the outsiders out – but at the same time he has to make the safety of his family his top priority.

Kyra as a character isn’t nearly as sympathetic nor is she a monster.  But the parts of the story told from her point of view seemed to lack depth.  She needed to be more fleshed out or not used as a main character.  Similarly, Boyle’s portrayal of Candido and America seemed a bit too extreme at times.  But I’m not sure I can really say that given their circumstances.

All in all, this book left a lasting impression as do most of Boyle’s books.

Review of The Round House by Louise Erdrich

The Round House is a compelling book, and I can appreciate all the acclaim it’s received.  I’ve been a fan of Louise Erdrich since I read Love Medicine in college (many years ago).  If this book brings Erdrich the critical acclaim and mainstream readership she deserves (including last year’s National Book Award), then I’m all for it.

This is a tough story to read.  Living on a reservation in North Dakota, Geraldine Coutts survives a brutal rape and she, her husband, and her teenage son Joe must struggle to deal with the aftermath.

The writing is intense, and rich, and often unexpected.  There’s a calmness to the way Erdrich writes, despite the turbulent events of the book.

Even if she’d gone to her sister Clemence’s house to visit afterward, Mom would have returned by now to start dinner.  We both knew that.  Women don’t realize how much store men set on the regularity of their habits.  We absorb their comings and goings into our bodies, their rhythms into our bones.  Our pulse is set to theirs, and as always on a weekend afternoon we were waiting for my mother to start us ticking away on the evening.

And so, you see, her absence stopped time.

What’s unique about this story is that we experience her tragedy through her son’s eyes.  It’s impossible to imagine how a boy his age, already dealing with turmoil in his life, can possibly deal with this as well.  How does a teenage boy process what it means to be raped?  To be violently beaten and threatened with murder?  To live with knowing the attacker may never face justice because there’s not enough evidence –or because complicated tribal laws limit whether the crime can even be prosecuted.

Joe is narrating this book as an adult, many years later, so Erdrich gives him the voice of an adult, but the emotions of a 13-year-old, which is a difficult balance to pull off.

Much later, after I had gone into law and gone back and examined every document I could find, every statement, relived every moment of that day and the days that followed, I understood that this was when my father had learned from Dr. Egge the details and extent of my mother’s injuries.  But that day, all I knew, after Clemence separated me from my father and led me away, was that the hallway was a steep incline.  I went back through the doors and let Clemence talk to my father.  After I’d sat for about half an hour in the waiting room, Clemence came in and told me that my mother was going into surgery.  She held my hand.  We sat together staring at a picture of a pioneer woman, sitting on a hot hillside with her baby lying next to her, shaded beneath a black umbrella.  We agreed that we had never really cared for the picture and now we were going to actively hate it, though this was not the picture’s fault.

Joe sees his parents falling apart, but he doesn’t understand why his mother isn’t healing more quickly.  As an adult (and female) reader, I could understand that his mother’s recovery would be much more emotional than physical.  As adults we can understand that rape involves more than just a physical assault – it brings with it fear, shame, powerlessness, violation, etc.

But as a boy at a very difficult age, not only is Joe unable to understand these things, he struggles with the emotional loss of his parents at a time he really needs them.  That, more than anything, was what made this book heartbreaking.  Because a teenager’s life doesn’t stop because something terrible happens.  In this story we see not only a tragedy but Joe’s day to day struggle just to grow into an adult, without the support of the loving parents he’s always known.

This book has a lot of different layers to it.  There’s the story of the family, but it’s also a coming of age story of Joe and his friends.  And it’s a story of the tribal judicial system, and how difficult it is to achieve justice.  I was pretty shocked by some of the rape statistics that Erdrich offers in her Afterword.  For example, she states that 1 in 3 Native women will be raped in her lifetime (and that figure may be higher as most women don’t report).  86 percent of rapes and sexual assaults upon Native women are perpetrated by non-Native men, and few are prosecuted.

If I hesitate a little to recommend this book, I think it was mostly a pacing issue.  It moves slowly and thoughtfully – yet while I could appreciate the writing, the story, the emotions, I also didn’t get completely sucked into it.  It felt at times like more of a “should read” than a “must read”.

And yet, in the end, I have great admiration for the story that Erdrich has told.  Some books you wrestle with long after you put them down, and this is one of them.

