OBOC - Israel

I was torn between Amos Oz and David Grossman when i had to pick the author for Israel. Both are well known internationally, both support the two state solution and seem to hold similar political views. I went with Grossman and his book "To the end of the land" as i got a sneak peek into the book from BBC World Book Club.

Grossman dedicated the book to his son Uri who was killed in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Although the book was begun much earlier and intended to be some kind of a magical shield that would protect his sons, Uri's death haunts the novel with a dose of reality.

Onto the plot itself. Two best friends Ilan and Avram fall in love with the same girl Ora. Ora picks Ilan although she loves them both. Ilan is rational, Avram is impulsive; Ilan is nerdy but Avram is brilliant. Ora has a son Adam through Ilan, and several years later has another son Ofer through Avram. Both Adam and Ofer are brought up as brothers by Ora and Ilan. If all this seems an "ordinary" tale of a love triangle, throw Israel into the mix and the story just gets seriously complicated. Avram and Ilan both serve in the Army during the 1973 war, and Avram is captured and tortured by Egyptians. At the end of the war Avram is a broken man who wants to have nothing to do with anything and stays away from Ilan, Ora and even Ofer. Ora and Ilan are plagued by guilt and that runs through their life and the novel.

When Ofer voluntarily re-enlists after his military duty ended, Ora is plagued by fear of "notifiers" and refuses to stay home awaiting news about her son. Instead she decides to runaway from home and hike the Gailee just as she had planned with Ofer, but this time picks  a reluctant Avram as her hiking partner. She decides that the best way to keep Ofer safe was to narrate his entire life story to Avram in detail as she hopes that the telling of his story will act as a magical shield. The entire novel is then told in a stream of consciousness narrative from Ora to Avram. Does the hike save Ofer, does it save Avram and what about the torn and tortured relationships among all the lead characters... you have to read the book to find out!

Through this narrative we get a glimpse of private lives in Israel set against the political climate. As Ora recounts Ofer's life from the moment he was born, his first steps, the love between the brothers, his first love and the subsequent loss we are caught in this world and just like Ora are fearing for Ofer's safety.We also understand what it means to love your country and your family and how does a mother choose between the two when she is forced to! Just like in aboriginal cultures when the boy undergoes initiation rites and is for the first time separated from his mother, in Israel the conscription appears to change the relationship between mothers and sons, when the sons leave as boys and return as men. Grossman manages to portray a picture of ordinary people trying to lead ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances.

One small gripe - Grossman could have expanded the role of Sami, the Arab cab driver who is an integral part of Ilan's family. The relationship between Sami and Ora is sketched so well, and we get a very small glimpse into lives of Arabs living inside Israel that it leaves us longing for more. I guess I have to pick up a Palestinian written book to get the other side.

A very good companion to the book is the BBC World Book Club interview with the author. Overall it was a great experience reading the book, although there were times when i got impatient with the stream of consciousness and was tempted to go to the last page to see if Ofer survives, but I am glad I stuck with it and savored it.

OBOC - Iran

Wodehousian comic fiction from Iran? It can't be true, can it? Well that's what led me to pick up "My uncle Napoleon" a book by Iraj Pezeshkzad touted as the most important and best loved novel by Iranians since World War II. These days when nothing even remotely funny is heard from Iran (i.e if you ignore the late night comics and their commentary on Ahmadinajad) it was heartening to know that there is still room for a lot of laughter and mindless slapstick comedy in Iran. The book was written before the Iranian revolution and was briefly banned following it, but has apparently remained popular over the years and one can see why.

The plot is fairly straightforward and is set during the Allied occupation of Iran during Second World War. It is the story of a family patriarch ("Dear Uncle") who likens himself to Napoleon (yes the one who met his nemesis at Waterloo in the hands of the British) and rules his family with an iron hand. The narrator who is nameless has the misfortune of falling in love with his cousin Layli (Dear Uncle's daughter) on the 13th of August at a quarter to three precisely, at a time when the relationship between the two families was to say the least, strained. With the narrator's father and Dear Uncle scheming against each other, the narrator turns to his Uncle Asadollah a complete charmer who is quick witted and has the knack of putting his so called noble family in uncomfortable situations. Layli's marriage has been arranged to Puri who is another cousin and the son of Uncle Colonel and the narrator along with Uncle Asadollah tries to delay this inevitable event as much as they could. Events get complicated as Dear Uncle becomes paranoid that the English (whom he hates and blames for everything that is wrong in Iran) were out to get him.

