Suite Francaise: a Book Review

Knowing the personal history of Irene Nemirovsky, the author of Suite Francaise, makes this compelling novel even more poignant than it already is. Nemirovsky was a Russian-born Jew who emigrated to France during the Russian Revolution. She attended La Sorbonne and successfully became an acclaimed writer. Suite Francaise is actually two books in one and was supposed to be two books of five when she completed her plans, but she was never able to finish the work in its entirety. She was writing it during World War II and in 1942 she was arrested and sent to Pithiviers and on to Auschwitz where she died.

Nemirovsky’s oldest daughter, Denise, kept the notebook Suite Francaise was written in for fifty years before reading it, believing it to be a personal journal of her mother’s and assumed it would be too heartbreaking to read. Denise made arrangements to give all of her mother’s papers to a French archive, but decided to go ahead and read them before doing so. When she realized what the manuscript actually was, she chose to have it published instead and it became a French bestseller in 2004. The translated English version has also become a bestseller and contains many of Nemirovsky’s notes in the appendices which are completely worth reading as well.

Suite Francaise begins in 1940 in Paris as Nazi occupation is just underway. It goes back and forth between different characters in different locales across France, from a well-to-do mother looking frivolously for dessert, a couple consumed with thoughts of being fired and unable to find other careers, to a village where the people must house Nazi officers in their own homes. It’s a story with many angles on life in occupied France and even though technically unfinished, it is a moving and important piece.

What strikes me so deeply is that Nemirovsky was writing this while experiencing exactly what she was writing about. How much more credible can a work like this be? For readers who are as enthralled with the people affected by the Nazi Regime as I am, this is absolutely a book for the reading list.

[Via http://motifbrophy.wordpress.com]

The Red Tent: a Book Review

The Red Tent is a beautiful story by Anita Diamant about Dinah, the daughter of Jacob who is mentioned briefly in the book of Genesis. Diamant uses ingenious poetic license to create an account of Dinah’s life anyone can only guess at. Diamant’s rich knowledge of the Torah and study of this period of time make for an authentic-feeling piece.

The book begins with the day Jacob met Rachel, her father Laban, and her sisters. Life changed from that moment on for their family and Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah eventually became the wives of Jacob. Dinah was the daughter of Leah, although all four considered her their daughter, as she considered the four of them her mothers. Dinah learned much from the four mothers (much of which is learned in the Red Tent), most importantly the duties, privileges, and curses of women, and she learned midwifery from a young age, later becoming a midwife sought after by royalty. The turning point in Dinah’s life was a violent tragedy, as indicated in Genesis. The book goes on with Dinah’s story as she becomes another person in a foreign land, refusing to revive the memory of her devastation. She eventually travels back to her homeland and allows the wounds of her past to finally heal.

There are many figures of the Bible I find intriguing, and yet so many we have but just a few small details about, so a book like this is of much value to me when a talented writer can make a mysterious figure come alive in such a way that Diamant does. It’s no wonder that this book is a New York Times Bestseller. The Red Tent is opulent with spirit and a wonderful story all around about women mentoring women and how far that can go to sustain life and strength.

[Via http://motifbrophy.wordpress.com]

Book review: Rolling With The 6.57 Crew

Pompey Playing Up

Rolling With The 6.57 Crew – By Cass Pennant & Rob Silvester

First Published : 2004

ISBN 1 84454 072 3

Score out of 5 :

I’ve decided to start reviewing footy related books on the blog, just to add something different to the general themes of following the Albion and casual clothing. The reviews won’t necessarily be about the latest books, just ones I have read recently and that are loosely related to all things football.

I also have a guilty pleasure to admit to – hooligan memoirs. I’ve never been in trouble at a game in my life, or so much as growled at opposing fans, but while I don’t condone or glorify hooliganism, it is something inextricably linked to the very fabric of the game, like it or not. I’m also fascinated with the motives, the people involved, and the actual events from these often vicious times. But not all the football related books I read are about young men kicking the shit out each other, biogs and polemics about the state of the modern game float my boat too. Just don’t expect to see Nick Hornby being lionized on this site.

