Tag Archives: Book Review

BOOK REVIEW: Cold Days by Tibor Cseres

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Cold DaysCold Days by Tibor Cseres
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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During the Second World War, there was a massacre conducted by the Hungarian military in the Yugoslavian town now called Novi Sad (known as Újvidék under the Hungarians.) The operation was meant to be a cleanup of Yugoslavian partisans, but the casualties were primarily innocent civilians. The novel is called “Cold Days” (i.e. literally translated from the Hungarian “Hideg Napok”) because the killings took place during a cold snap in January of 1942. Cseres bases his novel on this real world event, but he tells the story through the lens of four fictional military men who are sharing a cell for their respective actions in Novi Sad.

The novel weaves five narrative lines into an overall arc. Four of these are the personal stories of each of the four soldiers during the massacre and the time leading up to it, and the fifth takes place later when they are all together in the cell. The four characters have no connection before being placed in the same cell—or so it seems. At most, the officers know of each other. The five lines come together in the end and the reader sees how the four lives are no longer in strict isolation, but are connected by the events of that day—in some cases more severely than others.

Captain Büky is the highest ranking of the prisoners and is a straight-laced military man except that he takes issue with the order than keeps married men from bringing their families to station at Novi Sad. Prior to the massacre and some killings that instigated it, it’d been a routine assignment. Lieutenant Tarpataki is a new assignee, and his principal trouble is that he arrives to find that he hasn’t been assigned housing or a billet. Lieutenant Pozdor gets his men taken from his control by the police chain of command and is left hiding out trying to avoid being assigned some remedial task. Corporal Szabo is both the only enlisted man in the group and the only one who is directly involved with the violence, though a Cpl. Dorner takes the lead and Szabo is a follower.

If that cast doesn’t seem like the kind of villainous blackguards one expects of a massacre crew, I think that that is part of what the author is trying to convey. Run-of-the-mill men stumble down slippery slopes into treachery during times of war. Sometimes the worst go unpunished, while others take the fall. The author also shows that sides can matter little when it comes to such events. Anyone can suffer loss when events tumble out of control as they did in January of 1942 on frigid day in Novi Sad.

This book is translated from Hungarian. It’s sparse and simple writing, and readability is high. It’s a short book of only about 120 pages.

I’d recommend this book for those interested in tales of the horrors of war. It may have interest to history as well as fiction readers.

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BOOK REVIEW: Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa

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Death in the AndesDeath in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Three men disappear from a small mining village in the Peruvian Andes. The army sends two investigators, Corporal Lituma and his adjutant Tomás, to get to the bottom of the apparent murders. Suspects include Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) guerilla-terrorists and a number of locals. For some of the locals, there’s another possibility, the various demons and deities attributed to each of the mountains in the Andes.

“Death in the Andes” follows the time that the investigators spend in this remote village. There are two major story lines taking place at once. One narrative arc revolves around the investigation and day-to-day living in a tiny town under primitive living conditions. The second story line comes by night as the deputy, Tomás, recounts his love affair with a girl who was out of his league in almost every way—except, perhaps, with respect to virtuous living. The girl was in a relationship with an abusive gangster at the start, a condition that Tomás found untenable. His love-driven reaction creates all manner of drama, and that drama serves as the only entertainment to be had in this remote village.

The book is literary fiction, but it’s not purely about the characters. As suggested, there’s a strong narrative element. While the book is in a realist genre, i.e. nothing in it feels like it couldn’t happen in our universe, the fact that the story takes place in an area of the Andes where the Shining Path is strong and mother nature is harsh means that there’s plenty of tension and suspense.

This is book is translated from Peruvian, and it seemed to me that the translator did a fine job of capturing the feel of the rural Andes. A few Spanish terms are used for terms like terrorists and avalanches to create a feel of a unique character of these concepts relative to this place. However, there are only a couple of these terms and so context is sufficient for the reader to readily keep them straight even if one is not gifted in picking up foreign terminology.

