Lace Readers...

Hello, sorry for the long absence...law is so demanding;-) But don't worry, I'll catch up...starting with The lace reader by Brunonia Barry.

We first meet Towner Whitney when she's about to leave home for Salem, the place where her family still resides; the place where her sister Lyndley died...; the place she left some fifteen years earlier...

Her Aunt Eva just died and Towner is going to Salem to attend the funeral. She has no intention of staying but something happens and she is forced to, although not forever.

Many secrets unweil within the story: Towner's real name is Sophya (what a great name, especially if pronounced in the 'old' way); she had mental problems and was forced to stay in hospital for a while...her family is exactly what one may imagine: some sort of magick between the lines (Eva and Towner herself are lace readers).

You may get to a stage where you're left wondering…did you waste your time reading this book? Did the author answer any 'cosmic' question (some may think this is the main purpose of books of any sort) or something?
I confess at one point I couldn't distinguish fact and fiction within the story. But I don't think that's the point. I think this novel is about life as we, each and every one of us, see it; it's about the fact that even when we look at the same object we see just a part of it, an aspect others may not even notice.

…by the way...there is also love in this story...and a charming detective (Rafferty)...and I think this may be a great gift for Christmas;-)

Driving with dead people

Hello everyone,
Sorry I haven't been around much, took a life journey recently and am trying to cope with it and everything else. But I promise I'll try my best to keep the blog going as much as I can and am hoping it will be easier once I'm hands on...Keep finger crossed for me;-)

Driving with dead people is a very well-written novel. It is charming and passionate, and although a part of the story is extremely sad (it's about domestic violence and its effects) I really enjoyed the journey.

It all starts with Sarah Keeler, a girl like many, and her funeral. The protagonist of Driving with dead people, Monica, has a lot in common with Sarah and somehow feels in need of attending the funeral. Their "lives" cross every now and then and although they have never met, they somehow befriend each other.

As I mentioned, the novel is also (and mainly) about domestic violence which seems to be one of the big problems of contemporary society. I do not know if there is a "right" or "good" way to explain how it works but I do feel that Monica Holloway found one which I would describe as "communicative". You read the novel and you understand. Of course, that doesn't mean you suddely "know" but the picture we get from this novel is clear and human. It's not theory nor preaching. It simply is feelings, those of a woman who married someone violent, those of their children. It's the love, the hate, the guilt (especially the guilt), the need...

"Church was the only place where I sat close to my father. He felt less prickly there, and as much as I hated him I wanted him to love me. In the silence of church I tried to steal closeness."

Monica's family (and their relationship) is quite complicated. For example, one of her sisters "gets mad" (attempts suicide, goes to hospital...) and her mother moves someplace else and "forgets" about her son and daughters (or, rather, doesn't really seem to care as obsessed as she is with her new life-new boyfriend-new job...). Still Monica tries her best to connect with each and every single one of them, including her father.
Luckily, she is blessed with Daniel, former boyfriend and true friend, especially when things get very bad.

Mma Ramotswe's adventures (2)

Precious Ramotswe is one of these ladies I love to spend my time with: she's fun, clever and, in my opinion, a very fine person. She's from Botswana, a country she dearly loves (I do too since I've met her). She's a character in a book, or, rather, in a series by Alexander McCall Smith, an author I truly love and admire.

The Tears of a Giraffe  is the second book in the series. As always, we find Mma Ramotswe solving mysteries of some sort (including unfaithful husbands and fake daddies) and enjoy the engagement of this "traditionally built" lady and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.

Two new characters, a boy and a girl, join the family: the couple, or rather, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and his good heart, adopts them.
We also get to know Mma Ramotswe's Assistant, Mma Makutsi, better (She even gets promoted and is, as always, so proud of her 97 percent...) and Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni's maid gets arrested. I truly believe that's the best part because I couldn't stop laughing, and it was also some sort of a relief since it made me think that Karma does exist and what comes around goes around...

I would love to give further details but I think this book to be the type it's just best to read than to talk about. It won't take you long, both because it's just 200 pages (circa) and because it's a light read.

However, I hope you don't mind me sharing a 'cosmic question'...why is this book catalogued as "children's"? I mean, okay, I do understand marketing and that its characteristics fit in perfectly...but, IMHO, a good book is a good book, regardless.

On life, death...and funerals

Hello everyone,

Hope you're having an amazing summer, wherever you are, and do not suffer the heat (as much as I do. I am melting...).
I think mine is a great one I am spending doing a number of things I usually have no time for...reading including so have reviews to write-)

A crowded train, in a poor country or, rather, in a country we are all used to call 'third world'. Truth is, it is rich, in history, culture, land and there's so much beauty there. In am referring to India but my mind goes further.

A crowded train. That's the first image in A fine balance by Rohinton Mistry. It is an amazing and extremely demanding book: 800 pages which helps you understand, makes you suffer, tells you the story of one which may be that of any other, of the whole humanity.