First up is a book co-written by the Tom Clancy of “Hoolie Lit” – Mr Cass Pennant. Cass was a famous member of the infamous ICF of West Ham, and he loves to tell a tale does Cass. The book, though full of spelling and grammatical errors, is a rollicking ride in the wake of the nutty skates of Portsmouth FC from the early skinhead days of 68-69, through the casual heyday of the early eighties, and the slow decline of large-scale bedlam at football in the nineties and noughties. I always read these kind of books with a large handful of salt, and this one especially, as the skates run everyone all over the place it seems. Co-author Rob Silvester was a hardcore member of the “6.57″, a crew named after the time of the train from Portsmouth to London, where these boys usually started each naughty awayday.

It’s a good read nonetheless, and describes well some of the undoubtedly tough characters produced by the very insular and school-of-hard-knocks city that is Portsmouth, very entertaining.

[Via http://thehovian.com]

The Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution

Ci Jiwei. The Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution: From Utopianism to Hedonism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.

In a comparative philosophical view, Jiwei Ci traces the logical and historical movement of the Chinese revolution from Maoist utopianism to reform-era hedonism. In so doing, Ci argues against the common conception of the Maoist project as ascetic utopianism. Instead, he sees sublimated hedonism as an integral part of utopianism, and through ideological bankruptcy caused by the irreconcilable separation between reality and meaning creates nihilism, in turn leading to full-scale hedonism (1, 3, 5). Under this universalizing framework, Ci presents the materialist roots of Maoism- his “detour on the road to capitalism,” reframes the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution as struggles against “the routinization or depersonalization of charisma,” and even reinterprets the Democracy movement and recent anti-corruption agitation as inherently hedonistic (they are illegally enjoying the material benefits we want and deserve).

Much like Chen Jian’s revision of Mao’s role in the Cold War and Jung Chang’s provocative if problematic biography of Mao Zedong, Ci enjoys the authorial position of “insider” as he seeks the roots of China’s “spiritual crisis” that “existed in potentia in utopianism, came to a head in nihilism, and continues barely disguised in hedonism” (19, 22-23). Ci presents a fascinating logical discussion of the ti/yong duality in the late-Qing attempts to modernize technologically while maintaining cultural purity, and thus, centrality. Calling ti/yong the development of a peripheral mentality, or “thwarted ethnocentricity,” Ci finds continuities to the adoption of Marxism, which turned former shame at being the modern West’s periphery into a moralistic pride under Marxism (35, 39). And meshing with Chen Jian’s, as well as Chang and Halliday’s, presentation of Mao’s obsession with world dominance, Ci details how Mao Zedong Thought was presented as universally applicable to peasant revolutions worldwide (43).

In many ways, speed is at the heart of Ci Jiwei’s thesis on utopianism to hedonism. In typically-dialectical style, speed figures in Ci’s analysis in seemingly paradoxical ways. Mao’s repeated calls for ascetic denial of material enjoyment was superficial postponements of a future state of utopian fulfillment; yet, especially in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, it was presented as the fastest way to realize that future utopia. It thus follows that the exaggerated claims of quick success in order to justify further denial and sacrifice led to disillusionment, nihilism, and a hedonism that focuses exclusively on material enjoyment in the here and now.

Indeed, if one takes into account the diversity modern China studies that deal with speed, the argument can be made that speed itself was a defining feature of Maoist ideology and practice. Intellectuals and state-builders in John Fitzgerald’s Awakening China struggled with how to modernize as quickly as possible; Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden’s two volumes on Wugong village repeatedly stress the forced “speed” of collectivization and de-collectivization, and the results on lived experience; Suzanne Pepper’s (1978) treatment of the Civil War illustrated the CCP’s successful flexibility in slowing down the radical reforms under the Land Equalization Policy in 1947 and 1948; and Chang and Halliday’s Mao would stop at nothing to push revolutionary change to a speed that suited his whims.

