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BOOK REVIEW: Malabar Mind by Anita Nair

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Malabar Mind PoemsMalabar Mind Poems by Anita Nair
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This collection of 40 poems by Anita Nair begins with verse that is imbued with Indian-ness and has a timeless feel, and progresses into more modern and – at times — erotic territory. For those unfamiliar with Indian geography, the Malabar Coast is the southwest coast of India. It stretches from Goa down through Kerala, and as far as the southern tip of India. The author’s last name, Nair, is one used by members of a caste from the state of Kerala. The Malabar Coast is known for spice, tea, and coffee plantations inland, and coastal ports that carry those commodities to buyers around the world that date back long before the British colonized India. Because of the long history of the spice trade, this area has its own unique feel. That should give the reader some sense of the cultural elements suffused into this work.

The poems are generally free verse (though there’s a prose poem and perhaps some other forms,) and are mostly in the range of a couple of stanzas to about three pages, though the final poem, “The Cosmopolitan Crow” is a long form poem. The entire collection weighs in at around 100 pages. The author frequently uses a sparse form that presents lines of one to three words, but that isn’t the case for all the poems.

While there’s eroticism in parts, it’s relatively subtle and shouldn’t be an impediment to any but the primmest of readers. (Though I’ve been known to miscalculate the degree to which some folks get uptight about sexual and somatic content.)

I enjoyed this collection. I was sensual, evocative, and captured the feel of Kerala nicely.

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BOOK REVIEW: 3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri

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3 Sections3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This collection of 34 poems by Vijay Seshadri won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The book includes free verse poetry, lyric poetry, and prose poems. There are poems that reflect Seshadri’s Indian heritage, such as “Three Urdu Poems,” but like Seshadri himself – who moved from Bangalore to America at age five – the preponderance of poems reflect an American experience. Most of the poems are a single page each or less, but the prose poems at the end, such as “Pacific Fishes of Canada,” cover about a dozen pages.

The human and human society, as opposed to nature, takes center stage Seshadri’s work. Dystopian notions that have crept to the fore in the popular conscious are seen in poems such as “Secret Police.” However, this may be more indicative of a look back to the Cold War, which features prominently in the aforementioned nostalgic prose poem “Pacific Fishes of Canada.” The philosophical meditation also plays prominently in this work.

I enjoyed this little sixty-seven page collection, and found it to be evocative and thought-provoking.

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BOOK REVIEW: Inheritance by Balli Kaur Jaswal

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InheritanceInheritance by Balli Kaur Jaswal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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I read at least one piece of literature from every country I visit, and I picked this book for Singapore. In a way, it’s an odd choice because – while the book is set in Singapore over a two decade period — the story revolves around a Punjabi Sikh family. The family consists of single-parent father, two sons, and a daughter who is the youngest child. The father is a police officer who’d been posted to Singapore before it became an independent country. (Singapore is a small [in size, not necessarily in population] island nation that was a British colony, was under Japanese occupation during the Second World War, and then was briefly part of Malaysia — before gaining its independence in 1965.) Given the facts that: a.) Singapore is so fundamentally multi-cultural; b.) the setting substantially influences the nature of the story; and c.) the author lived in Singapore long enough to convey its feel, I stand by my choice.

The story revolves around the damage that can be done by shame and the dark side of traditional values – especially when transplanted into a society that is highly competitive, orderly, but also indulgent. That’s where the importance of the Singaporean setting comes into play. While it’s a strict society that prides itself on order, Singapore is also a mega-Asia metropolis where anyone can find a dim recess to do whatever he or she wants.

