Reading

So, despite what I tell the LaRouchies on campus, I can, in fact, read. I also like reading. And I’ve had a fair amount of time to read lately, so I thought I’d post some reviews (see, you want more updates, I can make you sorry you asked . . . ).

These are more my thoughts than plot summaries, so skip this post if you can’t follow it. I would also like to add, that while I will criticize, I freely admit that I could probably not write better, and am likely writing a lot worse.

1. Mona in the Promised Land [Gish Jen]. I started reading this because Allegra Goodman, whose book, Kaaterskill Falls, I really enjoyed said that she read Gish Jen and Ha Jin (on another note, it seems to me that these two are grouped together more often than their styles would warrant). Anyway, I read Ha Jin’s Waiting over spring break, and really enjoyed it. The book was sad, gripping, and had a story that has really touched me (as you can see, I am no Michiko Kakutani in training). Part of the plot was fairly predictable, but the last few pages were rich with detail and feeling, if not with resolution. Who doesn’t love a good love story? Or two? Mona in the Promised Land was considerably lighter. I liked the idea of a Chinese teenager converting to Judaism (I admit to judging a book by the blurb on the back, at least initially), and therein was a certain degree of satire of upper class America that I enjoyed. Gish Jen perfectly captured the voice of Mona’s parents and the character of Mona’s sister. However, Mona’s relationship with Seth (and, really, the whole character of Seth) was puzzling and somewhat underdeveloped. I am actually not a fan of the ten-years-later-epilogue approach – I feel like if you can’t wrap it up in the book, fine, leave us with unresolved questions. But it seems like cop-out to end and then not really end the book. I guess if you are going to do this, then you need to be really sure that your readers are so enthralled with your characters that they will just love every morsel of writing about them, but owing to the Seth problem above, I never really felt that way about Mona. Still, I would recommend this book to friends. A solid read.

2. After the Quake [Haruki Murakami]. I got hooked on Murakami’s stories through The New Yorker, and I’ve never been disappointed. This book was a gift from my friend Sheila, back in the days when I hardly had time to read outside of school. Murakami’s novels and stories are always a dance with magical realism, sort of reinterpreted for a post-modern society. These short stories, as the title suggests, all engaged with the Kobe earthquake. My favorite was “Super-frog saves Tokyo” – although I think I may have read this one elsewhere before the book was published. But, then again, I might be wrong. If I had more courage, I think I’d read Murakami’s exploration of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in the wake of the Tokyo subway disaster, but I worry that if I did so, I might never get on the subway again in Tokyo. If you haven’t read any Murakami, you should. Go to the bookstore. Now.

3. Eternal Egypt: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt from Earliest Times to the Conquest by Alexander the Great [Pierre Montet]. This book was a real disappointment. Ancient Egypt was fascinating, and a book about ancient Egypt ought to portray some of that excitement, mystery, and wonder. One frequently blames the translator rather than the author for these types of problems, but in this case, I think the blame rests solidly with latter. The book began promisingly enough, with interesting chapters on the geology, flora, and fauna of the Nile region. I learned some fascinating things about the Nile, but the weaknesses of the book soon overwhelmed things. First, the book needed a far more extensive series of maps than the three provided in the back of the book (but never referenced in the text). Second, I am not really interested in who discovered which codex and which museum holds which codex (parts of this book read like a museum catalog!), but more interested in the significance of such codices. Third, the thematic organization can only take one so far – it is a good introductory technique to set the stage, but then you need to switch to a chronological ordering of Kings and Pharaohs. With the thematic organization, I could never keep the chronology straight without referencing the included, and very useful, table of Kings, Pharaohs, and Major World Events. I feel like any knowledge gained from this book is all jumbled in my head; this book was not the authoritative scholarly history on Ancient Egypt I’d hoped it would be.

4. Bel Canto [Ann Patchett]. I read this book in about three days – not sure if that suggests good or bad things about the book, since I actually like long and complex books that I can savor. The book definitely has suspense with a minimum of violence – a perfect combination for me. It’s hard to say too much about this book, since I don’t want to give away the ending. I will, though, say this: after finishing the book, when I thought about the book and the ending, it seemed predictable, but also fitting and very touching. The description is vivid, the characters are mostly believable, and the story definitely got the reader interested and invested. On another note, Ann Patchett has recently written about her friendship with Lucy Greely, the author of Autobiography of a Face. This was one of my favorite books in high school, so I’m looking forward to reading her book about their friendship.

I’m currently reading A History of the Jews [Paul Johnson] and The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love [Oscar Hijuelos].