WHAT NOW

 In these final days of the 2020 Election campaign, as I talk to friends and acquaintances, it is clear that worry is a big part of many people's emotional equation, including mine. So I am reposting here what I had to say after the last election, because no matter what the outcome is this time, I stand by my conclusions of four years ago. 

Here is a link: https://keepthewisdom.blogspot.com/2016/11/what-now.html

Here is a copy of the post: 

What Now?

I feel bad. I feel abused. I feel like taking to my bed with a bottle of vodka. I feel outraged at my country. I feel like I am suffering from a great loss and cannot think straight. I feel apathetic. I feel afraid. I feel guilty. I feel small. I feel confused. 

All through this Presidential election campaign, I felt a growing awareness that the country I am living in is not the country I thought I was living in. Now I know for sure that I have not really been looking at my country as it is. I was lulled into a feeling of hope and security by evidence that change was truly happening: change for women, minorities, and the under-represented people in our society. I thought we were ready for a woman to be our President, a woman who had the experience, the courage, and the will to continue the fight for true freedom of all people in our land but who could navigate the treacherous waters of the world as it is, who could continue to redeem our country in the eyes of the world. 

I did not realize the extent of the anguish many of my fellow Americans are going through everyday as they try to make a living. I did not realize how very angry are the white, straight, conservative Christian men and women of this country. How ripe this segment of our society, who are still a slim majority, were for the con game of a demagogue who has played on their fears and insecurities to advance his own hunger for power and recognition.

I could not bring myself to post a blog about a book I read three weeks ago before this rude awakening was forced on me. Even though this morning, when I checked my reading log, I see that the next book I was to post a review about is actually completely apropos: The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya, a novel about Soviet Russia in its latter days. 

I watched Hilary Clinton’s address to her campaign team yesterday morning and once again admired her courage, her clear thinking, and all the other qualities she has for leadership. I went to my reading group last night to discuss Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, a wonderful piece of historical fiction about the early years of electric power in America; the intersection of science, finance, and the law. We discussed, we drank wine, we got to giggling about pussy grabbing. The gloom began to lift.

This morning I read a great article on Lit Hub: Literary Voices React to President Donald Trump. Again I went through the whole spectrum of emotions. I started making decisions about my future reading. At one point I decided to read only books by women of all races, creeds, and nationalities. At another point I decided to drop the blog and just work on my Big Fat Reading Project and my memoir. I jotted down a quote from Dan Peipenbring of the Paris Review: “And read as often and as violently as you can.”

As always, I was restored by writers. 

Lately, in my life, I have been pondering the concept of rebalancing. It is an ecological, Buddhist, Tao Te Ching, long-view concept. Human beings get out of balance due to all kinds of factors that are part of daily life but some cosmic force works always to bring the dichotomies of life back into balance. All of those emotions I cited in the first paragraph of this essay are brought about by the terror of things getting so out of balance that life or the universe will end. 

My conclusion today is that I had not totally been facing how out of balance the world and the human race truly is at this time. It is not that I did not know that. It is that I thought things were improving. And I think they are but not as much as I had thought. A huge factor in the cosmic force towards balance is sentient beings. When the storm is over, when the fire is out, when the smoke clears, it is up to sentient beings to come out of disaster mode and start thinking, planning, setting things to rights. 

The best sentient beings I know are people who read and write, clearly and as truthfully as they can. That is us! Bloggers, readers, authors, publishers. We dare not give up, give in, or stay silent. We need to read it all, even the words of white male chauvinist bigots. Everyone in a free society gets to have a say, we need to know the enemy and understand him, and we need to be in conversation with him. 

So, I will read, I will write, I will attempt to be in concert with the forces of balance, I will not pander, I will not be silent. I will be back tomorrow with my next review. 

Thank you for visiting and reading my blog. Take heart, carry on, be the change you want to see in this world, keep the faith, and all that good stuff!

NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER

Not Without Laughter, Langston Hughes, Random House, 1930, 299 pp

I read this for my Bookie Babes reading group. It was hard to believe that it was published in 1930! I will tell you why.

The story concerns Black lives centered around a family living in Lawrence, Kansas. Sandy is a growing boy living with his grandmother, his mother and two aunts. Grandma is a widowed washer woman, supporting three daughters and Sandy. Each daughter eventually goes her own way, but Sandy stays with his grandma until she dies, though he is influenced by the widely differing life styles of his mom and aunts.

The novel finally made me understand why so many Black women were deep into religion and church. They needed to believe in an afterlife that is not full of hardship, loss and suffering. It was also made clear why others look for good times and laughter or believe in education as a way to be able to compete with white people.

I always thought Langston Hughes was a poet, but he was also a wonderful novelist. His writing is lyrical, his characters are deep and rich with life, and the story kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what would become of everyone.

What struck all of us in the reading group was how much life is still the same for Blacks. Maybe a bit less harsh but still not really free, not really playing on a level field with the rest of society. It is now 90 years since the book was published. 156 years since emancipation. Etc, etc.