Amrit, the young woman in the family, is the single biggest point of shame for the father – and, to varying degrees, the rest of the family. She drinks to excess, is promiscuous, is generally dismissive of traditional values, and all of this ultimately results in her being unmarriageable [at least not in a traditional wedding to a family of equal or greater status as is so coveted in Indian culture.] Early in the book, she disappears for several days and throws the family into a lurch. One would think that concern for Amrit’s well-being would be the over-riding emotion during her absence, but it’s tainted by fear that she’ll make the family look bad. The problem is that Amrit is bipolar but no one recognizes this because all the family can accept is that she is misbehaving – perhaps because she never got to know her mother. Because of this, she doesn’t get treatment for her condition until long after she should have. The fear of her being seen as “mad” and the effect that would have on her ability to be wed keeps the family from helping Amrit get the medicine that would allow her manage her impulses and make better decisions.

The middle son, Narain, is a quieter embarrassment to his father. While Narain is not the kind to go on benders or to draw attention to himself, he is gay – in both a culture and a country that are intolerant of homosexuality. At the beginning of the book we see him being sent away to America to college after being prematurely discharged from military service. His father thinks college in America will make a man out of Narain, but what it does is expose him to an environment which is more permissive but at the same time which drives him away from the Sikh values with which he was raised. In short, it does exactly the opposite of what the father hoped for, and we can imagine Narain would have gone through life playing a part as dictated by traditional norms (getting married, having children, and either repressing his sexuality or leading a secret double-life) had he not spent time abroad.

Even the eldest son, Gurdev, is a disappointment to the father despite the fact that he lives life by the traditional script, marrying a wife who has traditional Punjabi values, and having three children who are successful in school. (Though the fact that they are all girls may be an unstated element of the father’s disappointment, it seems to have more to do with the fact that a cousin who was orphaned and spent time with the family is progressing more quickly in his occupation than Gurdev.)

I enjoyed this book and found it quite illuminating. One sees how tradition and modernity come to loggerheads, and how the outcome is influenced by taking place in a setting that is still trying to get a footing on how to be a country – as Singapore was at the time. It seems fascinating how culture and traditional values form – for good or for bad – blinders. The father can’t fathom that Amrit has a mental condition, not just because he’s in denial, but because it’s not a construct that’s part of his world. Narain, at the start of the book, is extremely aware of cultural norms (e.g. in the opening, we see that he won’t step on so much as a brochure because it’s a violation of the tradition he was raised in to step on the written word.)

I’d highly recommend this book. It’s especially good for those who are seeking to gain insight into Singapore, Punjabi culture, or who want to see how mental illness is swept under the rug to the detriment of all involved.

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BOOK REVIEW: A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin

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A Spy in the House of Love (Cities of the Interior #4)A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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The novel’s lead character, Sabina, is an actress who has a series of extra-marital affairs over the short period covered by the novel. Intrigue is generated at the book’s beginning when Sabina contacts a character that we know only as the “lie detector” and petitions him to watch her. The lie detector follows Sabina throughout the course of her sexual dalliances with four men other than her husband, but the reader is only made explicitly aware of his presence during Sabina’s conversations with him, which bookend the events of the novel.

One might presume this novel would be categorized as erotica or romance, but it’s not so graphic as to be typical of the former, nor so much of a celebration of romance to count as the latter. I’d place this work simply as literary fiction. It focuses on the character of Sabina and the conflict that resides within her – on the on hand, she craves the attention of multiple men; but on the other hand, she is in turmoil about this need. The lie detector serves as a confessor, and by having her activities known to someone she hopes to be unburdened. The language is often verges on the poetic.

I enjoyed this novel both for its language and its reflection on the inner conflict of the human condition. I’d recommend this work for readers of literary fiction.

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5 Characteristics I Look for in Travel Literature (w/ My List to Date)

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Recently, I’ve begun to read at least one piece of literature from each of the countries I visit. While I’ve done this for the last several countries I’ve been to, now I’m going back to fill in the gaps from past travel.