In general, the book is quite readable. The most challenging part of reading it is when Tomás is telling his story because you have a three-way conversation going on over two time periods at once. (i.e. Tomás voices himself and his girl as he tells their story, but then Cpl. Lituma chimes in periodically with questions—or, more commonly, commentary.) However, the author uses dialogue tags throughout to avoid confusion. One just needs to be attentive in one’s reading of these sections.

I enjoyed this story. I picked up this book both because Llosa won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 and I like to read something by winners, but also because I’ve trekked in the Peruvian Andes and translated literature often offers one a unique form of insight into a place. This was no exception.

I’d recommend this book for readers of fiction. If one is looking to broaden one’s horizons into literary fiction and /or translated fiction, this book is a good place to start. It offers humor and intrigue as well as deep characters and an infusion of geography and culture.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl

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The Enormous CrocodileThe Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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The story arc of “The Enormous Crocodile” is a familiar one. It’s a variation on a theme seen in “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Three Little Pigs” to name a couple of well-known examples. First, there is a bad guy who wants to eat some helpless and / or unwitting victims. In this case, the enormous crocodile is the gluttonous cad—rather than a wolf–and the helpless victims are the local children. Second, the villain is thwarted at the last possible moment.

While it’s a tale that’s been told many times in many ways, Dahl does a good job adding his own imprint to it. An important element of the story is that the crocodile angers, alienates, and attacks several of the other jungle creatures on his way into town to find a victim or victims. Because of this, these animals conspire to thwart the crocodile’s clever plots, and this ultimately contributes to his downfall. It’s with the crocodile’s clever plots that Dahl most fully engages the imagination. The croc uses various disguises to try to lure children to within snapping distance.

It should be pointed out that the illustrations by Quentin Blake are as crucial as Dahl’s words. The color drawings really bring the book to life, and serve to make feasible the clever plots of the crocodile. (e.g. When the croc scoops up coconuts and fronds and stands on his tail in mimicry of a coconut tree, it’s the illustration that makes this seem believable—not to mention capable of being visualized by a small child.)

If you’re looking for a short young children’s story that can be read in 15 minutes or so, this is a good one.

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BOOK REVIEW: Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

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Just So StoriesJust So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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“Just So Stories” is a collection of 12 children’s stories. The theme that runs through the dozen stories is that they are mostly tall-tale answers for questions that children might have. All but two of them focus on animals and nature, and the two divergent stories deal with the origin of written language. Since it’s such a small collection and the titles tend to synopsize the stories, I’ll include the table of contents below, which may give one greater insight into the nature of the stories.

1.) How the Whale Got his Throat
2.) How the Camel Got his Hump
3.) How the Rhinoceros Got his Skin
4.) How the Leopard Got his Spots
5.) The Elephant’s Child
6.) The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo
7.) The Beginning of the Armadillos
8.) How the First Letter Was Made
9.) How the Alphabet Was Made
10.) The Crab that Played with the Sea
11.) The Cat that Walked by Himself
12.) The Butterfly that Stamped

The edition that I have (i.e. 2006 Scholastic Junior Classics Edition) has a number of black-and-white graphics (block print and line drawn style)—one or two per story. Given the genre, I imagine most editions have some kind of pictures, but your edition’s graphics may vary. A number of the stories include short poetry—usually at the end. The poetry is part of the original Kipling product and so are likely included in all unabridged editions.

I’d recommend this book for those looking for short stories that are relatable to young children.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

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The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret WorldThe Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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I picked up this book because it was on one of those “Best Science Books of 2016” lists, and it turned out to be the most important book I read last year. Like most of humanity, I’ve been guilty of thinking about trees largely as objects. Don’t get me wrong. Like others, I never forgot the basics of biology and always remembered that trees are alive because they grow, reproduce, and whatnot. I’ve also never failed to realize that without trees to suck up carbon dioxide and exude oxygen, we couldn’t exist—though I’ve probably not been sufficiently grateful. Still, because of the molasses-like time flow of trees, their immobility, and the fact that many can live for decades after someone chainsaws off a limb, it’s possible to feel they have more akin with rocks than with we members of the animal kingdom. (Note: trees don’t always respond as well as people think to random “trimmings.” As will be a recurring theme, our misunderstanding of this has a lot to do with time perception. If your dog’s head was in the way of the TV screen, and you cut it off with a chainsaw. You’d immediately realize that you’re a homicidal maniac and an idiot because the dog would be dead right then and there. When there’s a branch in front of your window and you hack it down, the tree may stay green for a couple of years [a blink on its time scale] and by the time it dies you’ll have completely forgotten that it was your action that lead to its demise.)