Yet, Langston Hughes brought major good things to his race. He came to recognition as a key player in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s with his support of other Black writers, his poetry, plays, novels and a special kind of hope and lightness of heart. 

POSTCOLONIAL LOVE POEM

 Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz, Graywolf Press, 2020, 100 pp

I received this poetry collection as the June selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. I had not known about Natalie Diaz previously. I followed my usual practice of reading a poem each night before bed.

The poet is Native American, born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village on the edge of Needles, CA. In other words, on the reservation, which sits on the banks of the Colorado River. She is a member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. She teaches and holds the Chair in Modern Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. Her book has been shortlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry. This is a woman who gets things done!

The poems cover Native American issues, legends, relationships with land and air and water and animals. They also reveal the depth of Natalie's passion for her partner--sensual, sexy, hot! Survival, oppression, freedom, philosophy, love and humor are her subject matter. ("Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good At Basketball" is an example of some of her humor.)

I humbly admit, in many of the poems I could only guess at the meanings of some of her words and lines. However I was never in doubt about her intensity, her passion. After I came to the end of the poems, I discovered she had written notes for some of the poems. So now I need to go back and read those again.

I also listened to her interview on the Otherppl podcast where I learned much about her life so far. You can listen to Natalie reading some of her poems here.

TOP TEN FICTION BESTSELLERS OF 1965

 Over the summer I completed reading the 1965 bestseller list for fiction. If you have followed my blog for a while you are familiar with what I call My Big Fat Reading Project. If you are new, go to the link to learn about why I read these best selling novels of long ago.

I have only reviewed three of the ten books here and I will provide the links to those reviews. Otherwise I will give you a brief synopsis of the other seven. The purpose of this post is to give my thoughts on how these books shed light on the events of 1965. It is my theory that in the 20th century the bestseller lists, which are based on sales, give evidence of the interests and concerns of fiction readers in any given year.

#1: The Source: Michener used the framework of an archeological dig at an ancient site in Israel to cover the vast history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Religious themes always sold well in the early years of the 20th century, but had not been as popular in the 1960s. I would think this one was of interest because of the growing tensions in Israel in the decade. 

Michener shows the connections between the religions and provides a history of their major conflicts. He made me think about religion, why humans need the idea of God, how religion had brought both order and chaos to our lives. An excellent read.

#2: Up The Down Stair Case: Bel Kaufman's book about her first year teaching in a public NYC high school is both hilarious and cautionary. The rules, the disorganization, the lack of supplies but most of all the challenges of making learning important to inner city teens, give what I was quite sure was an accurate picture of the scene. I wonder if LBJ's War on Poverty spiked an interest in this one.

#3: Herzog: This novel was also the #3 bestseller in 1964 and then won the National Book Award in 1965. It is his 6th novel but the first to make the top ten bestseller list. A middle aged intellectual is betrayed by his best friend who steals his wife. Bellow had cashed in on the midlife crisis plot before and since men still read fiction in the 60s, he did it again. 

#4: The Looking Glass War: The Cold War produced the spy fiction genre and Le Carre first hit the bestseller list in 1964 with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. By his own admission, after that success , le Carre wanted to tell the real truth about the state of British intelligence in the early 1960s. The novel is grim. He shows a nation no longer the world power it was. Intelligence has become a political endeavor inside the offices of the military and intelligence branches. He became the antidote to Ian Fleming and James Bond.

#5: The Green Berets: These guys were the sexiest of military intelligence operatives during the Vietnam War so it is no surprise that this revealing but patriotic inside look at how they did the job would be a bestseller. I was appalled.

#6: Those Who Love: Irving Stone's biographical novel of Abigail and John Adams and their roles in founding American democracy must have had high appeal to readers still reeling from the assassination of JFK. For me, reading it in 2020, it was an indictment of how we have failed to keep those ideals. To his credit, John Adams as portrayed here had his doubts about that very thing at the time.

#7: The Man With the Golden Gun: This was the final James Bond novel. It takes place in Jamaica, though begins with Bond being brainwashed by the Russians after his capture in the prior book, then being given electric shock therapy by MI6 to make him fit for another mission. Again, the Cold War makes for bestsellers.

#8: Hotel: Arthur Hailey made his career with this first top ten bestseller. It is set in a famous New Orleans hotel which has seen better days and is now facing a hostile takeover by a hotel chain. Racism plays a large part in the story and that made it ripe for the times in 1965.

#9: The Ambassador: This was Morris West's third top ten bestseller. The second book on this list set in Vietnam, it is a fictionalized account of the months leading up to the CIA backed coup and assassination of South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. The CIA giveth and the CIA taketh away when their implanted rulers stop playing by US rules. The novel does a fair job at showing the complexities of Vietnamese politics at the time and the toll this took on an American ambassador to the country. It captures that moment when LBJ began to plan his major escalation of the war.

