Just when you think you've read a million books about the Second World War, you discover there is one more "must read" book that you somehow overlooked. "The Assault" by the Dutch author Harry Mulisch was one such book for me that I doubt if I would have picked up but for OBOC.
12 year old Anton's life is forever altered the night his family was executed by Nazis as a retaliation for the murder of one of their own by the resistance. Anton's family only mistake was geographical. The murder of the police officer happened in their street and the body was moved in front of their home by one of their neighbors. Following such a dramatic event, the rest of Anton's life seems almost uneventful. Adopted by his uncle and aunt, he graduates from college and has a career as an Anesthesiologist, falls in love, marries and has a child and is actually a good father, but as a reader you end up thinking this can't be real! There is a certain level of disengagement that Anton feels that you as the reader end up sensing that he has not yet completely put things behind him. Sure enough, chance encounters with people from the past makes him confront the history, albeit reluctantly. During these episodes we come to learn about the incident, and what really happened and why. I found the book riveting with the drama coming not from action but from inaction. Fascinating read!
Onto Nicaragua. I chose "The Inhabited Woman" by Gioconda Belli. Really wanted to like this book. Loved the premise. Lavinia the heroine is from one of the upper class families of the fictional country of Faguas. She is fiercely independent, outspoken, smart and a strong feminist, but lives very removed from the struggles faced by the working classes of her country. How she transforms from her bourgeois background to an underground guerrilla taking up armed resistance forms the crux of the story. The story is told in alternate chapters with two points of view - one the life of Lavinia, the other the spirit of an Indian warrior woman who inhabits the orange tree in Lavina's backyard and infuses her spirit of freedom into Lavinia's mind and body.
I liked the premise of the story and although a fairly long book it was a reasonably quick read, but I just didn't connect with the voice of the story. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and many other voices from Central and South America and their rich tradition of magical realism. In this novel it seemed a bit too contrived. Still worth reading as the political climate and its impact on everyday life was beautifully done.
Now onto a non-OBOC book. "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage" had to be the most anticipated book this year. Launch of a book by Murakami is probably the only event that comes close to the launch of an iThing by Apple - religious fervor, anxious anticipation, long queues. So when I made the reservation for the book in my local library I had no hope of reading it this year (and the fact that I reserved it in the library should tell you I am not one of the serious Murakami fans) Surprisingly I was able to get the book much earlier than anticipated, and I wrapped it up in 2 days partly because the book was short and hard to put down, and partly because I didn't want to deprive other serious Murakami fans. This book I would say is a good introduction to Murakami for anyone who is dreading reading anything he has written. This is an easy entry, and has enough poetry and enough humanity to keep you enticed, and enough ambiguity to make you ask "Huh? what just happened here?". I won't say more but I regret not paying more attention to the train station of Shinjuku when I was in Tokyo. Give it a shot if you've never read Murakami or an experienced reader.
12 year old Anton's life is forever altered the night his family was executed by Nazis as a retaliation for the murder of one of their own by the resistance. Anton's family only mistake was geographical. The murder of the police officer happened in their street and the body was moved in front of their home by one of their neighbors. Following such a dramatic event, the rest of Anton's life seems almost uneventful. Adopted by his uncle and aunt, he graduates from college and has a career as an Anesthesiologist, falls in love, marries and has a child and is actually a good father, but as a reader you end up thinking this can't be real! There is a certain level of disengagement that Anton feels that you as the reader end up sensing that he has not yet completely put things behind him. Sure enough, chance encounters with people from the past makes him confront the history, albeit reluctantly. During these episodes we come to learn about the incident, and what really happened and why. I found the book riveting with the drama coming not from action but from inaction. Fascinating read!Onto Nicaragua. I chose "The Inhabited Woman" by Gioconda Belli. Really wanted to like this book. Loved the premise. Lavinia the heroine is from one of the upper class families of the fictional country of Faguas. She is fiercely independent, outspoken, smart and a strong feminist, but lives very removed from the struggles faced by the working classes of her country. How she transforms from her bourgeois background to an underground guerrilla taking up armed resistance forms the crux of the story. The story is told in alternate chapters with two points of view - one the life of Lavinia, the other the spirit of an Indian warrior woman who inhabits the orange tree in Lavina's backyard and infuses her spirit of freedom into Lavinia's mind and body.
I liked the premise of the story and although a fairly long book it was a reasonably quick read, but I just didn't connect with the voice of the story. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and many other voices from Central and South America and their rich tradition of magical realism. In this novel it seemed a bit too contrived. Still worth reading as the political climate and its impact on everyday life was beautifully done.
Now onto a non-OBOC book. "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage" had to be the most anticipated book this year. Launch of a book by Murakami is probably the only event that comes close to the launch of an iThing by Apple - religious fervor, anxious anticipation, long queues. So when I made the reservation for the book in my local library I had no hope of reading it this year (and the fact that I reserved it in the library should tell you I am not one of the serious Murakami fans) Surprisingly I was able to get the book much earlier than anticipated, and I wrapped it up in 2 days partly because the book was short and hard to put down, and partly because I didn't want to deprive other serious Murakami fans. This book I would say is a good introduction to Murakami for anyone who is dreading reading anything he has written. This is an easy entry, and has enough poetry and enough humanity to keep you enticed, and enough ambiguity to make you ask "Huh? what just happened here?". I won't say more but I regret not paying more attention to the train station of Shinjuku when I was in Tokyo. Give it a shot if you've never read Murakami or an experienced reader.