The author, Peter Wohlleben is a German forester, and this book was originally released in German before being translated to English (as well as other foreign languages.)

Wohlleben systematically dismantles the barriers between trees and us by showing the many ways in which they’re more like us than we could possibly fathom at a mere glance. The subtitle’s dual question of “What They Feel, How the Communicate” reflects just a couple of aspects of how trees are more like us than we realize. There are also chapters that investigate how trees share from strongest to weakest, and how the tough love parenting strategy of trees produces robust offspring. (Experience of time may be the way in which humans have the most trouble relating to trees. We believe there is benefit in virtually everything coming to us faster, whereas trees benefit greatly from growing slowly. Slow growth makes for sturdier trees.)

Moving back to that question of communication, one may be dubious that trees communicate because we can neither hear them nor see their gestures. But not only do trees communicate with other trees, some species communicate with members of the animal kingdom as when a tree under attack from insects releases a scent that attracts birds that feed on the attacking insects.

Wohlleben does a great thing by showing us how trees should be more relatable to us than we imagined. However, the lesson needn’t stop there. One might also take away a broader lesson that we shouldn’t assume that our frame of reference maps to the sum of reality. That maybe we should have sufficient humility to recognize the impressive intelligences of species we view too simplistically. There have been a number of books that have come out in recent years that have noted the ways in which monkeys, ravens, owls, and even octopi are much more astute than we give them credit for. Seeing this extended to the plant kingdom takes the discovery to a new level of mind-blowingness.

This book consists of 36 short chapters, each of which deals with a specific topic of interest (e.g. forest etiquette, social interdependence, climate effects, hibernation, illness, and how trees survive under challenging conditions—droughts, introduction of competitors, etc.) There are a few graphics throughout the book, mostly line drawings of trees with the species identified. The book does have notes. However, it’s really set up more like a book of short essays by a naturalist than it is your usual work of popular science.

I’d highly recommend this book for anyone who breathes oxygen.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley

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The Devils of LoudunThe Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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In 1634, a parish priest named Urbain Grandier was tortured to exact a confession that he’d engaged in sorcery and made a pact with the devil. There was plenty of reason to believe that Grandier was a less than virtuous fellow (e.g. that he knocked up the teenage daughter of his best friend in Loudun), but no evidence of the crimes that he was actually accused of–and that the Church insisted he cop to despite his steadfast denials. However, there was some potent circumstantial evidence in the form of a case of mass hysteria by members of a convent of Ursuline nuns that was attributed to demonic possession at the time.

Huxley tells this fascinating story in great detail. At some points, perhaps too much detail. The writing style can come across as pretentious, needlessly complicated, and slow-moving at times. (For example, there are frequent quotes and snippets of poetry in French–and a few in Latin—and many of these were not translated to English in the edition that I read. Apparently, the assumption was that the reader would have a basic competency in these languages.) However, when it comes to the climax of the story, the book is as gripping as they come. Having been presented with great insight into Father Grandier, we know him to be a deeply flawed man. He’s like the priests and bishops of a Marquis de Sade novel, lecherous and libertine. Yet, he manages to become a sympathetic character as he shows virtue of sticking to his guns in denial of being in league with Satan long after the truth of his vices has been admitted. In essence, when juxtaposed to his inquisitors, he becomes the lesser of two evils.