As can be seen, one of the most successful traits of Ci’s philosophically-informed study of the Chinese Revolution is its high level of abstraction that allows for dialogue with many studies that appear unrelated. Ci’s presentation of disillusionment leading to nihilism, then, can be viewed as the abstracted, theoretical counterpoint to the physical and spiritual exhaustion that Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden found in their decades-long study of Wugong village. Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution is thus a must-read for any student of modern and contemporary Chinese history, for Ci Jiwei’s powerful analysis can present food for thought on any number of topics in the field. Maurice Meisner’s out-of-print theoretical volume, Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism, would make a good foil on the issue of materialist and utopian trends in the Chinese Revolution.

Brent Haas

© Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

[Find it on Amazon]

[Via http://ucsdmodernchinesehistory.wordpress.com]

Review - The End of Christianity; William A. Dembski

Dr William Dembski, described as a gifted Christian thinker, is a mathematician and philosopher and a well known champion of Intelligent Design (ID).  He’s author of a dozen plus books and has been cited in both Time magazine and the New York Times.

This book is an intellectual tour-de-force of Christian apologetics. It attempts to counter the recent rash of neo-atheism books, headlined by the likes of Richard Dawkins. Dembski is ‘pleased that Christianity is once again a live issue’ and the cover blurb describes the book as ‘provocative’.  For me, in places, it was simply impenetrable!

It tackles the age-old question – termed theodicy (the problem of a perfect God in an imperfect world) – with which all of us struggle; ‘how can a good God and an evil world co-exist’? The book attempts to deal with the ever-perplexing problem of the existence of evil and to offer new insights into God’s purposes in allowing evil.

Dembski tries to reach an understanding of what the ‘end (result) of Christianity’ really means, hence the title. He tries to change our thinking so that we see God’s goodness in creation despite the distortion of sin and evil.  Augustine had said, ‘God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist’. The book argues that ‘God would be unjust if he didn’t subject the world to natural evil so that it reflects the evil in human hearts resulting from the fall’. It is therefore ‘painful to accept that God bears at least some responsibility for natural evil and that he brings it about in response to human sin’.

Here are the big questions; is human sin responsible for natural evil? Is the fall responsible for famine, floods and earthquakes? Does creation predate the fall and by how long? If so, how old is the earth and how do we understand and interpret the early chapters of Genesis? Does science now trump the traditional young-earth, creationist view of Genesis?

Dembski resolutely defends the claim that all evil is ultimately traceable to human sin at the fall.  It is this that is the cause of all evil, not God; ‘The essence of evil is the rebellion of the creature’, an action of created free will. Along with other Christian thinkers, Dembski asserts that the main reason why people reject God is that they cannot believe that He is good.  He states that the key mark of faith is an ability to discern God’s goodness in the face of extreme evil.

Phew – I struggled big-time with this book. I found it difficult, fascinating, challenging and stretching. I’m far from qualified to comment on the arguments and around chapter 13, I just got hopelessly lost!

Why does God allow evil? I’m afraid I still don’t know. To me it remains a troubling and disturbing mystery.

The End of Christianity – Finding a Good God in an Evil World

William A. Dembski

2009     238pp

Paternoster / Authentic Media

ISBN 978-0-8054-2743-1

Note – This book was provided FOC by Clem Jackson, Editor of Christian Marketplace magazine for the purpose of writing this review. Further details can be found at www.christianmarketplace.org.uk. You can download a free copy of the digital version of the magazine from the website.

[Via http://eddieolliffe.wordpress.com]

I wanna be a futurist (or I heart Douglas Coupland)

I fancy myself an avid reader.   That is actually a bit of a fib.   I read voraciously, when I’m in a “reading phase”.   I don’t so much read as consume.   Three of four books a week is par for the course during one of my feasts of words.  Then, like with politics or current events or the Indianapolis Colts, I lose my appetite for reading.   Music takes over my focus.   Or culinary exploits.  Or television.  Or, most commonly, horror movies (okay…that’s a stretch…I’m always hungry for horror movies).

