OBOC - Bolivia

When searching for Bolivia I found the book "The fat man from La Paz" which was a collection of short stories on Amazon, so i decided to try that. As I already mentioned in my blog, I don't particularly favor short stories. They've always been a hit or miss for me. If the story fails to grab my attention in the first paragraph or two, then it is generally very hard for me to continue further. Also I've found many short stories to be obscure and maybe i am just obtuse, a bit hard to decipher. So with much apprehension I picked up this one.

I was so close to giving up until I read a review in a website where the very perceptive reader offered a valuable advice - start with the last 8 stories instead of the first ones! And boy did that make life so much easier for me!

I absolutely loved the last story called "The well" in which a Bolivian Major 's mission for his regiment is to dig a well for soldiers passing through the North. A completely futile effort in a totally parched land, with a group of soldiers who are desperate for water and a respite from the meaningless war. Eventually the empty well becomes the reason for a battle and finds its purpose when the bodies are piled up.

A couple of stories around the indigenous communities were extremely insightful and moving and makes you wonder how their situation has changed now with one of them at the helm of their country.

I was also very touched by the story "to die in oblivion" which is about the migrant, homeless workers who wander the streets of La Paz doing all kinds of odd jobs and saving money for their dream of one day returning to their native villages. When one of them is destined to die in oblivion the others decide to hold a wake for him in the street as all of them were homeless. The plight of migrant workers who constitute a significant portion of the working poor - working very hard at jobs that most of us don't want to do and trying to earn an honest living to feed many mouths - reminds me of the famous quote from Casablanca "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world"

"Buttons" was another nice one where a lady recounts all the women in her life from her great grandmother to her aunts and her mom as she looks at their souvenir buttons. The title story is an interesting one told from the point of view of the rich in Bolivia. A rich man trying to find his kidnapped father deals with an unsympathetic police force and finds himself an outcast due to his wealth.

There was a lot of violence in the book and even in very tragic circumstances there was some room for humor and amazing insights in at least the stories that i liked. But overall a great collection with 20 stories representing a gamut of themes - religion, social, political, love, war, indigenous rights, working poor and even the rich. I am glad i didn't give up on this one!

OBOC - Argentina

After struggling with Borges and a short stories by contemporary women writers from Argentina, I decided to re-read one of my favorite books "Motorcycle Diaries" by none other than Che! I watched the movie when it first came out and since then have watched it so many times thanks to Netflix and have read the book many times and still I dont get tired of it.

Whether you like or dislike the Che that we all know, one cannot but love the Che in Motorcycle Diaries! This was when he was Ernesto and had not yet discovered the Che in him. I find the book to be very moving, very honest (unlike the movie, which gave into some of the Che cult - making him more of a hero than he was at that time) and simply beautiful and poignant prose about the landscape and the people.

And as you read the book you can see the gradual transformation from a wheezing asthmatic doctor who could barely dance, into a man of conviction, with absolute honesty and resoluteness - the characteristics that the world remembers him for today. As Alberto Granado said he stopped being an institutional doctor and became a doctor of the people or as Eduardo Galeano said "from solitude to solidarity,..."I" turned into "we".

In this day of raging healthcare debate, what is fairness, what is affordable healthcare, Che's lessons from the road ring true and something that we all need to pay attention to. His meeting with the old asthmatic woman in La Gioconda was especially moving when he sees the loss of dignity that accompanies ill health and having no access to simple medical treatment.

A couple of other things that stand out are his understanding of the state of indigenous people, and coming to grips with poverty. Numerous pages are dedicated to the overwhelming sense of hunger that the two adventurers experienced in their travel. I can clearly see how all these experiences shaped Che's future and his anti-consumerist stance.

One thing we've all heard about Che is his absolute honesty, and the book is a testimony to that. There is no intention to portray himself as a hero! In fact most of the resourcefulness comes from Alberto. Here is a guy who has failed in love, physically weak, can't dance, and relies on kindness of strangers to get him through his journey.