In a way, I think Mistry is the Indian version of French writer Balzac whose stories are about poverty, sufferings, strength. They both are talented story-tellers and I guess that's what makes the difference between them and many others who do manage to write 800 pages but lose their readers half way through (if they get lucy...)

I confess I am not fond of big books, mainly because I get easily bored, but I'd suggest you all to read books by Rohinton Mistry which are set in India but are not about India only. They are a sort of window to understand other people, their sufferings, their need to protect themselves from all that life throws at them. It is not easy. It is never easy and we sometimes feel the weight of the world but unfortunately we are not alone in this and luckily we do meet people who help us continue the journey, who give us the love we need to feel we can do it. People we call 'friends'.

Dina Dalal is a charming person who forgot how to be a woman from the very moment she lost her husband. It was an accident. It happened so sudden. She was not ready for it. Would she be, ever? It was too soon, they still had so much to do together; she still had so much to do...
She didn't have a job, nor money, only the house her husband had rented. So she moved back in with her brother. It wasn't going to last forever and they probably knew it but it did last for a while. And it was horrible for Dinah, forced to take the servant's place. Humiliating.

Broken dreams of characters, both major and minor. They all seem to have lost (have been forced to lose) their ability to dream good things can happen to them. Still, some of them managed to put on a brave face.

When Dina lost her husband her life lost its meaning. He died, she did too. Is death a better option than life?
I think the answer to this question is in one of the characters' words (don't worry, I won't get into many details), it's in the feeling of fine balance when joining a funeral...
I am not going to tell you it's good to lose someone you love because I know it is not, but I confess I think cemeteries are not such a horrible place because every flower, every plant, every visitor is a symbol of love, that we still feel for those who are gone, for those who will always have room in our hearts.

Look at me

There is a scene, in The History of Love (Nicole Krauss. How many times before have I mentioned it?;-), where Leo Grumsky wanders around a city which doesn't feel like his own. Still he's spent there, in that city and country, most of his life. That's when he decides to sit, naked, in front of a crowded drawing class just so that he won't pass unnoticed.

In a way, Look at me by Anita Brookner tells the same story and is about the same fear although the protagonist, Frances Hinton, makes a different choice. She writes. She does so because that's the only way for people to know her, to know about her.

Set in the beautiful britishy Maida Vale, in London, the novel tells the story of a librarian who loves her job and is desperately lonely. At the beginning, she was making up stories for her mother who loved to see things through her daughter's eyes. Then, after her mother's death, Frances began to write for herself, or rather, in hope she would get published, one day, and would therefore not pass unnoticed.

Unnoticed.
I keep using this word...
It's a choice I have to make and you will understand reasons for it once you read this great book.

Have you ever been, or felt, you were way too 'normal' to get noticed? Have you ever had the feeling you needed to record your stay or presence somewhere or that would have otherwise passed unnoticed, surrounded by 'amazing' superhero-like people? Look at me is not a big book, just 200 pages or so, but it's huge in the number of emotions you will feel while reading it, especially if you have felt that very same feeling.
Frances' life upsets her, especially when comparing it to that of Alix Fraser. Still, it is not some sort of envy. It's rather a cry for survival.

Write. Record people, feelings, happenings. Even when they seem unimportant. Do so, especially when you think they are otherwise going to pass, unnoticed.

Water (again)

It just started to rain and that makes me so happy (have been struggling with the heat the whole day or rather for the past couple of weeks and it's way too much for me)

Rain...water...Water for elephants. This is the title of a book by Sara Gruen which I absolutely loved. It tells the story of a man, Jacob Jankowski, the narrator and protagonist of the story, who is about to become a vet (is about to take his final exams) and start working with his dad. Jacob is a nice guy, a good person I'd say. He's smart and a good student. Unfortunately, his parents die, all of a sudden, in a car accident and Jacob is forced to grow up quickly: he's left with no money and nobody to rely on other than himself. He doesn't know what to do but circumstances work so that he joins a Circus, thanks to someone named August who will soon become the best of his friends and the worst of his enemies...

There, in the circus, Jacob falls in love with beautiful Marlena; becomes the owner of an elephant and makes friends with a number of people he would have never imagined.

If you judge the book by the few lines I've just written, you may end up thinking it is one of the many good books published every year. It is not. It is a fantastic book and I am absolutely sure you'll agree with me once you've read it. The story is told in a simple, yet charming manner and it's a mix of past and present. We get to know young Jacob but we also befriend him when he's "90 or 93, I don't remember".

I'm sure that once you'll start reading this book, you won't put it down until you get to the last page, also because Jacob will remind you of someone you love, and he will force you to think about life. Well, that's what happened to me. I began thinking of my grandad, what he might have felt/become forced to live in one of these houses for elderly people...