Bizarre situations, complex confusing plots, over the top catch phrases that are sexual euphemisms ("going to san francisco", "noble member") all surprisingly work (although as a woman i found it a bit bawdy and sexist, but am willing to overlook as it was written over 50 years ago) as they not just add to the fun but actually reveal the complicated society in which the characters operate. In a typical Wodehousian fashion a motley crew of characters in supporting roles are crucial to the comical farce.

I can't claim to have understood Iranian culture and society from this book just as I cannot claim to understand the British from the works of Wodehouse. For that, I prefer Majid Majidi's movies which i absolutely adore! But in a week when i was hit by a nasty cold, this was quite an antidote as i am sure i could not have handled any heavy literature with a runny nose and a throbbing head.

OBOC - Indonesia

As with so many other countries in this project I stumbled upon "The Girl from the Coast" by Indonesia's most well known novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who was previously unknown to me! If nothing else, this project has given me a chance to experience writers like him who are practically unknown outside their country to the average reading public.

As I read more about Pramoedya Ananta Toer it was no wonder that barring the Noble prize (which he is expected to win posthumously sometime) he has won every other award of repute. Taking a bold stance against Dutch colonialism first and the Suharto and Sukarno regimes next, he had spent a good number of years under house arrest, facing intimidation and threats. His novels have been banned and burned in Indonesia.  What is impressive is that his novels feature strong female characters and also speak against the overtly religious who oppose any critical thinking.

Onto this novel. The Girl from the Coast is a semi-fictional account of Pramoedya's grandmother's life. Set sometime in the 19th century when Indonesia was under Dutch colonialism, it is the story of a girl whose name is never mentioned through the novel.  Born into a simple fishing family off the coast of Java, she grows up knowing the sea as her companion. Life was hard in the village with not many luxuries but with plenty of freedom. At 14, her beauty catches the eye of the Bendoro, a nobleman from Rembang, and she is forced to quit her life in the village and become the wife of the Bendoro in the city. Elevated to the status of nobility overnight, she realizes that this life though full of luxuries is completely devoid of freedom. She exists simply to serve the Bendoro, and slowly it dawns on her that she is merely a "practice wife" until the Bendoro is ready to marry someone his equal. She is taught just the amount she needs to learn to serve her master, and she is kept in the house just until she delivers her child and has met her purpose and in the ultimate act of complete subordination is forced out of the house with no claims over her own offspring.

While the novel can be read entirely as a statement against the plight of women, it can also be seen as an allegory to the life of Indonesians under the Dutch. There are a number of incidents interspersed in the novel which highlight the cruelty of Dutch colonialism. Just like the girl existing merely to serve her Bendoro, the masses existed simply to serve the Dutch, and when this purpose was met, they could be disposed at will. Anyone exposed to this kind of literature can also see some of the stereotypes - life in the village, hard but free, more egalitarian and open; life in the city - luxurious, yet more sexist and patriarchical. The Bendoro is not overtly cruel, but the lack of freedom and the class differences have their toll on the girl. She is neither the Bendoro's equal, nor can she mingle freely with her servants. Even her own parents and villagers treat her with deference now that she is "nobility". So it is no wonder she concludes that it is better to be free and poor than a prisoner yet rich - a conclusion that many nations under colonialism came to during their freedom struggle.

The storyline is predictable if one has read any kind of anti-colonial literature, but there is enough here to hold the reader's attention. Also the book has a story of itself. It is the first part of the trilogy that he wrote and is the only one that survives - the other two manuscripts were destroyed by the Indonesian military.  With his 30+ books he stands out as Indonesia's foremost writer who exposed the wrongdoings of the colonial and then the oppressive governments. In Girl from the coast he has managed to create a nameless hero out of every woman who has become an emblem not just for the anti-colonial struggle but also for the feminists of Indonesia. 

OBOC - Ireland

After a long hiatus i am back again to what has become a labor of love! Work, life and travel got the most attention during this period, but the stories kept drawing me back even if it was for only a few minutes a day. So it is fitting that I try to close this long gap with Frank Delaney's Ireland, which is a tribute to the Irish story tellers.