An Interview with C.H. Zhu, author of Descent

Yesterday I posted a review of Descent, a compelling debut novel by C.H. Zhu.  I interviewed Zhu because I wanted to learn more about this book and how he came to write it.

What inspired you to write this story?  What parts of the story come from your own life? 

The character, Dr. Wu, first came to me when I was writing my MFA exam at University of Oregon in 2002. I have always been interested in exploring an individual’s struggle against family and social constraints. Born and raised in China, and with a rebellious streak, I have experienced such conflicts first hand. In Dr. Wu’s case, being a homosexual symbolizes an almost insurmountable obstacle for a young man who is expected to be a model son. This seed of conflict fascinated me from the very beginning. During my years in America, I have also developed great sympathy for gay people whom I know personally and for the gay community’s struggle for recognition and equality, so writing Descent has indeed been a creative and meaningful process for me.

As a first-time author, how did you go about publishing this book?

I submitted my manuscript to agents first. I did some research and chose agents who are interested in emerging authors, controversial subject matter, and/or unique characters. I received some encouraging feedback, which largely affirmed the quality of my writing and the worthiness of the theme. Instead of prolonging the agent search, I was inspired by a friend’s experiment with self-publishing and decided to give it a try. Self-publishing offers closure to a writing process that had spanned seven or eight years and allows me to move on to my next project.

You write about the class and geographic differences of Wu’s mother and father.  How does that influence Wu’s upbringing?  How do Communism and the Cultural Revolution impact this story? 

The city of Shanghai, where Dr. Wu grew up, is like a “melting pot” of people of diverse origins and backgrounds. Since the late nineteenth century, it has attracted people from all over China (and the world at times) to come and seek fame and fortune.

Wu’s mother and father are like different generations of immigrants. Wu’s father is the grandson of a successful merchant family whose sheltered “bourgeois” style upbringing was curtailed by the Communist takeover in 1949.  It is a different case for Wu’s mother, a peasant’s daughter. Her aspiration to bring up a successful son is not uncommon among the first generation of poor, provincial immigrants. Her intensity in raising her son reflects her own insecurity and eagerness to prove herself in a highly competitive, class-conscious society that often breeds snobbery and prejudice.

Post-1949 China has seen waves of political turmoil, including the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.  These contemporary political events affected the lives of just about every family, rich or poor, urban or provincial. Communism itself, as it was practiced in China, reinforced a rigid social structure that stifled individuality and personal freedom. In Descent, Dr. Wu came of age in a society that did not encourage any self-expression but demanded conformity. Since his parents’ marriage was a hapless product of political and family circumstances, Dr. Wu’s emotional growth was also affected by the imbalance between an overbearing mother and a painfully distant father.

You contrast Wu’s family with that of his friend Dawei.  Does Wu’s relationship with his parents, and the intense pressure he feels to meet his mother’s expectations, reflect a “typical” Chinese family? 

Dr. Wu’s upbringing represents the type of Chinese family that pursue upward mobility by ensuring their children’s success through education. It has a long tradition and can also been seen among Chinese immigrants in the United States.

On the other hand, Dawei’s family represents a portion of working class families that are barely trying to survive at the bottom of a metropolis like Shanghai. Their prospects are hampered by their educational deficiencies and domestic troubles.

In reality, these two families would rarely socialize, and Dawei and Dr. Wu would hardly have anything to do with each other as they move into different social echelons. That’s why it seemed interesting to create a relationship between these boys that renders contrasts and ironic twists.

Wu struggles to accept his sexual orientation and wonders whether he would be able to live more openly in America.  Do you think greater societal acceptance would have helped Wu to be more accepting of himself?

The public attitude toward homosexuality has evolved tremendously for the last fifty years in America. In spite of ups and downs, it has become an open debate and the gay community has stepped forward to define itself and fight for its rights. I don’t think China has begun this process. In the last twenty years, China has gone from total denial of its homosexual population to accepting the existence of gay individuals, certain pop stars, for instance. There is, however, no open and genuine discussion of how to acknowledge and integrate homosexuality within family and social structures. It remains an exotic subject in movies and fiction.

Research has shown that, in China, a majority of gay men marry and have children. The ensuing marital, psychological, and social problems have started to receive attention.