Ninety-years-old Jacob is frail, outside and inside, and forgotten: his children, now in their sixties, decided not to take care of him. Jacob's aware of that, and suffers, a lot. He's lonely, just like Leo Grumsky (The History of Love, Nicole Krauss), just like any human being who no longer is self-sufficient. Sad, and upsetting. Will this ever happen to me? That I do not know, not yet. But I do know that Jacob is one of these amazing characters who will become part of your life, of your family, of you. He will tell you his story, will open his heart to you and at the end of the book you will be grateful to Sarah for chosing not to end the novel as you'd expected, for opening up to possibilities, for giving you something to remember for a long time to come.

The Book of Salt

I have been asking myself whether to comment The Book of Salt by Monique Truong or not for quite a few days now. When I first started the blog, I promised myself not to comment on books I hadn't really enjoyed but although this book is not one of my favourites, I don't think it would be fair to say it is bad either. In fact the first, say, 150 pages are quite good, full of poetry bits and charms. They are interesting, challenging, funny at times.

Problem is that doesn't last to the end...after a while it gets 'obvious': you, the powerful and clever reader, know what's going to happen. Boring. And I know, it's something to do with me...I am just not the kind of reader who wants to be bored...I love powerful beginnings and books I love are the ones that either teach me something (i.e. open my mind) or make me feel strong emotions (and it's great when there are tears too...) but I am all too convinced that books are like friends...and I don't want you to waste your time meeting a friend I don't fully trust for myself.

Still...

Still this books gave me a lot to think about because it is about language, the tongue one speaks and that he/she was born into; it's about memory, the act of remembering people and places through recipes; it is about love.

The protagonist (and narrator) is a chief who moves from place to place and works for a number of people including Getrude Stein and her partner. He is somehow obsessed with their dogs, feeling less important than they are- and with the (very French) idea that 'French cooking' cannot be mixed with foreign flavours. The main story is set in Paris.
He can be a very interesting narrator. For example, when he explains how Gertrude Stein began comparing her writing with her car.

A Plus: whoever chose the title is a genius, as far as I'm concerned. A book is something which will last and will befriend the reader. Salt...it evaporates, it may be there for a minute only. Still, it may change a recipe, forever. I love the title, don't you?

Family Matters: it's 90;-)

Hello everyone,

just a quick note: yesterday was grandad's 90th birthday. We are going to
have a family reunion tomorrow to celebrate the event. He seems happy and I
am very glad about it.

Just wanted to share that with you all. I think 90 is a great achievement.

Water

I have been thinking (and craving) about reading Water by Bapsi Sidhwa for a while but I was always either busy or reading something else. In fact, my wish list is huge (really) and I tend to read books in a 'chronological order' (well, the ones which entered the list first) although that's no particular reason for me to do that.

However, I finally broke that non-existing rule of mine and got hold of a copy of Water. So happy I did that. The book is great, well-written and touching. It's about a girl of just eight years of age, forced, by her father, to get married to a man she never met (and he's of course older than she is...). Her mother doesn't really agree to that but in the end there's nothing she can do: it's the rules. Now, Chuyia might have been happy in her marriage, learn, in time, to love her husband and all that but unfortunately a few years after the wedding ceremony her husband dies and she's sent away from her family and forced to live with other people, women, who, like herself, survived their husbands. Somehow, that makes them guilty. Therefore they are isolated from the rest of the society, treated as 'dirty' and forced to a number of emotional experiences including cutting off their hair.

In the ashram, Chuyia makes friends with Kalyani who, unlike other widows, is not showing her condition to the full (she has long black hair). The girls spend a lot of time together: they play, they laugh, they walk in the streets (where they meet Narayan, a student).

The characters' religion is Hindu: can a widow love again?

My answer to that question is 'Yes' and I find nothing wrong in that but that's not right for those who populate the book. To them that is just so wrong. Therefore when they find out that Kalyani and Narayan are not only in love (they met by accident and fell in love from that very moment) but also planning to marry, they get really angry...

And the situation gets even worst when Kalyani, forced to earn money by...selling herself to a number of important men, discovers one of her customers is Narayan's dad: that changes her, forever.

I really enjoyed the reading also because it was the best way for me to learn something new about a culture, religion, place I don't know much about.  And I do understand somethings had to happen, but I also feel it was quite sad.

Also, it was of great interest to me to discover that the book was written after a movie, Water, by Deepa Mehta: I haven't seen the movie yet (am planning to) and am quite curious about it. In fact, I have seen movies inspired by books I love and have often felt disappointed about the result. Therefore I am looking forward to spot differences between this book and the movie and, well... try to see things from a different point of view (this time, I won't be able to say the director had forgotten important details...) ;-)

[Spoiler: at the end of the novel Chuyia leaves the place to join Gandhi; Narayan goes back to university and Kalyani, unable to stand the shame and humiliation of her relationship with Narayan's dad, kills herself...]