#10: Don't Stop the Carnival is one of Herman Wouk's whimsical novels. A Broadway promoter decides to get away from the constant pressure of his job and the harsh New York winter by buying a hotel on a fictional Caribbean island that feels a lot like Jamaica. What was it about Jamaica in 1965?. It is a rip roaring read with some cringe inducing views of the natives who of course are Black and the many gay people who have taken refuge there from the homophobia of America. 

So there you have it. Have you read any of these books? I felt they gave me a pretty good picture of some of the major issues and concerns in America in 1965. I am now reading the novels that won awards in that year and will create a similar post when I finish those.

BRIDGE OF CLAY

Bridge of Clay, Markus Zusak, Alfred A Knopf, 2018, 534 pp

This is the second novel by Markus Zusak, following The Book Thief. I read it for the One Book At A Time reading group.

From the title I thought it would be about a bridge made of clay. Instead it is about a character named Clay who builds both a literal bridge made of stones and a figurative bridge in order to heal his broken family.

Clay is the fourth of five brothers living in Australia. Their father married a refugee from Eastern Europe and it was one of those wonderful marriages full of love. The eldest brother, Matthew, narrates the story of his family. Weaving back and forth in time, he reveals the tragedy that shattered the love and closeness between two parents and five boys. To tell what form that tragedy took and the effects it had would be nothing but a spoiler.

The writing is as imaginative as that in The Book Thief. Because of how convoluted the plot is, some of my reading group members were so baffled that one did not finish, one was quite bitter about the time spent reading it. This provided quite a raucous discussion!

I read all 534 pages in three days. I grew to love trying to figure out the many mysteries presented and to care for all the characters, even the unlikable ones. Zusak covers a large amount of time, a multitude of incidents, and many characters. The antics and adventures of the five brothers were never dull. 

Clay is a sort of Christ-like figure though it is not a religious story at all. Instead it proclaims the power of love to overcome tragedy and misunderstanding.

OCTOBER READING GROUP UPDATE

Yes, my reading groups are still meeting on Zoom. We may be doing so for a while yet. It is still better than no reading group meetings at all. As you will see, in this month of impending doom and desperate hope for better days ahead, the books this month are all in some way political.

One Book At A Time:

Carol's Group:

Bookie Babes:

Have you read or discussed any of these books? What are your reading groups discussing this month? If you were in a reading group what books would you want to discuss? 

WHITE MASKS

 

White Masks, Elias Khoury, Archipelago Books, 2010, 303 pp; (originally published in Lebanon, 1981, translated from the Arabic by Maia Tabet)

This was the translated book I read in September. Elias Khoury is Lebanese. I have read two other novels of his and loved them both: Gate of the Sun and As Though She Were Sleeping. Like those two books, White Masks takes place in Beirut. Since that country had been in the news, I thought it might be appropriate.

Though the novel was published in the United States in 2010, it was originally published in Lebanon in 1981, making it one of his early novels. It covers a period of months during the Lebanese Civil War which lasted for 15 years, 1975-1990. The war was religious, political, and devastating to the country.

The corpse of Khalil Ahmad Jaber, a civil servant, was found in a mound of garbage. He had been missing for weeks before he was found. A journalist, who narrates the story, sought to piece together what had happened to Jaber. He interviews many people, including the man's widow. Thus the reader gets a sense of life in Beirut during the early part of the war.

I won't tell you this was easy to follow. Each person interviewed has their own particular story to tell about Jaber, about his or her own life and about the violence around them. I got a sense of what it was like for everyday people, for the police and the soldiers. Hard times for all and quite a bit of brutality. Khoury shows the breakdown of society typical of any area where war is being waged.

It was a brilliant way to portray all of that and it was also a mystery. I was interested in the effects of civil war on the psyches and inner lives of men, women and children. The front cover blurb speaks of the resilience of people. I did not get that. I got that such an amount of chaos and uncertainty breaks people. It certainly broke Khalil Ahmad Jaber.

Some American pundits claim we may be heading for civil war in America. I sincerely hope we do not come to that.

BOOKS READ IN SEPTEMBER

 

My reading in September was all over the place. I had a plan but instead I picked up whatever looked good on my shelves. Of course I read the picks for my reading groups and finished both a poetry collection and a book of essays I had been reading for a while. All in all I had a feeling of freedom.

Stats: 13 books read. 10 fiction. 5 by women. 1 historical fiction. 2 thrillers. 2 children's books. 2 nonfiction. 1 translated. 1 poetry.

Countries visited: United States, Lebanon, Italy, Australia, Ireland, Spain.

Authors new to me: Beatrice Schenk De Regniers, Maia Wojciechowska, Natalie Diaz, Langston Hughes.

Favorites: Deacon King Kong, The Just City, Not Without Laughter, High Country

Least favorite: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby

The new Blogger has forced me to retrieve book cover images in a new way. I cannot seem to control the size of each image which bothers me. Hopefully it won't bother you. I am behind on my reviews, as usual, so if you want to find out more about a given title you will have to go to Goodreads or somewhere else on the web. If you have any tips for me on this matter, please let me know.

Have you read any of these titles? What were your favorite reads in September?