But about once a year, regardless of whether or not I am feasting or fasting, I make time and concentrate my efforts of the latest release from Douglas Coupland.  My love affair for Doug began with his first novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. It stood out in the book store like no other book.  Shorter, longer, with a strange photo negative cover.  I judge it.  By its cover.  And it was a wise decision.

Generation X had been published for at least five years before I picked it up the first time, but, once I owned it, it rarely left my side.   I had always felt that I was an older soul.   Born perhaps a bit later than I should have been (and if we are speaking generationally I am actually one year past the societal marker for being a “Gen X-er”).   But this book, amongst the cornucopia I had read at the time, spoke to me like no other.  I had fully embraced Salinger as a way of life but had the unfortunate disconnect of not really appreciating him when he was the rage.  This was an author I could discover and age with.   As years have passed, I have found that I have been maturing right along with him.

I harbor a special love for Shampoo Planet, I read it at a time in my late teen years when I was living very independently and sympathized with the main character Tyler.   I felt the family pangs in All Families are Psychotic as I myself was embarking on a new phase in my life.  Some of his best books I re-read when I am in a word feast (Microserfs, Miss Wyoming, and Hey Nostradamus!).    I even think fondly of some of his less cohesive novels, like Eleanor Rigby and Life After God, and find myself returning to the shelves to read certain passages from them. Each book has a sentiment to it, an ache, that speaks directly to me.

Coupland writes in worlds where post apocalyptic landscapes resemble shopping malls and has a skill for making it romantic.  He’s clever and constantly divining new ways of utilizing pop culture as a way to comment on people and society.  Some people don’t “get” Douglas Coupland.  Some days, I want to live in his brain (yes I know how creepy that sounds).

I recently finished reading Douglas Coupland’s latest novel Generation A. It has taken me while to formulate my thoughts on the piece.

Generation A is an interesting tale set in the not so distant future, where honey bees have gone extinct.   Hooked yet?  How often does one actually think about how a lack of honey bees might affect the world (well gardeners and entomologists maybe)?  In this world, people are self pollinating fruit and meth is an even bigger craze because heroin requires poppies.   The world economy is slowing down.   People’s emotions are running high.  Major pharmaceutical companies begin trying to cash in on the craze.    A new popular anti-depressant starts making the rounds, or as it is called in the book a chrono-suppressant.   The drug is Solon and what it is does is make its user stop thinking about the near and distant future; to think and live in the moment.   A large portion of the world has become addicted to this drug

So we start the novel with a global depression and a planet that is, perhaps, a smidge bi-polar.   No bees.  No genuine emotion.   No modern connections.

Then five strangers from five different locations on the globe are stung by a honey bee.  These five adults (Harj, Zack, Samantha, Julien and Diana) are immediately whisked away to secret government compounds to be studied.  They are left in plain white rooms full of furniture without a single brand name able to be found on any product.  They are fed strange gelatin food and asked countless, random questions about their lives before being gassed back to sleep each evening.   Just as suddenly as they were are whisked away, they are set free and the try their best to continue their “normal” lives.   However they are now lonely celebrities who secretly long to find each other for a sense of real connection.

This is a common theme in most of Coupland’s work.   Strangers with the same desires achingly reach out to one another in hopes of a genuine connection.   Sometimes this is hilariously comical and other times devastatingly tragic.  But always intriguing.  In Coupland’s books, family is merely a notion that few people actually understand until they can find their actual kin, blood related or not.

There is a strange sort of futurism at work in this book (as is the case in most of his books).   At first I found myself angered by the book.   The portrait of the world yet to come that he was painting was horribly bleak and ungodly obnoxious.