I also don’t fault that Huxley delves into analysis, because there is a fascinating question at the heart of the event—one that deserves to be batted around. What made this group of nuns behave in such an un-nun-like fashion? There was writhing, foul language, wardrobe malfunctions, etc. Today, it’s impossible for a rational skeptic to write these events off as demonic possession. However, while the Mother Superior, Sister Jeanne of the Angels, clearly had an axe to grind against Grandier (for issues regarding organizational leadership and not so much for womanizing the townies), that also seems unsatisfactory as a cause for these sisters to behave as they did. There have been a number of cases of pretended possession, but generally these were individuals—e.g. Martha Broissier. There seems to be some fascinating psychology at work in this case.

The book is arranged in 11 longish chapters, largely following a chronological progression of events. The edition that I have has some interesting appendices as well as a bibliography. There isn’t much in the way of graphics, but as the book reads like a novel one doesn’t expect there to be.

I’d recommend this book for those who are interested in history or psychology. It’s fascinating in both domains. While I thought the book could have been a little clearer and more concise, it’s still quite readable and the heart of the story is highly engaging. I was also reading the book as a general interest reader. A scholarly reader might appreciate Huxley’s thoroughness more.

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5 Books to Improve Mind-Body Performance

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It’s the time of year when people think about how to be better, fitter, and smarter; so I thought I’d drop a list of books that I found helpful and thought-provoking.

 

If you’re interested in learning more about any of these books, the hyperlinks take you to my review in GoodReads, and from GoodReads you can get to Amazon page.

 

1.) THE RISE OF SUPERMAN by Steven Kotler: How do extreme athletes achieve Flow when one false move will kill them?

RiseOfSuperman

 

2.) FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER by Mark McClusky: How do elite athletes squeeze the most out of the potential of the human body?

FasterHigherStronger

 

3.) BECOMING BATMAN by E. Paul Zehr: What would it take, physically and mentally, to become the Caped Crusader?

Becomingbatman

 

4.) FLOW by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: How does one achieve that state of relaxed and confident concentration in which we perform our best called Flow?

flow

 

5.) Extreme Fear by Jeff Wise: How does one overcome anxiety and fear to perform one’s best?

ExtremeFear

BOOK REVIEW: The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

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The Dharma BumsThe Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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What one needs to know to get a feel for this book is neither a summation of events nor the description of some crisis that sets up those events; instead, one simply needs to know who dharma bums were. This may or may not be self-evident, despite the fact that it’s essentially what the two words crammed together suggests. Dharma Bums were members of the Beat Generation (i.e. Beatniks, the 1950’s predecessor counter-culture to the hippies) who followed (or were enamored by) Buddhism, and who eschewed a materialistic lifestyle—which is to say they worked only when they needed to in order to put bread on the table or when they found it [autotelicly] satisfying to do so.

The book is literary fiction and places more emphasis on character than plot, and–furthermore—the events of the book read as though loosely autobiographical. Therefore, the happenings of the book are as scattershot as real lives tend to be.

The book begins with Ray Smith (the fictional counterpart to the real Kerouac) hopping a freight car in the manner of Jack London’s “The Road” (not to be confused with Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” nor Kerouac’s own “On the Road”)

The book then spends time with a series of characters who map to real life members of the Beat Generation. The most important of these individuals (besides Smith / Kerouac) as far as the book is concerned is Japhy Ryder who represents the Zen poet Gary Snyder. Ryder is a mentor to Ray Smith. First, Ryder’s knowledge and practice of Buddhism is much more advanced than Smith’s—though they occasionally disagree because Ryder is a Zen Buddhist and Smith has an affinity for a more mainstream sect, Smith learns much about Buddhism and Eastern philosophy from Ryder. Second, Ryder is a mentor in sharing various life lessons with Smith, including introducing him to mountaineering. A short expedition up a mountain is among the most memorable parts of the book.

I’ll mention one other of the characters, Alvah Goldbook, who stands for Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg may be the most famous of these individuals (other than Kerouac, himself) today, owing largely to his poem “Howl.” Ginsberg is more agnostic where Buddhism is concerned. He enjoys ideas from it but doesn’t jump in feet-first in the manner of Smith—let alone Ryder. There are a number of well-known beatniks who feature more or less prominently (e.g. Neal Cassady and Philip Whalen.)

