All Quiet on the Western Front

Written by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, was first published in German in 1929. Like the narrator of this novel, Remarque had enlisted in the German army at the age of eighteen. Years later, he noticed that he and his friends who had also been soldiers, were still being negatively affected by their war experiences. On that same day he began to write this novel, and finished it in six weeks. Like A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry (see blog for March 16), All Quiet on the Western Front focuses on the humanity of these young, young men as they are forced to confront the horrors of warfare. It is a tough book to read, but read it you should!

In the novel, the narrator tells us that his schoolmaster, Kantorek, had persuaded all the boys in his class to enlist.
Page 8
There was, indeed, one of us who hesitated and did not want to fall into line. That was Josef Behm, a plump, homely fellow. But he did allow himself to be persuaded, otherwise he would have been ostracized. And perhaps more of us thought as he did, but no one could very well stand out, because at that time even one's parents were ready with the word "coward"; no one had the vaguest idea what we were in for.
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There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that there was only one way of doing well, and that way theirs.
And that is just why they let us down badly.
For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress - to the future. We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a manlier wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.
While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and dying. While they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards - they were very free with all these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from the true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.

The Secret Life of Bees

I really loved reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, which came out in 2002. The kernel of the novel is that when people are blessed with inner kindness, they instinctively behave kindly towards other people. If only this were a more common trait! August is the woman who is abundantly wise, kind, and understanding. The novel is wonderful: the story is tough in places and heartwarming in others.

After running away from Lily's home, Rosaleen and Lily have just turned up at the home of August Boatwright and asked for her. They don't even know her but they want to stay with her. They pretend they just want to earn a little money on their way to find Lily's aunt in Virginia.

Page 74:
The narrator is Lily, and August is the first speaker here:
"I'm from Virginia myself," she said, and for some reason this stirred up the current that had moved in my limbs when I'd first entered the room. "All right, then. Rosaleen can help May in the house, and you can help me and Zach with the bees. Zach is my main helper, so I can't pay you anything, but at least you'll have a room and some food till we call your aunt and see about her sending some bus money."
"I don't exactly know her whole name," I said. "My father just called her Aunt Bernie; I never met her."
"Well, what were you planning to do, child, go door to door in Virginia?"
"No, ma'am, just Richmond."
"I see," said August. And the thing was, she did. She saw right through it.


The novel is wonderful

The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was published in 1850 and it was this novel that made him famous. It is totally absorbing and wonderful. We are filled with a range of mixed emotions for Hester: sadness, admiration, fear, pity, but never condemnation. Hester Prynne is an outsider and remains one. She holds very deep feelings of love and loyalty, even though they cause her great grief as she raises her child alone.

In the Puritan setting of the novel, an adulterer is usually put to death. In this case, the adulteress Hester Prynne, gets a lighter punishment. She is given a prison sentence with her infant, is put on public display for three hours, and she is forced to wear the letter 'A' on her clothing for the rest of her life.

Page 58:
...... - was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen huzzy, contrive such a way of showing it!....................
"Oh, peace, neighbors, peace!" whispered their youngest companion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart."

Efforts are made to ascertain who is the father of her baby, and she is told that she will be able to remove the scarlet letter if she names him. She steadfastly refuses.
Page 72:
........"And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!"

The Inheritance of Loss

Written by Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss was published in 2006.

As I read this novel, I was taken right into Sai's world with her, and could feel the invisible chains all around this young 17-year-old orphan, living with her cold and grouchy grandfather, in his delapidated and crumbling house. Though he is a retired judge, her grandfather simply cannot afford to make any repairs, and can just about manage to retain the services of his last servant, the cook. Likewise, they live their daily lives without any changes or improvements. Change is going on around them, however, as India experiences social unrest and insurgents roam around, some of whom even rob Sai's family. Sai is quite isolated in this environment and it is easy to understand how she might begin to fall in love with the only young man who regularly visits their home: her tutor.

I loved how Ms. Desai's developed the characters and thought that her ability to evoke sympathy for them was terrific. I understood the grandfather better after reading his experiences in England during his studies there as a young man. Because he was so lonely, he spent long hours studying.

Page 45
He retreated into a solitude that grew in weight day by day. The solitude became a habit, the habit became the man, and it crushed him into a shadow.

But shadows, after all, create their own unease, and despite his attempts to hide, he merely emphasized something than unsettled others. For entire days nobody spoke to him at all, his throat jammed with words unuttered, his heart and mind turned into blunt aching things,......
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New York was portrayed as being a really harsh environment for the young son of the cook who came to make his fortune. But so too was India upon his return.

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The writer's descriptive abilities are excellent and as example, I have to share with you the opening sentences. They are simply beautiful and very poetic.

Page 1
All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above the vapor, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the last of the light, a plume of snow blown high by the winds at its summit.

