Udhaya's Reviews

Donald James', "Monstrum"

2005-04-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

Donald James certainly can’t be blamed for lacking ambition. His Monstrum is set in a future Russia where a new party is in power with the promise of change, but people’s loyalties rest uneasy. While this grants enough drama as it is, stirring up this potent setup is a plot about a heinous serial killer who cuts up victims in puzzling ways, a subplot about an underground (literally) sex-cult, and the subversive rebels threatening the new government. Populating this universe is a gallery of colorful characters--an American profiler, an opportunistic police chief, a smitten doctor, a reluctant police force, the elusive monstrum itself, and of course the bumbling cop protagonist. Because of his political connections or despite them, a drunken cop is assigned to catch the serial killer. The doctor and profiler both pine for the cop, insisting on his affections, while the cop yearns for his ex-wife who abandoned him to lead a rebel group in guerilla warfare.

More interested in a failed past than the women he beds, more helpful to a subversive cause than his own principles, the cop sports split loyalties that would make for a great character were the story not told from his point of view. Even a first person narrative could’ve been arresting had the cop ruminated on the turmoil and drama inherent in his life. Even in novels, a passive character is a tough sell unless the character conducts enchanting inner monologues or provides colorful opinions on the surrounding life. Unfortunately for the reader, Constantin Vadim, the cop, is not a thinker. But then, nor is he a doer. Instead, Vadim blindly throws himself into every situation damning the outcome and his fate even further.

Since the reader is stuck with the cop, a dreary fatalistic sense of life sets in early like a hangover haze. The pacing is slow for nearly half of the novel as demands from many fronts overwhelm Vadim. The reader feels trapped and helpless as the blundering cop plods on without direction. After chasing red herrings and downing several gallons of Vodka through some ill-advised trysts, Vadim happens upon some clues. These are clues that an average detective would’ve found upon reading the case files of the victims. Meanwhile, fresh corpses pile up all around Vadim. The protagonist is a reactor to the plot, not it’s propeller. So, until the very end the story lumbers on aided only by secondary characters.

Monstrum is a distracted novel whose rich political underpinnings struggle for attention with a sensational whodunit story set in the future. A political novel would actually have been better served in the author’s hands for he’s certainly informed about Russia and its history. Were the intention to make the future a scary place unlike any before, the author fails there too. The new Russia is a Dickensian place and resembles the hopelessness and corruption of the past. Characters sprout cynicism like time-hardened prisoners. Only in historical details of Russia and rich character histories does the novel show its strength.

At least the serial killer investigation should have offered some thrills. There’s not a shred of tactic or cunning in the way suspects are formed or questioned. The police corruption, inept judicial process, the pervading paranoia are all tired retreads of cold war novels. One plot segment involves a character’s stint as a double for the new political leader, a scenario that exists only to serve as convenient plot resolution at the end. Besides, there are lost characters resurfacing, alliances breaking and forming all the time between characters to keep the reader suspicious about everyone’s motives. There are some plot points that seem so obvious that being drunk is Vadim’s only excuse for going along like he does. At novel’s end, I just felt enervated and accomplished; a suitable effect after an important non-fictional tome, not a dismissive novel.

Joe Sacco's, "Safe Area Gorazde: The war in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95"

2004-11-17T22:34:00.000-08:00

This book is a special find for many reasons. The book is at once an in-depth account of a war from within its battlefields, an exquisitely drawn graphic report that betters graphic novels (to use the term "comic" or "illustrated book" betrays the gravity of this effort), or even the best war fiction for that matter. War photographs depict the physical destruction; magazines and TV news editorialize; novels make war poignant; but Sacco has surpassed all other available venues in capturing war with its historical, political, social, background statistically and spiritually intact that the effect on the reader is devastatingly personal.

Sacco clarifies what mainstream media stylizes. He puts the Bosnian war in objective context as a culmination of religious animosity that had been brewing for generations with each side taking its turn as victim and oppressor. In a very telling segment he mentions:
Croats are predominantly Roman Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox Christians, Muslims are generally descended from Slavs converted to Islam during a 500-year Ottoman occupation. Religion is the only distinguishing characteristic, otherwise, they are all South Slavs using pretty much the same language.