 

I don’t want to be doctrinaire about the books I choose, but I’ve learned a little about what I find the most beneficial. While some people who do this insist on reading a novel from each country, I’ve been much more open to a range of forms, including: poetry, short stories, and — in a case or two — creative non-fiction. One reason I’m flexible this way is that the novel isn’t the basic unit of literature everywhere in the world. I don’t want to read a pop crime novel published by an expat that offers zero insight into culture just because that’s the only novel I can get my hands on in English. Short story collections have proven at least as insightful as novels because one sees more lead characters put into more diverse situations, and poetry can be as well — as long as it gives a sense of place and people.

 

I should also point out that I’ve violated almost all of these suggestions when something caught my eye — often to great effect. #5 and #1 are really the only ones upon which I insist.

 

5.) Offers insight into the culture of the country at hand. I don’t want to sound like a literary fiction snob. I read a lot of genre fiction and the occasional commercial fiction, but this is one area where I find literary fiction is best. In large part this is because literary fiction tends to be character-driven and that depth of character usually transmits some insight into culture. When I went to Nepal I read Samrat Upadhyay’s Mad Country [short stories] and learned a great deal about the people of Nepal from various walks of life.

 

4.) Authored by a national of said country and set there as well.  The second part (set in the country) seems like it would be non-negotiable, but I’ve certainly violated the first part  (local author) and can imagine violating the second (local setting) as well. The key is that it must do #5 (cultural insight, that’s the point after all.) To give an example of a violation of the local author proviso, for the time being at least, I’m going with George Orwell’s Burmese Days as my pick for Myanmar (Burma.) I may change that at some point, but it definitely offered insight about more than one of the items on this list.

 

To give an example of how one might violate the setting clause and still benefit, I’ve had Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table, recommended to me for a Sri Lankan book. It features a Sri Lankan boy on a ship headed from Colombo to England and thus (as I understand it) is only briefly set in Sri Lanka. Sometimes, when a national is abroad, one gains even more cultural insight — i.e. it becomes easier to see culture through the state of contrast. (It turns out that I’m reading another novel set in Sri Lanka entitled Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka, which promises to offer me insight into not only Sri Lanka, but also into the craziness that is the sport of cricket.

 

3.) Teaches me about some historical happenings of the country in question. In some sense this is always true because even a contemporary novel deals in history by the time it’s published. However, I tend to prefer a time-frame during which something interesting was going on in the country, but not so far into the past that there is disconnect with the people I interact with in my travels. For example, for Vietnam, I recently read Novel Without A Name, which features a North Vietnamese soldier as a protagonist, and it’s set during the last days of the war with America.

 

2.) Exposes me to a diverse set of characters. It’s a definite plus if the book shows how more than one element of society lives. A great example of this is Gagamba, a book by F. Sionil Jose, that I read in conjunction with my trip to the Philippines. In it, one peeks into the lives of rich and poor alike, as well as seeing Filipinos who’ve been living abroad and expats living in the Philippines, all this contrast makes the shadowy shapes of culture clearer.

 

1.) It’s a good read. It’s as simple as that. It must be a book I’d want to read regardless of whether I was trying to check off a box on travel literature.

 

Here’s a list of countries I’ve been to with my selections for that country — if I have one. There are some countries (e.g. USA, Hungary, India, China, Japan, and the United Kingdom) from which I’ve read a lot, but I’ll stick to presenting one that is an exemplar vis-a-vis the criteria above.

 

I’d love to receive recommendations, particularly for those countries I don’t have anything for yet.

 

Austria: The Tobacconist (recommended to me, not yet read.)

Belize:

Botswana:

Cambodia: First They Killed My Father  (I’ve read some fiction set here, but this non-fiction is the best.)

Canada: Surfacing (not yet read)

China: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

Czech Republic: The Good Soldier Svejk

Estonia: The Man Who Spoke Snakish (In progress. An unconventional choice as it’s genre fiction, but it came highly recommended and has not disappointed.)