I was first introduced to Delaney when i started listening to his podcasts on James Joyce's Ulysses. So while Ireland offered so many writers and many Booker Prize winning ones among them, I still went with Delaney as I felt I owed him something for his free podcasts on my other labor of love!

 Ronan O'Mara's life is changed forever when the itinerant storyteller halts in his home for a couple of nights enthralling everyone with his stories about Ireland. Encouraged by his dad John and his aunt Kate, he spends every spare moment of his boyhood looking for clues about the storyteller who disappears from his life all too suddenly but only after stirring in him a love for history and mythology. In ways unbeknownst to him the stories come to Ronan and collecting them becomes his only connection to the storyteller. As Ronan enters college to pursue a degree in history, his life takes a turn for the worse with the sudden death of his father. Shielded from any uncomfortable situation during his  childhood and boyhood life, Ronan is completely unprepared to handle this loss and walks out after a bitter fight with his aunt Kate.

Knowing not what to do, he decides to become an itinerant himself in pursuit of the storyteller. He traces the stories he has heard over the years and follows the road which the storyteller had taken and along the way meets interesting people and collects stories about their lives himself. Will the prodigal son return home? Will he find the storyteller? Will he unearth the family secrets that almost everyone but him knew? These questions are answered as the novel meanders about, and I use the word meander because i felt Delaney could've used some help with editing.

This is a fantastic novel if one wants to get introduced to the history and myths of Ireland which are at the very foundation of the nation and its colorful people. There are so many great stories in the novel which combine myths and historical facts that it is quite hard to separate them. Starting from the pre-historic age to the 1916 Easter Rising and "The troubles" the stories help Ronan (and the reader) recognize the country and the people and their blessings and curses.

As a mother of a precocious 6 year old who can't get enough of stories, I am often at wits' end trying to make one up during bed time, and very often I recounted lives of my long gone grand parents, my dad, uncles and other people from my life who are no longer around and narrated them as stories just to satisfy her. In that process I got curious myself and would often look up historical events that happened at that time which were somehow interwoven into the life stories. As the storyteller says "Indeed our story is finally all any of us owns, because ... a story has only one master". I am a big fan of oral histories and people's histories and maybe that was also the additional appeal of the novel. Whatever the reason, despite a few minor flaws, I loved this book, and not just because it gave me material for some bedtime stories.

OBOC - Iceland

The very fact that I finished "Silence of the grave" in one day is enough evidence to show that Arnaldur Indridason has a winner here; and sure enough the book has won many crime fiction awards and the author is compared to many of his Scandinavian counterparts.

A skeleton is accidentally discovered outside the city which brings Erlendur Sveinsson to the case who concludes that the body must've been buried for quite some time. Erlendur like so many other leading fictional detectives is a lone wolf,  completely lacking in charm whose personal life in shambles. In this novel he is forced to confront his own past as he sits besides his junkie daughter  Eva Lind who is in a coma after losing a child, while at the same time unraveling the secrets of two other families each with their own tragic history as revealed by the grave.  We also get a glimpse of the changing face of Reykjavik from the time of the second world war.

The story is told in two alternate narrations - one in the present as Erlendur and his team track down available leads; the other is the sometimes hard to read story of the lady in green, a sad saga of soul destroying domestic violence and the effect it has on the family (some of the most well written passages in the book).

While i enjoyed the book, I have to complain about predictability. There were very few surprises or twists. Although I don't like trick endings, it seemed like this was a bit too easy to solve as the red herring was easy to spot. Even Erlendur's characterization is typical of so many of the detectives from the cold :) Makes you wonder what's with the weather that produces these types of detectives and an army of crime writers! Despite the predictability in the way the mystery is solved, the book stands out because of the author's ability to tell the story of the ordinary yet outstanding Icelandic mother surviving against all odds under some extremely difficult circumstances and the amazing backstory which makes this cold case come to life.

OBOC - Honduras

One of the most maligned careers during the last presidential elections was that of a "community organizer", but what does it truly mean to be one, especially in a country with no real democracy, facing abject poverty and subject to the whims and fancies of the super power(s). "Dont be afraid Gringo" by Elvia Alvarado has the power to do to community organizers what Indiana Jones did for archaeologists, or the Millenium Trilogy did for hackers - except that this one is all real, and unfortunately is not widely read or known!