By illustrating others' personal accounts alongside his own observations, Sacco creates a spellbinding drama of operatic proportions. The narrative is as funny, ironic, and factual as a conversation with a loved one. The shock is in realizing that this is not fiction. Ethnic cleansing stemming from racial and religious intolerance is not just a distant nightmare. Above all else, this book informs the reader on the gradual disintegration of a harmonious society when divisive roots are stoked by rulers seeking greedy entitlement.

Dan Brown's, "Digital Fortress"

2004-11-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

This is a high-tech thriller set in the U.S. government's shadow agency, NSA. Deep in the secure nest of the cryptographers' infallible decoding machine there's trouble in the form of an undetectable code. A rebel ex-agent has brought the proud big brother's, snoopy watchdog to a screaming halt. The premise pits us in an increasingly relevant dilemma: government's privacy-invading protection of its citizens versus the individual's unbridled freedom. Interestingly, the book's protagonist depends on which side you lean. Until midway, the author does a nice job of not picking a side. And until the last third, the search for the missing key is strictly trial and elimination of leads.

The swift pacing assures us that characters will barely register their agendas, let alone their characteristics or distinctions. Whenever characters ruminate or converse they betray every aspect the author lauded on them. Clearly, Brown would rather feed us tidbits on Japanese history or word origins than let his characters breathe. But when reading this genre we should only seek thrills not epiphanies, so with that mindset there's plenty to enjoy in this novel. While satisfying every genre convention of mounting obstacles with fortuitous turn for the good guys, a very original final act sends this novel soaring above the usual yarn.

The good guys do suffer long and hard and the journey has its sacrifices. After all the plot twists appear unraveled except for the final one, the villain is exposed. Instead of the anti-climactic resolution at this point, the novel goes on to a puzzle piece of a climax with enough frenzy and thrill to rival any chase or duel. With encroaching hackers, a varied group of experts tries to solve the puzzle and save the day. Surely in a tech-savvy valley such as ours, this novel might seem unsophisticated or inaccurate for its computer details, but Brown manages to move the story along without making technology the novel's main concern. Despite being roughly hatched, the larger social issues and the divisive nature of our dilemmas are clearly addressed by Digital Fortress. From Tom Clancy's post-cold war techno-thrillers, this might be the inevitable path for modern thrillers. In Dan Brown's hands this genre certainly shows promise. For the uninitiated, Dan Brown also wrote the blockbuster, “The Da Vinci Code”.

Richard Russo's, "Empire Falls"

2004-11-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

Yet another novel that claims to understand middle-class America. Some novels are written with movies in mind. Reading Empire Falls, I couldn't help but wonder if an eventual TV series was the goal. HBO could do a more literary job than Russo has for sure. Left up to actors, the dialogues will instantly soar at least above Russo's tin ear. Talented actors, with competent direction would also know the value of subtlety when irony or symbolism abound. Not so with Russo who would subtitle mimes to ensure nothing was left to interpretation. This novel (as in, fall of the American Empire; very clever this Russo is, don't you think?) is rife with canny observations, dull melodrama, and bitter condescension--towards its characters as well as its readers. The narrative can be classified as a third-person-intentional where the author confesses character intentions in a commentary.

Empire Falls is a New England mill town. Much of the property and people in the area are owned or controlled by Francine Whiting, the queen bee. The Robys are the deadbeat parallel to the Whitings. Most of the locals are resigned to a depressing fate and live convinced that it will get worse. Everyone gets into everyone else's business, personal, spiritual, moral, and civil affairs. The novel hits its nadir whenever Russo attempts humor. He thinks trash-talking priests are hilarious. The only endearing moments are between the sad sack protagonist Miles Roby and his daughter Tick. Other likable characters--the rebel brother, lifer waitress, tavern owner--barely escape the straight jacket Russo binds them in. With teenagers, Russo is a few decades off and he slots them to represent tired high school cliques. A Columbine-like incident is also thrown in as an afterthought.