He opens his journal by saying "This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic......In nine months of a man's life he can think a lot of things, from the loftiest meditations on philosophy to the most desperate longing for a bowl of soup.... All this wandering around Our America with a capital A has changed me more than i thought"

All of us at some point dream of taking off on a motorcycle and traveling around the world. Very few of us do and of those very few learn from their experience and of those an even smaller minority start a revolution! Che definitely belonged to that minority.

Whether you are a progressive, liberal, marxist, communist, socialist, conservative, capitalist, the Che on the Motorcycle will appeal to you for sure!

OBOC - Belize

I cant remember the last time I picked up a detective/mystery novel. I had quit that genre maybe right after my undergrad! So I felt weird picking up a "neo-noir" novel called "In the Heat" by Ian Vasquez for Belize.

The book is about a boxer, Miles Young, who is well past his prime but reluctant to hang up his gloves partly due to pride and mostly due to not knowing what else to do. So when he gets a chance to earn some serious money playing detective on the trail of a teenage daughter of a wealthy "businesswoman" who ran away with her boyfriend - the son of a local thug, ex-police chief, he finds it difficult to pass up the offer.

There is enough money laundering, drug money, corrupt ex-policemen, and a lot of action to give Lethal Weapon a run for its money here!

Miles is a local hero, and while not in the ring, he is home being single dad to his 3 year old daughter, feeding her peas and carrots and reading "Good night Moon". Now who wouldn't love a guy like that!

Vasquez has done a good job keeping up the pace, providing for a fast paced mystery/action thriller, but where the book gets extra points is for the characterization of Belize itself! There were just so many details about the country well woven into the story that Belize itself becomes an important character in the novel. The heat, the music, the food, the meting pot of races, the overarching Belizean culture that bridges racial differences, a country coming into its own are all very well etched by the author

I had no idea that English was an official language of Belize and I believe it is probably the only country in latin America that has been a British colony. Even the street names reflect that. Coppola's association with Belize was another thing I found out through the novel :)

So was it a good read? yes. Will i read more of this genre? not likely. There is too much of a an action movie quality to the book that i find it difficult to read it. But this was a good break from the serious books i've been picking up as part of OBOC. It also told me that while historical background is a great way to learn about a country, you always didn't have to start from the past to understand the present.

OBOC - Belgium

OK i have a confession to make. I was very close to saying Tintin covers Belgium for OBOC! But i decided to try "Chapel Road" instead. Oh yeah talk about extremes! I started with Chapel Road in all eagerness, but it took me 3 days to get through 35 pages, and not all of it was because of the book. I had just been busy with other things and this pace would not do at all as I felt like i would be in the "Boldrums" for a long time.

So i decided to read one of Amelie Nothomb's books and picked up "The Stranger Next Door" last evening and here I am already writing my review! Yes it took me less than 2 hours to get through the book and I found it quite fascinating.

A retired couple (Emelie and Juliette)who've been married for 30 odd years and who have known each other for nearly 60years retire to the countryside to be away from the crowds. They find The House - perfect in every way, and even have a doctor for a neighbor. Their idyllic getaway is marred by the daily visit of their neighbor who speaks in monosyllables and is just a plain boor. Bound by politeness and to some extent cowardice the couple develop numerous coping strategies to deal with these "visits". On meeting the doctor's wife (who reminded me of the mother from "what's eating gilbert grape" without any of her humanity) their sympathies shift from the doctor to his wife and back and forth again. On mustering the courage to chase the doctor out of the house Emelie doesn't get the peace he sought, instead by chance intervenes and stops a suicide attempt by the doctor.

The book starts off by challenging the premise that we come to understand ourselves & become comfortable in our skin a lot more as the years pass. "The more the years pass the less we understand the person in whose name we say and do things."...."What's wrong with living the life of a stranger? Maybe it's better that way: know yourself and it will make you ill"

After intervening in the suicide attempt Emelie finds himself a changed man, his life now intricately bound to that of the doctor's. Was the rescue an act of cruelty, if so should he make amends, how? The rest of the story is about how Emelie no longer knows anything about himself.

The book though short was an intense psychological drama exposing the sometimes hidden terror that resides in human beings.

Off to Belize now and thanks Amelie Nothomb for getting me out of my "reader's block"