Not unlike a young man growing up in a socially conservative town in the U.S., Dr. Wu’s self perception was directly impacted by the traditional prejudice against homosexuality and the lack of public discourse. As long as homosexuality is not socially acceptable, there can be many Dr. Wus who will vehemently deny their true sexual orientation. They will internalize society’s gender definitions and strive to live up to them by suppressing their true feelings.

What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

The novel Descent is about self vs. family and society. It is a tragedy about a person who internalizes external values and obligations while denying his true self. I believe such struggles exist for many people, regardless of ethnicity or sexual orientation.

A novel is a complex slice of life and reading a novel should be a complex experience. I hope my readers appreciate the complexity of the novel and come away feeling enriched, challenged, and encouraged to live a truthful life.

Which authors have influenced your writing the most? 

It is hard to say which authors have influenced my writing in general. But during my writing of Descent, I found myself drawn to the works of Kazuo Ishiguro, such as The Remains of the Day and An Artist of the Floating World. The narrators of these two novels share a restrained voice limited by their view of the world, but they are nevertheless strong and unforgettable voices. The suppression of the voice itself seems to have become an expressive element in the storytelling.

Bio: C. H. Zhu, born and raised in China, studied writing at New York University and the University of Oregon. Publications include stories and essays in both English and Chinese in periodicals such as Slice Magazine (Brooklyn, New York), World Journal Literary Supplement (the U.S. Edition), and Mengya Literary Monthly (Shanghai, China), among others.  Connect with the author online: email author.chzhu[at]gmail.com or visit http://facebook.com/novel.descent.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author.  The interview questions are answered in the author’s words with no editing.

Review of Descent by C.H. Zhu

C.H. Zhu’s first novel, Descent, is a story about a young man from China who struggles with his sexual identity and the weight of his parents’ expectations.  While Dr. Wu Rong has built a successful career as a scientist, he cannot come to terms with the fact that he’s gay, and what that will mean to his family and community in China.  Even living in America, he doesn’t feel free.

Because Zhu raises so many complex issues (and ones I don’t feel I know enough to discuss) I asked him for an interview, which I’ll post tomorrow.  I hope that his thoughtful answers to my questions will inspire you to pick up his book.

This book was beautifully written and at times, incredibly sad.  Even though I appear to have little in common with this character, I really felt for Wu.  On the surface he’s successful and calm, and inside he’s a mess of conflicting emotions.  While many aspects of this book are specific to Chinese culture, or unique to the struggle of accepting one’s sexual orientation, many of Wu’s struggles seem universal.  For example, the conflict between pleasing one’s parents and living one’s own life.  Or the worry that you might end up living a life that has the same problems as your parents.   Or even the not-so-simple question of what it means to be happy, or fulfilled, or free.

Wu’s relationship with his mother is contrasted with his relationship with his father, who is something of a mystery to him.  Throughout Wu’s childhood he seems sad, distant, almost not really there.  Wu knows of his father’s history through his aunts – a history that involves the Communist and Cultural Revolution – but he struggles to really know his father.  He knows stories, like how his father met his mother, but he doesn’t know the person.

I want to share the opening of the book, because even this first chapter left a strong impression and sets up the rest of the book perfectly.

Pta. Pta. Pta.

Sandals slapped against the floor.  Plastic against cement.

Pta. Pta. Pta.

My mother’s sandals.  Slapped against my skull.

I was trying to sleep on a bamboo recliner on a hot summer afternoon.  All was quiet.  Only cicadas croaking on an old mulberry tree down the lane.

“Sleep right there.”  My mother had pointed to the doorway to the balcony.  “That’s the coolest spot.  You may get a cross breeze.” So I moved my recliner to that spot and lay down.

Mother went to wash clothes in the bathroom.  She had an intricate system of saving the water from each wash for other purposes: soapy water for rinsing the toilet, clear water for mopping the floor, and the clearest for washing the bathtub and the sink.  The sound of water flowing from one vessel to another cooled the warm air.  I was close, very close to falling asleep.

Pta. Pta. Pta.

Mother carried her wash from the bathroom to hang on the balcony.  She shuffled her sandals as if unaware of the sound they were making.  …

I couldn’t help turning my head back and forth to shake off the sound while keeping my body still – very still – so that I wouldn’t jump up and grab those sandals and throw them out the window.  I could throw them so hard that they would land on the rooftop of the next row.