Certainly there's a good blueprint here to start a novel. A writer with class would skewer the surface and plumb unknown depths. Conjuring up disillusion through empathy and irony elevates the subject as Marquez and Morrison have shown us. No such luck with Russo, who comes off more as a snickering classist than a patron of the middle-class. Russo received the Pulitzer Prize for this novel. You the reader needs to know this. If you ever entertained thoughts of writing your novel, get out there and do it. Literature and the middle-class are both too precious to be left in the hands of the Russos of America.

Amelie Nothomb's, "Fear and Trembling"

2004-11-10T18:10:00.000-08:00

This little novel won France's prestigious Grand Prix de l'Academie Francaise and the Prix Internet du Livre awards. Nothomb, a Belgian writer, achieves on many levels with this fictional work. The novel reads like an incisive look at corporate culture in Japan with a crash course on the inscrutable Japanese mindset. With the protagonist sharing the author's first name and other similarities, the book immediately imparts a closed-door intimacy akin to an autobiography. As a little helper in the Import-Export division of the Yumimoto Corporation, Amelie wreaks accidental havoc from scene to scene like a silent movie comedian; only her turmoil is all emotional.

In the peculiar way Amelie laughs at her misfortune her blunders that lead to harsh retributions somehow come off as tragicomic. Complicating further her situation is Amelie's unrequited crush on her unflappable boss, Fubuki. The more Amelie tries to impress Fubuki, the worse things get for both. The ambivalent Japanese business structure seems to reprimand initiative and honor submission to defeatist rigmaroles. Yet Amelie marches on like a love-sick Sisyphus through her constant reassignments which are apparent demotions. The end of the novel is affecting and satisfying without any melodrama.

Nothomb's flair for the language is apparent in every page. The shifts in style from observant prose to abstract thoughts or lucid feelings are flawless, as is the tone that accommodates whimsy, elegance, sarcasm, and romance in arbitrary turns. I have already begun shopping for her other books. You should at least try this one.

Rohinton Mistry's, "A Fine Balance"

2004-11-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

Mistry has been lauded as a master storyteller who belongs among the 19th century greats. The American media is completely enamored with his writing calling it Dickensian. It was nominated by Oprah for her book club (should've known that it meant, "guaranteed to depress") . Mistry does create endearing characters that gain an intimate resonance from the careful details of their longings, motives, actions and the circumstances surrounding their everyday struggles. The intertwining stories of a middle-aged Parsi widow, a college youth who becomes the widow's paying guest, and two tailors who work for the widow form the core of the novel. There are plenty of secondary characters that aid and obstruct the lives of the four main characters. The Emergency period under Indhira Gandhi's reign and the fascist power wielded by the MISA act are the real villains in this novel.

Mistry is best when personalizing the political or social edicts through his characters. This was the remarkable beauty of his earlier novel, Such a Long Journey. But in A Fine Balance, Mistry elaborates the catastrophic reach of injustice in every corner that the reader feels like a participant in an ill-fated, masochistic video game. While the political and social corruptions are endemic to any Indian novel's concerns, Mistry's agenda of contempt is so unforgiving and deep-seated that his characters risk incredulity in their epic suffering. Other than catching the plague or being stoned to death, almost every other calamity is accounted for by the characters: fatal accidents, gruesome suicides, castration, forced vasectomies, hanging, lynching, slave labor, starvation, broken limbs, not to mention the lighter fare of bribes, extortion and forced abeyance on the victims.

The narration barely lets up before delivering the next heartbreak. Every lucky break afforded a character is a harbinger of a future calamity that the title's balance becomes ironic. There is no balance of joy and pain here, only a relentless parade of misery. The Emergency period was a dark era in India's history when the authorities were empowered with a fascist law. Historically the lower castes, and poor have suffered unthinkable atrocities under the hands of power in India. But these realities still need to be rendered in a way that doesn't lean on melodrama which ultimately sells short the real suffering endured by many.