A Very Long Engagement

Un long dimanche de fiancailles by Sebastien Japrisot was first published in France in 1991 by Editions Denoel (sorry that I cannot put in the French accents with this keyboard). It was translated into English by Linda Coverdale.

This novel is set in World War I France, and introduces us to the lives of several soldiers, the horror of war and the mystery of their deaths. And we meet Mathilde, the young girl left at home to await the return of her boyfriend, Manech, from the war. She does not believe it when she is told that he has been killed. She tries to find out what really happened to him. A lot of intrigue is revealed as the story unfolds.

When we first meet Manech on page 15, we learn that:

he'd already spent more time at the front than the pitiful buffoon staggering along ahead of him, and, given his fevered imagination, he was even more tortured by fear than his companion.

And then there is a list of all his fears. It is such a compelling list that we know we would feel the fear too:

He was afraid of the war and of death, like almost everyone, but he was also afraid of the wind, that harbinger of gas attacks, afraid of a flare tearing through the night, afraid of himself, for he never knew what he might do when he was afraid, afraid of his own side's artillery, afraid of his own gun, afraid of the whine of aeriel torpedoes, afraid of mines that explode and engulf a whole section of infantry, afraid of the flooding that drowns you in the dugout,....

That They May Face the Rising Sun

That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern was published in 2002 by Faber and Faber. In this novel, McGahern shows his wondrous talent for writing beautiful descriptions of the most ordinary circumstances and weaving great stories out of everyday occurences. He is outstanding at character development and the people you will meet in this novel will almost come alive.

A couple have partially dropped out of their working life in London and have bought an old house in Ireland. The man is originally from the area and his wife is English. The novel's depiction of them and their interactions with the locals is beautifully written and a delight to read.

This is the first book by John McGahern that I have read. Since I had picked it up at Dublin Airport before the long flight back to the US, I was especially glad that it turned out to be really good. Just look at the opening paragraph below. I was, and still am, awed by the beauty, by the poetry, of it.

Page 1
The morning was clear. There was no wind on the lake. There was also a great stillness. When the bells rang out for Mass, the strokes trembling on the water, they had the entire world to themselves.

Page 68
'What about Mary and Jamesie?'
'Mary's the best in the world,' his face brightened. There's none better than Mary. Jamesie would give you the shirt off his back. Once I was coming to borrow their mule. He had the mule tackled and was putting out topdressing. As soon as he saw me come he had the mule untackled in seconds. He declared before God that he was doing nothing with the mule. The mule was there for me to take.'

In the Time of the Butterflies (revised post)

By Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies, was printed in 1995. This is a well-written and heart-wrenching work of fiction, and apparently is based on the history of the Dominican Republic from 1938 to 1960. Ms. Alvarez points out that in this novel "what you find here are the Mirabals of my creation, made up, but, I hope, true to the spirit of the real Mirabals." And she adds, "A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel throught the human heart."

Page 114
Trujillo puts his dice back on the empty try. It's then I notice the sides don't balance. Of course, my good-for-nothing uncle would give his buddy loaded dice.

Page 115
Quickly I reach for the heavier set of dice and begin shaking them in my fist. Trujillo studies the wobbling scales. But without my set there, he can't tell which are his loaded pair. "Go ahead," he says, eyeing me closely. "Highest number wins."

Page 57
Later, lying in the bed we were sharing, I joined Mama in her goodnight rosary to the Virgencita. Her voice in the dark was full of need. At the first Sorrowful Mystery, she said Papa's full name, as if she were calling him to account, not praying for him.
"What's wrong, Mama?" I whispered to her when we were finished.

The Blackwater Lightship

Happy St. Patrick's Day! To honor St. Patrick, I will blog about talented Irish authors all this week.

The Blackwater Lightship, by Colm Toibin (with accents on the 'o' and second 'i' of Toibin, so that it is pronounced Tow-been), was published in 1999.
This is a deceptive novel. It is very simply and beautifully written, but the topics are complex and also really sad. A young man, who will soon die of AIDS, wants to spend time at his grandmother's house by the sea. In recent years, his friends had more or less replaced his immediate family. Now, at his grandmother's house, he is nursed by some of those close friends, plus his mother, sister and grandmother. Old family memories and tensions naturally surface, and Toibin skilfully draws us into the intricacies and difficulties of relationships within this family.

Page 106
She did not know how her grandmother would respond to their arrival. She realised that for the first time in years - ten years, maybe - she was back as a member of this family she had so determinedly tried to leave. For the first time in years they would all be under the same roof, as though nothing had happened. She realised, too, that the unspoken emotions between them in the car, and the sense that they were once more a unit, seemed utterly natural now that there was a crisis, a catalyst. She was back home, where she had hoped she would never be again, and she felt, despite herself, almost relieved.