What a shame to have such a violent impulse!  I had no idea where it came from.  I was not that kind of boy.  …

What seemed to be a perfect afternoon – quiet, orderly, and productive – would now risk unraveling.  Mother had picked for me the best spot to rest, but I wasn’t resting.  Instead I was telling her that her carelessness had prevented me from doing exactly what she wanted me to do.  No, I wouldn’t be able to say that.  Not to a mother who had given up her nap to do chores, a mother who tried to do everything she could for the good of her child.

Pta. Pta. Pta.

I stayed still.  As always, the best thing to do was to stay still and endure.

I found Wu’s character incredibly sympathetic in that he really tries to be honest with himself and others,  and he also constantly tries to put other people’s needs ahead of his.  Unfortunately, he finds that making one person happy often means hurting someone else – or himself.

I was impressed by the complexity of this book. While I’ve boiled the plot down to a few key ideas in this review, Zhu layers history, culture, class and societal norms across continents and decades.  In a relatively short book he shows how truly difficult it can be to meet the expectations of our families and cultures, as well as the expectations we place on ourselves.  Even on the issue of acceptance of homosexuality, this is not just an “issue book” – Zhu really makes you think about how difficult it is for Wu to accept his own sexuality.  It’s not just an issue of rights or culture.  Wu thinks about whether he could live openly in America as a gay man; today, he could even marry or adopt a child.  But it’s not that simple, because our families, our upbringing, and our cultures influence what we can accept in ourselves.

My one issue with this book relates to a plot development that I can’t really talk about because it affects the outcome of the book.  It just seemed out of character for Wu and out of step with the thoughtful tone of the book throughout.  If you read the book I’d be interested to know what you think.

I hope you’ll check out my interview with Zhu, to be posted tomorrow.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author in exchange for a review.  The author had no input in the content of this review.

Mini-review of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl was the “it” book of 2012, which for a while kept me from reading it.  The book “everyone’s reading” usually fails to live up to expectations, but not this one.   It’s on all those “best of” lists for a reason.

Gone Girl opens up in small town Missouri on Amy and Nick’s five year anniversary.  Things are clearly rocky, as told from Nick’s perspective.  He describes how much his sophisticated big-city wife hates their town, their house, his family – in short, everything about their current life together.  Then he gets a call from his neighbor while he’s at work.  The door is wide open and the cat’s outside.  When Nick gets to the house, there’s furniture overturned in the living room and Amy is gone.

This could be a simple thriller, but it’s more than a whodunit.  This is a portrait of a marriage that alternates between Nick and Amy’s perspectives.  And as you’ve no doubt heard by now, what you see is chilling.  Let me say that I was very grateful for my 11-year happy, stable marriage as I read this book.  Because if I was newly married, this book might scare me away from marriage.

To say this gives away nothing of the plot – Amy and Nick’s problems are clear from the very beginning, but that only leaves the reader wondering whether Amy’s run away, Nick’s offed his wife, or something equally sinister has happened.

The strength of this book is its sharp writing and its vivid descriptions of Amy and Nick’s relationship.  For example, Nick describes the treasure hunt Amy prepares for each anniversary as a form of marriage-torture rather than a loving tradition.  And it’s that description that sets the tone for this book:

By the time we got to the end of the day, to exchanging our actual presents – the traditional paper presents for the first year of marriage – Amy was not speaking to me.

“I love you Amy.  You know I love you,” I said, tailing her in and out of the family packs of dazed tourists parked in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious and openmouthed. … She stopped finally, gave me a face unmoved as I explained myself, one mental finger tamping down my exasperation: “Amy, I don’t get why I need to prove my love to you by remembering the exact same things you do, the exact same way you do. It doesn’t mean I don’t love our life together.”

A nearby clown blew up a balloon animal, a man bought a rose, a child licked an ice cream cone, and a genuine tradition was born, one I’d never forget: Amy always going overboard, me never, ever worthy of the effort.  Happy anniversary, asshole.

Nick and Amy start out young, enthusiastic and in love.  Then they have to face problems like losing their jobs and dealing with family health problems.  These are situations plenty of couples have to deal with, which is what makes this book striking.  Nick and Amy may be unique characters but they face everyday problems.

Saying any more about this book won’t be helpful.  I recommend it for anyone who’s looking for a page turner, because you will have a hard time putting it down.  If you liked last year’s Before I Go To Sleep, this one’s even better.  However – it may make you take a second look at the person sleeping beside you.