Octavio Paz's, "In Light of India"

2004-11-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

Octavio Paz served as Mexico's ambassador to India for six years. He made some long-lasting friends during those years and also kept in touch with the Indian Government right up until Rajeev's assassination. He recollects his experience in India with shining intellect and impartial curiosity as opposed to the snooty V.S. Naipaul in "India: A million mutinies now". Paz is such a rarity; he's a world-class intellect with third-world modesty and empathy. In his words I don't even sense a struggle to hold onto objective reasoning. This man can not but think objectively. Maybe his is the height of knowledge: wisdom. He does not spare his commentary on any sacred issue. He combines his overwhelming knowledge of world history and the astonishing clarity of purpose that is to convey the objective truths of religion, politicians, culture, art, and society. His commentary is based on his observations, which are enough to make this a great read, but he has also read every book on the subject that he takes up (be it music or sculpture or architecture) and shares that knowledge with the reader too.

This essay book's size is deceptively small but every page is filled with amazing observations and the warmth of a soul that relentlessly pursued the true state of things. We should all be so lucky to achieve such an objective curiosity in our minds. Paz recently passed away and it feels like a library was burned down. I highly recommend this book to everybody, especially Indians.

Fyodor Dostoevsky's, "The Brothers Karamazov"

2004-11-10T17:48:00.000-08:00

Dostoevsky considered this last novel his magnum opus. With this he felt he had expressed himself completely. This sprawling 936-page novel does tackle every issue that ever fascinated man--religion, society, class, sensuality, morality, mortality, honor, love, lust, greed, kinship, sin, retribution--you name it this has got it. After having read modern novels with their crystal focus and edited crispness, The Brothers Karamazov overflowed my mind with outlandish tangents, intense-to-a-fault pondering and blatant pontificating. But no matter how taxing and dated the style or subject matter, the underlying soul, the integrity of the writer's search won me over time and again. Dostoevsky is the kind of noble soul who would feel shame for the natural flaws in him, flaws that we easily rationalize and even feel proud of in ourselves. He also embraces these flaws in others with such insouciance that I want to go hug him and buy him vodka. With his characteristic concern, fascination, understanding, and philosophy about the pull and push of human instincts, Dostoevsky creates a macabre universe of characters that appall and rivet us and ultimately reveal humanity in all its paradoxical splendor.

At the center of the The Brothers Karamazov is the patricide, the events that foreshadow it, the three sons--Dmitry the sensualist, Ivan the amoral intellectual, and Alyosha the searching mystic, the lengthy trial, and resolution. Affecting the lives of these three starkly different brothers are their illegitimate brother the deranged, confused Smerdyakov, the elegant Katerina, and the vixen Grushenka. There also other important characters, like the prosecutor, the defense lawyer, Rakitin the cynical friend and the priest who guides Alyosha.

On a larger level, Dostoevsky uses Dmitry to stand for Russia's inherent national character of being caught between passion and honor, whereas, Alyosha stands for the ideal, spiritual, all healing Russia and Ivan stands for the other extreme of cold, dispassionate intellectual rationale. Dostoevsky also takes surprising jabs at American society and psychology as a discipline during the trial scenes that I hadn't found in his other works. All in all, this is an ambitious, monumental work to say the least. If you already like Dostoevsky, you might appreciate this work. If you haven't read any of his other stuff, you may want to start with , "Crime and Punishment" or "The Idiot" before coming to this heady novel.

Pankaj Misra's "The Romantics"

2004-11-10T17:40:00.000-08:00

Misra, though not as overwhelmingly literate or wise as some of my esteemed favorites, is definitely one who delivers emotional integrity in his characters. By exploring the intimate with egoless sincerity, he probes the universal dreams and dread. Samar, the narrator is a bookish young man who moves to Benares in the late 80s to prepare for his Civil Service exams. Samar's exposure to the outside world begins with an English neighbor, Miss West, who further paves the way for his first pangs of love. With confessional intimacy and an eye for detail, the narration won me over early. The narrator being a focused-yet-passive, intelligent-yet-naive, young man works handily into the novel's machinations.