The book’s end features Smith working alone as a fire lookout on another mountain—Kerouac readers later learned that this was the aptly named Desolation Peak. Japhy’s hand can be seen in this as well, as he recommended the job to Smith.

This is a book for the thinking-person. There is really only one dramatic event that stands out in my mind as the source of tension one normally seeks in a novel. The joy of the book comes from joining the characters in bouts of philosophizing, in the creative use of language, and in reflecting upon an approach to life that exists outside the conventional.

I’d recommend this book. Personally, I enjoyed it more, and found it more thought-provoking, than “On the Road,” which I suspect is the work for which Kerouac is more known and which is also a good read.

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BOOK REVIEW: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-GlassAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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These are two separate children’s books, but the edition I read is one of several in which they are bundled together. Besides the fact that each is only a little over 100 pages, they are conveniently bundled because they share the same lead character, Alice, and take place in similar (arguably the same) alternate realities: Wonderland and the Looking-Glass World. These are worlds in which strange events are common place and there’s little compulsion to behave logically– worlds in which imagination rules and reality only provides a subconscious shaping of events.

In the former book, Alice enters the alternate world by tumbling down the rabbit hole and in the later she does so by stepping through a mirror (i.e. a looking-glass.) Each of these books follows Alice from her entry into the alternate reality, through a series of adventures, and then back to the real world.

Not much of a review is necessary because even though—given you are reading a review—you probably haven’t read the books yet, you will be familiar with many of the characters and references from widespread appearance in pop culture. I already mentioned the tumble down the rabbit hole, as does Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) in “The Matrix.” That movie also references chasing the white rabbit, as does a famous song by Grace Slick. You’ve also probably seen or heard references to the grin of the Cheshire Cat and the frenetic behavior of the Mad Hatter. “Through the Looking-Glass” features several well-known characters from English nursery rhymes (e.g. Tweedledee & Tweedledum as well as Humpty Dumpty.)

It’s also not so important to get into plot because the stories are purposefully chaotic and exist in a world of loose logic. The strings of causality are not so strong, but it’s on purpose. It’s supposed to be a strange and surreal world, and it achieves great success in this regard. Events don’t have to make sense; they just have to be imaginable. This doesn’t mean that there is no flow or transitions between the adventures in these books. There is. It’s more easily recognized in “Through the Looking-Glass” in which a game of chess provides an underlying structure for the unfolding of events.

I’d recommend everybody read these books. While I referred to them as “children’s books,” I also agree with Neil Gaiman’s point that that is a nonsense term. So one shouldn’t think one missed the boat and there is no going back.

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BOOK REVIEW: Askew: A Short Biography of Bangalore by T.J.S. George

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Askew: A Short Biography of BangaloreAskew: A Short Biography of Bangalore by T. J. S. George
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Bangalore (properly, now Bengaluru) has been my home for the past 3+ years, and I can tell you that it’s a strange and unique city. It has a population of about 10 million, but the surprising part is not the population but rather that half of those millions came over 10 to 12 years. On one hand, this makes Bangalore a chaotic place. I live in the area near the centers of both the Karnataka and the city government, but it can’t be called a city center in the sense that most cities have a central business district. I suspect that residents of Indiranagar, Kormangala, Jayanagar, and many other neighborhoods feel they have as much claim to call themselves the city center as does my neighborhood.

On the other hand, the reason that there has been such an influx is because this is India’s Silicon Valley and that means that Bangalore is (or at least seems) more affluent, well-educated, and cosmopolitan than much of India. I’ve often termed it “India Light” in that all the problems that one associates with India (soul-crushing poverty, rampant disease, etc.) are of a lesser scale in Bangalore. People often ask me whether I get sick a lot living in India, and I can honestly say that Bangalore has never given me a case of intestinal distress more substantial than I got from any given trip to Taco Bell in America, and I’ve delighted in the street food of VVpuram on several occasions. [Whereas a two-day trip to New Delhi nearly killed me.] And, of course, Bangalorean weather is perfect year-round (if you’re saying, “No, it’s not!” that means you’re a Bangalorean who has never spent an extended time period anywhere else in the world–excepting maybe San Diego or parts of the Mediterranean.)