Finland: The Year of the Hare (not yet read)

Guatemala: The President  (not yet read)

Hungary: Cold Days

India: The Guide

Japan: Narrow Road to the Interior

Kenya: A Grain of Wheat

Malaysia:

Mexico: Selected Poems of Octavio Paz

Mongolia: The Blue Sky

Myanmar (Burma): Burmese Days

Nepal: Mad Country

Netherlands:
Peru: Death in the Andes

Philippines: Gagamba

Singapore: Inheritance (in progress; another odd choice as the family that this novel presents is Punjabi, though they live in Singapore. and their lives are shaped by that locale. Some places, like Singapore and the UAE, have a lot of immigrants and it’s only fair to consider them through that lens.)

Slovakia:

Slovenia: I Saw Her That Night (not yet read)

Sri Lanka: Chinaman (in progress)

Thailand:

UAE: Temporary People (not yet read)

United Kingdom: A Christmas Carol

United States: Blood Meridian

Vietnam: Novel Without a Name

Zambia:

BOOK REVIEW: Novel Without a Name by Duong Thu Huong

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Novel Without a NameNovel Without a Name by Dương Thu Hương
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This novel’s protagonist, Quan, is a North Vietnamese soldier who, after ten years of war-fighting and surviving, has worked his way up to a junior officer position with a small unit under his command. Much of the story describes a road trip in the midst of war. One of Quan’s childhood friends who is now his superior officer, Luong, assigns Quan the task of going to visit a distant medical unit to check on a third common village friend, Bien, who is said to have had a nervous breakdown. Luong, further tells Quan to take some well-earned time off for a home visit, since the junior officer hasn’t been to see his home in a decade. In the latter part of the book, Quan returns to his unit after an uneasy home visit to see the father with whom he has strained relations (his mother ran away with another man), the neighbors he seems closer to than he is his own father, and his childhood sweetheart who has fallen on hard times — having had to accept that the two would never be married. On the way, back to his unit, Quan checks on Bien who he busted out of horrific conditions at a field hospital and got reassigned to a special unit with the non-Infantry, but macabre, task of building coffins. The book ends with another uneasy transition, the war’s end – which sees Quan’s comrades in celebration, but also not sure what to expect after an entire adult life spent at war.

Interspersed with the real-time events that occur as Quan travels through a jungle war-zone, one is shown flashbacks to some of the intense traumas of his years at war. These include friendly-fire incidents and the “only the good die young” effect in which it seems the most kind and virtuous are often the most perishable in times of war. There’s also a very human story that’s told about how war effects lives and transforms relationships – in some cases forging unbreakable bonds and in other cases building impenetrable barriers between loved ones.

I’ve read a few books on the Vietnam War, both fiction and non-fiction, but this may be the first I’ve read from a North Vietnamese perspective. What is interesting about that is that the experiences and themes are often not that different from one sees in works like Karl Marlantes’s “Matterhorn” or Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” Soldiers on both sides have similar day-to-day experiences from boredom to horrors, and it has largely the same effect upon the soldier’s psyches. One of the overarching themes this book has in common with its American-centric counterparts is growing disillusionment. Like the American soldiers who often couldn’t comprehend what they were fighting for (other than the survival of their friends and themselves), Quan’s core beliefs become challenged over the course of the novel. It’s often been said that there are no atheists in foxholes, but it seems equally true that there are no ideologues in foxholes. The pragmatic concerns demanded of the war-fighter make it hard to be an impassioned Marxist or an impassioned follower of any ideology. This is seen in one scene in which an older officer is put off by Quan’s lack of enthusiasm for the Marxist message, and then later when the tables are turned and Quan converses with a young subordinate soldier who is even more disillusioned.

Of course, there are differences. Quan is much more at home in the environment of the war – though not exempt from the miseries of the jungle. It’s not like he’s been dropped on a different planet as it was for American soldiers who had no experience of tropical living. On the other hand, an American soldier could at least rest assured that his loved one’s were home in safety, but for Quan and his peers there is no reason to think family is any more safe than they. Of course, the concept of traipsing through the war zone on a home visit after years successively at war represents one important difference that is also fundamental to the story.