The psychological insights the Misra gets for each character's actions and hang-ups are so real and touching. And the object of his love, Catherine, haven't we all pined for someone like her at least once in our life? Though the narrator is a romantic to the core, the novel doesn't spare the reality of the classes, politics, students, terrorists, the desperation of youth, and the gulf between the east and west. The transition in Samar seems natural and gradual. Misra sensitively fills every page with youthful longing that a sense of bittersweet melancholy resonated in me long after the novel was over.

Jose Saramago's, "All the Names"

2004-11-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

Jose Saramago, a Portuguese writer, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. After reading about his novels, I decided to try "All the Names" for it seemed the most peculiar of the lot. Let me start by saying that Saramago is probably an acquired taste for many; especially those who expect direction from their authors. Saramago must hate indentations and quotation marks and probably punctuations for the most part. He blends in dialogues, monologues, thoughts and narration together. Even though this seems ridiculous, when you read him you don't notice the lack of said structure. Whether that is Saramago's intention isn't clear, but he succeeds with this aberration nonetheless.

The story follows a tremulous clerk who works at the Civil Registry, a bureaucratic monster, where he records the names of the newly born, the dead and updates the transitions of the living. As a hobby he secretly follows the lives of famous people of his own selection from the registry. One day he accidentally comes across the card for a normal citizen, an unknown lady. Inexplicably Jose's drawn to the lady's life and sets about gathering data about her whereabouts. His quest to find the lady's identity is the novel's story. Senhor Jose, the main character, could easily be seen as a hybrid creation of Kafka and Borges. The same can be said about Saramago. The metaphysical imagery, tortured monologues, the wistful way chance and circumstance play with characters, the crushing machinery of life and the unforgiving exaction of the workplace are all part of the picture that Saramago paints with magnificent leaps in narration with concern for the absurdest feelings in man.

David Baldacci's, "The Simple Truth"

2004-11-10T17:32:00.000-08:00

I have a habit of going to a thriller or crime novel after every 3 or 4 literary novels just to change things up. Usually I read the likes of Walter Mosley, Jim Thompson or Elmore Leonard as my genre breakers. I became interested in Baldacci after watching his speech/interview on Book TV several months ago. Though I saw and hated the movie, "Absolute Power" based on his book, I decided to give Baldacci's novels a try because he had mentioned in the interview that the movie had skipped key plot points and characters. I would like to add that I've only read Scott Turow from the lawyer-turned-writer genre (if there is such a genre). The Simple Truth was a curious read. The novel races from page to page true to its genre, but there's also more remorse and regret in its characters than found in most such novels. I found the parallels between Mike and John Fiske as well as the contrasts between the brothers Harms and the brothers Fiske very interesting. A character such as John Fiske could've been the narrator of the story, his back story is that rich and promising, but Baldacci never explores this beyond the surface perhaps to stay true to the plot which is the driving force in these novels.

Baldacci displays his strength when covering the legal arena, the politics of the Supreme Court, the Military, etc. But this is not a novel steeped in the legal proceedings either, I mean, this is not a legal thriller in the true sense of the term, there are no courtroom battles. There are scenes where the judges wrestle, lobby each other on challenging precedents about the law that were insightful but seemed part of a different novel altogether. Atleast, the way Baldacci introduces a key judicial debate seems intrusive to the story's flow since the reader is set up to expect the next step in John and Sara's investigative trail. As far as characterization goes, much of it is done through backstory fed through conversations and the ones that benefit the most are the Harms brothers. The Harms come of as live, breathing characters because they experience the extremes of sin/redemption, punishment/reprieve, condemnation/celebration. They are also the characters that noticeably go through a transformation. John does too, but his is more inferred than shown. Maybe some key scenes could have had more emotional undertones or sharply written dialogues, something poignant to underscore John's jealousy, his stoic resolve. While the novel concerns itself with Sara and John's romance, their affection for each other seems more a plot conceit than reality. The novel loses emotional integrity from the way someone like Sara throws herself at John. This is not a judgement call, it just doesn't seem palatable or normal for Sara to act the way she does around John from the start. That their relationship takes the course it does also plays out like a different kind of story than the one I read. The arguments between John and his father and some of the tiffs between John and Sara seem forced. The plot itself is very well conceived and pays of well at the end. The two or three twists towards the end were worth the wait. Especially, the one involving an FBI agent was a total surprise. The dyslexia angle was also a nice touch. I wish Justice Knight's reaction wasn't given away earlier in the game, it undercut the surprise in the revelation of one of the bad guys. If you are a reader who loves twists and enjoys a fast pace, then this novel won't disappoint.