That explanation of my Bangalorean credentials aside, even living in the city for several years, one can feel like a stranger to it. An ex-pat’s insight is much more in-depth than a tourist’s, but remains much less than a local’s. That’s one of the reasons I found this book intriguing. There are a number of books on Bangalore that present sunny travelogues of the city, but not so many that investigate the grittier underside of life. If anything, George inflates the ugly side of the city. He devotes a lot of space to topics like racial violence and gangsters. It’s nothing personal. His theory, suggested by the Introduction, is that any city that grows too big has the wheels roll off in one way or the other—though he also suggests other cities have proven better at fixing the problems of [over-]growth. Still, the author occasionally he comes across as curmudgeonly, with a “back in my day everything was sunshine and roses” kind of attitude.

As the subtitle suggests, this is a short book—less than 100 pages divided among five chapters. The organization of the chapters is not chronological but thematic. The first chapter explores Bangalore from the perspective of the influx of newcomers and the pull and push factors that bring them. This includes both the educated middle-class who’ve come to advance professional careers as well as the less fortunate immigrants who’ve sometimes found themselves victimized as outsiders. (You may wonder how I—as a foreigner—could remain unaware of the extent of racial and xenophobic violence in this city. To understand this one has to understand the long-shadow of biases rooted in colonialism and caste hierarchy. You may get a clue by looking into the reaction to Nina Davuluri winning the Miss America title in 2013. While most Indians, I suspect, were proud of her by way of connection to ethnic heritage [she’s American by birth—much to the confusion of the American nimrods commenting on her victory], it spawned a whole debate about whether she could have one Miss India if she were an Indian citizen given her darkish skin tone. Of course, those Indian dimwits don’t even hold a candle to the American dimwits who ranted against her victory.)

Chapter 2 investigates the role of defective governance in Bangalore’s plight. In many ways this is the heart of the argument that Bangalore is uniquely dysfunctional. Corruption in the presence of huge wealth has created ideal conditions for myopic and self-serving activities that often bite the citizenry square in the backside.

Chapter 3 focuses largely on the culinary history of the city, which means a lot of discussion of MTR, CTR, Koshy’s, and some of the longstanding hotel [restaurants] as well as the individuals behind these institutions.

Chapter 4 contrasts the life of two of the privileged heirs of Bangalore. The two men in question are Siddhartha Mallya and Rohan Murty. The former is of the family of the United Brewing and the later of Infosys. Mallya is the presented as the outsider who could never make roots in Bangalore or the family business and Murty is the insider whose roots are grown into Bangalore and who managed to make a place for himself despite a pact by the Infosys founders that they wouldn’t become a nepotistic venture.

The last chapter is about the intellectual and artistic dimensions of Bangalore, including discussion of bookstores and theaters of note.

As I mentioned, this book doesn’t give one a complete picture of Bangalore. Pardon for appropriating the title to my own purposes, but if this is one’s only introduction to Bangalore than one’s view will be askew. However, when read in conjunction with other sources of information, “Askew” can offer balance as well as nuanced insight into specific issues that might not be covered elsewhere (e.g. food and bookstores.)

There is a conservative-old-man-of-India viewpoint that skews the book’s discussion that will make it seem quite right to that same demographic but off-kilter to others. One example of this is that there seems to be a suggestion that alcohol is a major source of Bangalore’s problem. However, one sees all manner of vice in cities that are both better governed and less dysfunctional as cities—e.g. Amsterdam and Bangkok. For that matter, alcohol is a more prominent fixture in pretty much every European city than it is in Bangalore. So I had trouble buying that viewpoint, which also seems to inform the vilification of the Mallya family (as opposed to the much vaunted Murty family.) Another example is that while an entire chapter is devoted to comparing those two sons, the daughters barely merit a line or two.

All and all, I’d recommend the book as a balance point to other sources of information.

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