I found this book to be gripping and illuminating. It’s highly readable and relatable, even though there are flashbacks that take one out of a linear timeline; they are well done and not confusing. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who reads war stories, who enjoys translated fiction from other cultures, or who just wants a thought-provoking work of literary fiction.

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BOOK REVIEW: Mad Country by Samrat Upadhyay

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Mad CountryMad Country by Samrat Upadhyay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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I’ve recently started reading at least one work of literature from each country I visit, and I picked this book up in Nepal as a first take on that country through the lens of literature. I couldn’t be happier with my selection. This book provided exactly what I was looking for in such a book, and more. What I want from such a book is insight into culture, lifestyle, and politico-historical context that can be difficult to witness through travel. Traveling a new country is like dating a new person; one doesn’t see the rough edges for some time. (Usually the relationship – in either case — is over before one sees into the murky depths.)

Over the course of eight stories, Upadhyay not only gives one insight into the nature of life for a variety of Nepalis (e.g. rich, poor, and middle class as well as young / progressive v.) older / conservative), he also shows the life of a hippie ex-pat gone native as well as presenting the worldview of a Nepali abroad (i.e. in America for college.) Where this book exceeded my expectations was in the skilfulness of tension-building employed in the stories. Often a book that achieves the aforementioned objectives does so in a way that is flat on story because it takes the character-centric orientation common in literary fiction. These stories are gripping as well as insightful, and don’t abandon story for character. It dances a beautiful line in that regard.

The first of eight stories tells of the trials and tribulations of an editor of a hard-hitting journalistic magazine, and the dual challenges she faces in taking on a corrupt regime while at the same time she has a friend who is going through a messy breakup. However the editor juggles these competing demands, we know she won’t escape some guilt of failing someone important to her.

The second story is about a rich boy whose life is tormented by the fact that his mother abandoned him and his father and moved on to form a new family. The boy takes to impersonating a beggar, secretly hoping his mother will see him and will be shocked into change. The story is also about the young man’s wake up call to the fact that he’ll never have the killer instincts bred by necessity into those less fortunate that are arrayed against him.

The third story is about “the Sharmas,” a dysfunctional Nepali nuclear family in which the mother is pure shrew, the father is trying fumblingly to have an affair, the son is a dim-wit, and the daughter is dating a young man who everybody seems to think is out of her league.

The fourth story is about a girl in the early 1980’s Kathmandu who goes from the drug-addled life of a Freak Street hippie to going full native. Here we see what draws the foreigner to Nepal and to Nepalese people, as well as how attempts to escape into another culture can be as troubled as attempts to escape into drug-induced euphoria.

The fifth story is by far the longest and might be classed as a novella. It’s about a young man who becomes obsessed with an African girl that he rescues in Kathmandu. The piece has a very dream-like quality to it, and through much of the story one is left unclear as to what is real and what is the product of the lead’s mind. In fact, the title “Dreaming of Ghana” suggests this imagined state of affairs.

The sixth story is the shortest, and – as its title suggests – it’s about an “Affair before the Earthquake.” The story evokes the emotion of world events that cleanly bisect our lives.

The eponymously titled penultimate chapter follows a wealthy and powerful woman who is “disappeared” by a corrupt authoritarian regime when she tries to look into the similar disappearance of her son. It’s a fascinating tale about a prominent real estate developer who is disabused of the notion that she is too powerful to be man-handled by the State. We see her transformation as a prisoner as the wind is taken out of her sails until one wonders whether she would ever be able to cope in her old life after being cowed by prison life.

The last story, like the fourth, turns things upside-down a bit. In it we find a Nepali student abroad who finds himself out in the cold because of his strong views on race. He discovers he’s at odds with the other foreign students because he thinks they should be more outraged about the bias displayed against them. He identifies with the plight of blacks, but they don’t see him as one of them.

This is an intense little collection of stories and I’d highly recommend it. The stories are well-crafted and keep the reader intrigued.