Salman Rushdie's, "Midnight's Children"

2004-11-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

Charting India's turbulent history since its independence and telling it through a story is no small feat. Rushdie certainly achieves what he set out to do in that sense. Influences of precursors in the magical realism epic genre is very evident in Midnight's Children, I can't help but think of One Hundred Years of Solitude along with other lesser known works by Jorge Amado and Mario Vargas Llosa, but this is elite company to be aligned with and Rushdie certainly has taken the genre and made it his own. While I wholeheartedly embrace the ambitious novel, my feelings as a reader were somewhat mixed. I appreciate the abundant research that went into the novel, the intricate parallels drawn between the generations, the twins-- an allegory for Hindu/Muslim, India/Pak, India split between nationalism and the inherited British values and so forth, along with the allusions to mythical and cultural icons. The foreshadowing creates a restless anxiety about the turn of events that somehow to me seemed sour once they arrived. I enjoyed the adult characters more and the adolescent ties more than the central adolescent character, Saleem who wades through incredible tragedies and circumstances and accompanies the reader for much of the novel. The grown up Saleem shows up as the writer of the autobiography, the book itself, a clever jolt to break the relentlessness of the novel's historical narrative.

Rushdie conjures up as many tangents and detours as possible and willfully makes a mad dash for each. It's not that I didn't relish the panoramic view I saw but I wanted to explore the woods deeper. Perhaps if the central narrative voice wasn't such hopeless downer I might have enjoyed it even more. The first half of the book was breezy and enjoyable up to the part where India has the changing of the guards and the joint family busts at the seams squabbling like typically colorful fictional neurotics. But the part of the story that covers the Indo-Pak war was very drawn out and bitter. And the sudden infusion of incestuous longing seems forced and needless at this point. While One Hundred Years referenced the horror of the central american governments, Midnight makes overt references to Indian politics and politicians that somehow doesn't jell well in a novel. Morarji's urine drinking and Indira's emrgency rule must've really got Rushdie's goat, both issues get equal importance and numerous mentions in the novel. There seems to be an underlying sarcasm, a kind of a holier than thou snickering at the miseries and superstitions of India, something I abhor in many Indian expatriates, something which I could have easily done without from Rushdie (I hate V.S.Naipal for this reason). In a subject as rich and varied as India, I was disappointed that Rushdie couldn't find more to celebrate.

Henry James', "Daisy Miller"

2004-11-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

It's a lot like the mood of Wings of Dove, but I think Wings came after he had mastered his craft and gained a wealth of wisdom from his life. The central character, Daisy is American and bears a lot of resemblance to the American character in Wings. Maybe James was working out that character when she was a budding melon. I'm glad I read it, regardless. It is like a heterosexual version of Death in Venice only less haughty. James has the humility I love in Turgenev. He strikes me as a humble, proper soul with a very fragile ego and exquisite taste in life and language.

Russell Banks', "Continental Drift"

2004-11-10T17:21:00.000-08:00

Banks has carved himself a niche among American writers of fiction--the social displacement of the working class whites. The novel charts a working stiff's gradual tumble as he finds himself slowly losing step with society. The average man's inability to make himself a viable part of the changing equation in society--the out-of-reach status, skills, careers and life are poignantly captured by Banks. The gradual meaninglessness in man's role as a husband, father in a struggling class also gets plenty of attention in this novel and this is where Banks is at his best. The small scenes within the family are worth savoring. When Banks weaves in the cultural and racial contributions to outline society's current state of affairs, he gets out of his range. The historical background, the inflow of immigrants in Miami all seem too researched and issue-oriented for a novel.