A Long Long Way

A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry, was published in 2005. This outstanding novel interweaves Irish history along with telling us about the experiences of Irish men who signed on as soldiers in the British Army during World War I. Young Willie Dunne, an 18-year old Dubliner, is the central character, and we follow his path from youth and innocence, into the horrors of battle. It is a powerful novel and a terrific testament to the futility and destruction of war. Barry's beautiful writing and descriptive ability is absolutely tremendous.

Page 56
Now Willie's lot were shunted back almost to the edge of the true world where there were quite peaceful-looking farms all frosted and beautiful under the moon, crisp and familiar as some stretch of Irish midlands under the struggling light of day. Even woods were impressively standing. The roads were all cobbled with mere fieldstones as you might find in a Wicklow yard, and they were rough ways to walk upon, in your hobnailed boots. But they marched the roads in three stages, and although they were weary from the stretch in the trenches, nevertheless they took some pride in their marching. Exhausted boys were carried by their pals, so as not to hinder the rate of progress. It was good to get the blood going round and it was better than sitting in trenches with the frost threatening fingers, toes and noses without cease. There was a timetable for everything and it pleased the men to make the distances on time.

Atonement

Atonement by Ian McEwan, was published in 2001. This is a beautifully written novel, set in upper-class England, and centers around a huge injustice meted out to a lower-class young man in the summer of 1935. The characters and their lives are well drawn, and when coupled with class expectations, everything fits perfectly to allow this horrible unfairness to go undetected. I loved this book so much when I read it that I really did not wish to see the movie when it came out years later (2008). I relented. While the movie does a good job and is quite faithful to the novel, nothing can compare with the joy of actually reading this finely portrayed story.

page 157
"What did he say?"

"Nothing. I mean, it was the sound of his voice, breathing, noises. But I couldn't see. I couldn't say for sure."

"Well I can. And I will."

And so their respective positions, which were to find public expression in the weeks and months to come, and then be pursued as demons in private for many years afterward, were established in these moments by the lake, with Briony's certainty rising whenever her cousin appeared to doubt herself.

I am Charlotte Simmons

I am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe, was published in 2004. I wonder how many parents did not allow their daughters to go away to college after reading this version of the campus scene? This is good, gripping, and is a fast read, because you won't be able to put it down for long!

On pages 150/1, we read a letter to her parents that is being written by Charlotte at college. We see what she would really like to write to her parents. She settles for several sentences similar to the following:

"So everything is going along pretty much the way I hoped it would. I have to pinch myself to make sure this isn't just a dream and I really am a student at one of the best universities in the country."

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, was first published in 1943. This heartbreaking and beautiful novel is set in the Williamsburg slums, starting in 1912.


Excerpt from Chapter 3
"My father was like me - never held the one job long." He smoked in silence for a while.

Francie ironed quietly. She knew that he was just thinking out loud. He did not expect her to understand. He just wanted someone to listen to him. He said practically the same things every Saturday. The rest of the week when he was drinking, he would come and go and say little. But today was Saturday. It was his day to talk.

"My folks never knew how to read or write. I only got to the sixth grade myself - had to leave school when the old man died. You kids are lucky. I'm going to see to it that you get through school."

Facing out to Sea

Facing out to Sea, a novel by Peter Adamson, was published in 1997.
A young hotel waiter in Sri Lanka moves effortlessly between the elegant surroundings at work and the urban slum where he lives. Adamson contrasts the two worlds very well and develops interesting, credible characters. His descriptions of life in urban slums are vivid, and are so true to life that he even provides solutions for improving the lot of slum residents. Because of Peter Adamson's long career spent travelling in developing countries, plus filming and writing about development matters, he has much credibility. While this is a great novel about human relationships and hardships, it doubles as an extremely interesting lesson in development economics and slum improvement.

It is difficult to choose any one excerpt from an entire novel as a sample of what is in store for a reader. I choose this one because I'd like you to read it aloud, while you imagine the scene.

Page 4
On the verandah of No. 29, Vijay Jayasinghe is slowly smoking a cigarette. It is a little after seven in the evening. Light swarms of midges are gathering over the drain and the strip of sky between the roofs has turned to indigo, smudged with the smoke of fires. On the latrine wall a neon light fizzes. A few of the older children of the garden are sitting beneath it, doing their homework under an inspectorate of insects. Somewhere a voice is raised and a dog begins to bark. As is usual for the hour, the women are embedded in the recesses of their homes, scouring pans with ashes from the dying fires, stacking the blackened pots, pouring the cooking oil back into its bottles, lowering the bed-boards, smoothing the worn covers, spacing out the garments that have bunched together in the middle of coir ropes slung diagonally across dark rooms. Outside, the men are relaxing on the verandahs, talking in tones which fall imperceptibly with the light, their glowing cigarette ends tracing their eloquence in the evening air.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde was published in 1890.
This book is horrifying, but really well written and intriguing.