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BOOK REVIEW: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the WorldHard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This novel intersperses two story lines, the connection between which only becomes clear near the book’s end. The first story arc is set in a realistic world in which a few futuristic and bizarre science fiction elements intrude on an otherwise ordinary Tokyo scenescape. Let’s face it, Tokyo is one of those cities that it’s easy to believe hides some unexpected truths inside its gargantuan sprawl.

In the first story (i.e. the odd-numbered chapters), a Calcutec (i.e. the narrator) is hired by a mysterious elderly scientist who’s running an independent laboratory. Calcutecs are individuals who’ve been trained to use their subconscious for data encryption and storage. As the offense / defense of data encryption has become a contact sport in this world, the narrator isn’t initially surprised when he gains some unwanted attention from nefarious types, but gradually he comes to discover that nothing is as it seems.

The second story arc plays out in a surreal dream world. In this world, the lead (also a “narrator”) is a dream reader who spends his nights taking in old dreams from the skulls of the beasts who reside in the countryside nearby and which die off in massive numbers each winter. All and all, this narrators life is relatively calm and tranquil, though he does suffer some anxiety over the fact that he’s been separated from his shadow, and that said shadow seems to be dying off.

For a story that plays out in the surreal imagery of the subconscious mind and which hinges on the esoteric world of the brain, it’s incredibly readable and easily followed. This is trippy reading, but it’s not difficult to follow. If you enjoy movies like “Inception,” “Source Code,” “Memento,” or “The Machinist,” this book will be right up your alley.

I’d highly recommend this book for those who enjoy mind-bending fiction.

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Around the World in 5 Works of Poetry

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5.) On Love and Barley by Matsuo Basho [Japanese]: One doesn’t get better haiku [and other traditional Japanese poetry forms] than Basho.



4.) The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur [Indian-Canadian]: This isn’t the expected fair for an “around the world” post as it’s not blatantly infused with setting / geography, but culture does factor in prominently.


3.) Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman [American]: Not only does Whitman explore the many dimensions of America, he also references other cultures and locales. [There was a fascination with the East brewing in Whitman’s day.]


2.) Octavio Paz / Selected Poems by Octavio Paz [Mexican]: Paz was a diplomat as well as a Nobel Laureate, and his poems include many references to India (where he was posted) as well as Mexico.


1.) The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran [Lebanese-American]: Featuring an intriguing melange of advice in poetic form.


NOTE: It’s not as global a list as I’d like. I’d love to hear what works others might include in the list. I don’t think poetry gets translated as much as fiction and so it’s a bit of a challenge. It’s much easier to find examples of novels & short story collections from far-flung corners of the world.

BOOK REVIEW: The Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse

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The Journey to the EastThe Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This lesser-known Hesse work adopts a theme common throughout the author’s books in that it’s philosophical man-versus-himself fiction. The book’s protagonist, H.H., is a member of a secretive league [called “The League”] with whom he is undertaking a journey of self-discovery. H.H. fails to complete the expedition, and that fact haunts him into old age. Ultimately, H.H. finds Leo, a servant who’d been on the journey with him, with whom H.H. had a great affinity, and whose disappearance (along with some loot) led to H.H.’s abandonment of the trip. In the process, the lead discovers that nothing was what it seemed.The book examines how vulnerable people are to disillusionment and how quickly they can lose their passion, and it urges the reader to consider from what source one draws one’s strength.

This novella is a little under a hundred pages, and is told in five chapters. The first couple of chapters describe the ill-fated journey. The third chapter is a pivot in which H.H. is considering his inadequate attempt to chronicle events, and is advised to get closure by tracking down Leo. In the last two chapters, H.H. does find Leo, receives the man’s wisdom, and ultimately finds out what really happened.

I enjoyed this book. It’s a quick and simple read, but is extremely thought-provoking. I’d recommend this book for anyone who likes to think about life’s big questions.

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