For those interested in the plight of an everyman in white America, this would be worth a read. But I still feel his outlook a bit bleak. Russell Banks could benefit from a balanced emotional approach to his subject. The novel is a relentless downer that it seems predetermined rather than real, yet the pacing is very good and the characters are readily identifiable. I've heard that Banks' short stories are good. This makes sense to me since his style suits the intimate sketch of short stories.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's, "Love in the Time of Cholera."

2004-11-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

Love in the Time of Cholera is a sensuous feast, a dissection of love in all its flavors. Every type of love is an ingredient, a plotline in this rewarding stew. Central to the story is Florentino's unrequited love for Fermina. Closely linked by his marriage to Fermina, Dr. Juvenal plays a major role in the story as well. Florentino's beyond-obsessive love strangely steers him with such clarity through everything, making him a wise person seasoned in all the weathers of life. In a way, when Florentino finally grows out of his adolescent ways, we realize that though his love was pure, he needed to be made into such a man in order to deserve what he yearned for. Through the many characters that populate the story, Marquez shows the shallow, selfish, greedy, and vain aspects of love along with the noble, faithful, tragic and principled side. The true brilliance of Marquez is that while the world he shows us seems uniquely his own, it also reverberates with universal truth. So, the novel is as rich, magical, wild and unpredictable as life itself.

Jostein Gaarder's, "Sophie's World : A Novel About the History of Philosophy"

2004-11-10T17:08:00.000-08:00

This novel is a slick sales job of a philosophy text disguised as a novel. Out of the blue a 14-year old girl receives a letter that spurs her curiosity about the world and philosophy. From hereon goes the outlandish story about the secret letters with each revealing a chapter of philosophical thought in Western philosophy covering everyone from Socrates to Sartre. I don't want to give away the parallel structure that the reader becomes aware of midway through the novel as it's one of the few literary surprises in the novel. Gaarder's strength is philosophy and it shows through with the philosophical discussions being the best part of the novel. The segue from philosopher to philosopher, along with the historical background of each and their times is done effortlessly. The rest of the novel though, its plot, dialogues and characterizations belong in a book found in the Young Adult section of a library. For what it's worth, Gaarder does deserve credit for pulling off this philosophy-novel hybrid. I can easily recommend this for anyone who wants a primer in Western philosophy.

Michael Ondaatje's, "Anil’s Ghost"

2004-11-10T16:56:00.000-08:00

Returning to his Sri Lankan roots, Michael Ondaatje explores the fate of the Sri Lankan public caught in the crossfire between the Fascist government’s oppression and the retaliation by the revolutionary guerillas. Mass killings, kidnappings and disappearances seem rampant, yet nobody seems willing to acknowledge the victim or the enemy. Anil, appointed by an international peace force, is in Sri Lanka on a fact-finding mission. Returning to a country that has grown wildly different from her memories of it as a teenager, Anil is forced to face her precariousness as a woman, a visiting expatriate, a foreigner with international clout and an object of unanimous contempt. Her supposed ally is Sarath, an archaeologist she teams with despite suspicions of his alliances. Those expecting the grand romance set against the war, as in the author's previous work, "The English Patient," will be disappointed by the relentless accounts of suffering, torture and doom in this book.

At one point in the story there’s an abandoned bungalow away from the war-torn city with several disparate characters in it, but there end all similarities to "The English Patient." Yet, the poetic Ondaatje touches are unmistakably there: the ease with which he traverses the intimate and the universal, his profound knowledge of the human psyche, and the personal mythology he invests in characters as they rummage through the rubble excavating their own existence in a place as pointless and hopeless as Sri Lanka in the 80s and 90s. Ondaatje’s purpose here isn’t to assign political blame by singling out anybody, he mourns ravaged souls and lost love as much as the loss of life. Though the pacing is uneven and the narration occasionally episodic, I found "Anil’s Ghost," a tremendously satisfying spiritual and aesthetic treat.