But then the five strangers and brought back together by their government captors and told to live in a house together and tell each other stories.   Original stories.   Stories inspire by their lives but works of fiction.  For literary buffs if this sounds like The Decameron, I feel the comparison is intentional.  Coupland is suggesting that the power of story and words is perhaps still the most powerful tool we have in the modern world today, but modern commotion and technology are dampening our communication outlets more and more with each generation.  It’s a rather intangible frustration to grapple and many readers may find it odd or downright annoying, but I find it timely, almost prescient, and oddly romantic.

All the common complaints of Coupland’s books still apply here (lack of true individual characters or style over human substance).  His characters are mere cyphers existing to express popular zeitgeist and culture commentary.  The voices are all similar.   Eerily similar.   Like a kind of hive mind.   And again, that is intentional.

I could have wished for a bit more character development or maybe a little less deus ex machina-find-the-secret-to-emotional-insecurity.  Coupland still hasn’t pinned down the minute details of the psychology of his characters, leaving the reader to fill in whatever details they can imagine (which as a reader I don’t mind but I know to many critics screams “lazy writer”).   But as I am finding  myself living in a world that is filled more and more with inconstant trappings, I have learned to live without definites and embrace any emotional string I can grasp.

By the time I got to the end of the novel, though, I was so emotionally invested in their stories, in their lives, that I wanted to meet these characters.  To find common threads.  To go out in the much and share my stories   To go out, and possibly, find my kin.

[Via http://chance47.wordpress.com]

Their mind is not crippled

They are not stupid; their mind is not crippled; (Mar. 16, 2010)

            The new French author Sylvie Garoche wrote in “When we befriend death” that her father was in a convalescence home and she was convinced that he was no longer aware of anything since he kept his silence and his eyes were kind of looking in a void.  “I brought my father a CD of an opera he loved and then I asked him a simple question just for conversation sake “Do you recall the tune?”  He replied “I constantly sing in my mind all the operas that I memorized and the concerts that I attended. I sing the old ballads related to wild trails that I used to walk summer times” This erudite old man, fond of literature, music, and trekking, was still reviewing the trails, the wild passages, the majestic views from mountain tops, the wild flowers on the way; he was assisting to his favorite concerts; he was walking in his mind his favorite wild trails by torrents and streams, dense forests; he was feeling the warmth of the sun and the ticklish wind.

            Most of old persons that look vegetables, who fail to react, who can no longer talk or communicate efficiently, are reliving their internal lives made of emotions, sound, and visual sceneries; they are recalling of what they weaved during a life time.

            Most of these old persons would be recalling far greater events, richer sounds, more vivid sceneries if they could enjoy beautiful facilities where care is centered on the person and where location is made as home.

            It is never too late to train your memory and get hooked to a hobby: you might need them in old age. 

They are not stupid; their mind is not crippled; (Mar. 16, 2010)

 

            The new French author Sylvie Garoche wrote in “When we befriend death” that her father was in a convalescence home and she was convinced that he was no longer aware of anything since he kept his silence and his eyes were kind of looking in a void.  “I brought my father a CD of an opera he loved and then I asked him a simple question just for conversation sake “Do you recall the tune?”  He replied “I constantly sing in my mind all the operas that I memorized and the concerts that I attended. I sing the old ballads related to wild trails that I used to walk summer times” This erudite old man, fond of literature, music, and trekking, was still reviewing the trails, the wild passages, the majestic views from mountain tops, the wild flowers on the way; he was assisting to his favorite concerts; he was walking in his mind his favorite wild trails by torrents and streams, dense forests; he was feeling the warmth of the sun and the ticklish wind.

            Most of old persons that look vegetables, who fail to react, who can no longer talk or communicate efficiently, are reliving their internal lives made of emotions, sound, and visual sceneries; they are recalling of what they weaved during a life time.

            Most of these old persons would be recalling far greater events, richer sounds, more vivid sceneries if they could enjoy beautiful facilities where care is centered on the person and where location is made as home.

            It is never too late to train your memory and get hooked to a hobby: you might need them in old age.

[Via http://adonis49.wordpress.com]