Elvia is an extraordinary, courageous activist working with some of the poorest of Honduras attempting to do land recovery. The reason the book is such an interesting read is because Elvia has a unique way of analyzing both micro and macro level problems and shows quite a sense of humor and directness when articulating her views.

Through this book she sheds light on some of the real Hondurans living in rural areas on less than a dollar a day whose fate seems to be determined by the United States and the politics of Nicaragua. This is the time when Reagan was funding the Contras against the Sandinistas and Honduras was an important base for many of the American operations. Elvia doesn't hesitate to offer her opinions about Reagan (she had a funny piece where she concludes that Reagan must indeed be a Communist :)!) and American foreign policy, but like so many others in many parts of the world has a fondness for Americans, just not their Government. She also talks about the role of the Church, the local politicians, unions, aid agencies, non-profits, and the power of her analysis and the persuasiveness of her arguments are quite remarkable.

The book is not just about the macroscopic events, or even about blaming others for the plight of Honduras. She also narrates so many incidents from ordinary campesinos lives that it is an amazing insight into the lives of the ignored. She longs for a better future for her grandchildren as she doesn't have much hope that things will change much for her own children. Better education, healthcare, freedom, land ownership - these are all the things she is fighting for and has even gone to jail for.

She has been labelled everything from being a communist, to an atheist and an immoral woman, but she hasn't let any of those stop her. At one point she says how she has never met a Russian and has no idea how a communist even looks. After all the only Gringos she has seen were American soldiers. Although she feared them initially, she gradually comes to sympathize these soldiers as she understands that they are just doing the job that their government was making them do and most of them did not even understand why they were in Honduras in the first place.

This book is certainly worth reading for anyone associated with any kind of grassroots, progressive cause or anyone interested in understanding the plight of Hondurans or countless people all over the world whose life is determined by unseen political forces. The title of the book was a bit confusing for me when i first started to read, but it makes sense when she concludes the book with an appeal to the "gringos" of the world who are sympathetic to the Hondurans and asks them not to be afraid to take on their own governments if they see injustice being perpetrated.

OBOC - Haiti

"Masters of the Dew" by Jacques Roumain is one of the best examples of a peasant novel. The novel highlights the issues faced by Haitian peasants due to loss of fertile land, forest cover and hillsides, erosion, drought and is unfortunately relevant even today! Manuel the hero, returns after spending 15 years in Cuba and is shocked to see the homeland of his dreams (specifically his native village of Fonds-Rouge) reduced to this pitiable state. The issues are further compounded by a local feud that has left the village sundered into two factions. 

In Manuel we see a hero who is frustrated with his country men’s attitudes and he embodies a clash of traditions. In his quest to find water that can revive his village, he takes on the superstitions and religions (both Vodou and Christianity) as he refuses to accept the prevailing thought that the drought was God’s punishment and praying with all your heart can solve the problems. At the same time we also see the other side of Manuel when he lets his soul to be swept away under the vodou rhythms – proving he is not negating everything about his culture and roots. He is struck by the difference between Cuban and Haitian mindsets and this is obvious when he struggles to find a Haitian word for “strike” which is so common in Cuba. He succeeds in finding a water source, but the only way to get the water to the fields is by uniting the two warring factions and forming a unified coumbite. With the help of his sweetheart Anaise, and by tapping into the power of women he overcomes the obstacles and succeeds in uniting the village, but only by paying a very heavy price.

The plot of the novel is very simple and straightforward, and the translator must’ve done a wonderful job as it is quite poetic to read. The central theme is one of regeneration and growth and the book has so many metaphors around this theme. Also there is a strong link between land and sexuality – women exist to serve men (Anaise literally thinks of herself as Manuel’s servant), and so does land. It was a bit difficult for me to overlook that, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the novel. That way Roumain is like so many others before and after him (Fela Kuti comes to my mind – love his music and his liberating politics, but not his gender stance), focused on liberation in one sphere, completely ignoring the other.

As the title indicates, the book is a Marxist call to arms to the peasants of Haiti urging them to take control of their own destiny, and Roumain’s love of land and country makes this a compelling read.