These excerpts are from the first Chapter.
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"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said Lord Henry, languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. "
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"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it."
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"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the colored canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."
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To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. I first read, and loved, this novel when I was a teenager. I re-read it last year and was again awed by it. You simply must read this book - it is excellent.

Excerpts from Chapter 3
"First of all," he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - "

"Sir?"

"- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

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"If I didn't go to school tomorrow, you'd force me to."

"Let us leave it at this," said Atticus dryly. "You, Miss Scout Finch, are of the common folk. You must obey the law."

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Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, was published in 1891 as one complete novel. Parts of it had been printed in different publications in the two years prior to appearing in book form.

Page 33 - Tess speaks to Alec.
"Our names are worn away to Durbeyfield; but we have several proofs that we are d'Urbervilles. Antiquarians hold we are - and - and we have an old seal, marked with a ramping lion on a shield, and a castle over him. And we have a very old silver spoon, round in the bowl like a little ladle, and marked with the same castle. But it is so worn that Mother uses it to stir the pea-soup."

"A castle argent is certainly my crest," said he blandly. "And my arms a lion rampant."

"And so Mother said we ought to make ourselves beknown to you - as we've lost our horse by a bad accident, and are the oldest branch o' the family."

Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men, a short novel written by John Steinbeck, was first published in 1937.
It is a beautiful novel about friendship and protecting the innocent, even when that it is a losing battle.

Page 28
"Jus' wanted to feel that girl's dress - jus' wanted to pet it like it was a mouse - Well, how the hell did she know you jus' wanted to feel her dress? She jerks back and you hold on like it was a mouse. She yells and we got to hide in a irrigation ditch all day with guys lookin' for us, and we got to sneak out in the dark and get outta the country. All the time somethin' like that - all the time. I wisht I could put you in a cage with about a million mice an' let you have fun." His anger left him suddenly. He looked across the fire at Lennie's anguished face, and then he looked ashamedly at the flames.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
First published in French, in 2000, it is about two young Chinese men who are forced to be re-educated and sent to live under harsh conditions on a mountain.  In real life, the author was sent for "re-education" at around the same age as the two main characters of this novel.  He left China in 1984 for France where he still lives. 

Page 6

A few words about re-education: towards the end of 1968, the Great Helmsman of China's Revolution, Chairman Mao, launched a campaign that would leave the country profoundly altered.  The universities were closed and all the "young intellectuals," meaning boys and girls who had graduated from high school, were sent to the countryside to be "re-educated by the poor peasants."

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The real reason behind Mao Zedong's decision was unclear.

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Page 23
The princess of Phoenix mountain wore pale pink canvas shoes, which were both sturdy and supple and through which you could see her flexing her toes as she worked the treadle of her sewing machine. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the cheap, homemade shoes, and yet, in a place where nearly everyone went barefoot, they caught the eye, seeming delicate and sophisticated. The fine shape of her feet and ankles was set off by white nylon socks.

A long pigtail three or four centimetres wide fell from the nape of her neck down to the small of her back, where the end was tied with a brand-new red silk ribbon.

When she leaned over her sewing machine, the shiny metal base mirrored the collar of her white blouse, her oval face and the sparkle in her eyes - without doubt the loveliest pair of eyes in the district of Yong Jing, if not the entire region.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a short novel by Truman Capote and was published in 1958.

page 12 (in my edition)
I went out into the hall and leaned over the banister, just enough to see without being seen. She was still on the stairs, now she reached the landing, and the ragbag colors of her boy's hair, tawny streaks, strands of albino-blond and yellow, caught the hall light. It was a warm evening, nearly summer, and she wore a slim cool black dress, black sandals, a pearl choker. For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap and lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening in the cheeks. Her mouth was large, her nose upturned. A pair of glasses blotted out her eyes. It was a face beyond childhood, yet this side of belonging to a woman. I thought her anywhere between sixteen and thirty; as it turned out, she was shy two months of her nineteenth birthday.

Our Man in Havana

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene, was published in 1958. He called it "An Entertainment", rather than a novel. Wormwold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana. Despite his shortage of money, he is unable to say no to his daughter's expensive tastes.

See what happens when he becomes a spy, fabricates reports and falsifies expense reports.

It is a very well written and enjoyable book.

Excerpt from Chapter 3/1

It was Wormold's day-dream that he would wake some day and find that he had amassed savings, bearer-bonds and share-certificates, and that he was receiving a steady flow of dividends like the rich inhabitants of the Verdado suburb; then he would retire with Milly to England, where there would be no Captain Seguras and no wolf-whistles. But the dream faded whenever he entered the big American bank in Obispo. Passing through the great stone portals, which were decorated with four-leaved clovers, he became again the small dealer he really was, whose pension would never be sufficient to take Milly to the region of safety.