The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay

Welcome to 1939 and the city of New York!  This is the date in which today’s RA favorite book is placed, called The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.   This is the tale of two cousins who are brought together by the early stages of World War II.  Josef (Joe) Kavalier is a refugee who escapes from Prague to live with his cousin Sammy Clay.  Joe is able to be transported to NYC by a coffin with the help of his mentor, the magician Kornblum.  Joe knows something is not right in Prague as the Germans begin to take over more and more locations in the adjacent countries and Joe leaves his parents and his kid brother Thomas behind.  Sammy is working at Empire Novelty, a place that creates comics and other adventure characters.  When Sammy realizes his cousin is a talented artist, he gets him a position in the office.  Together the two create a character titled “The Escapist” (an anti-fascist superhero!), bringing to life Joe’s concerns with what is happening in Europe. The character is an instant success.  The remainder of the book explores issues of sexual identity (Sammy’s), the sadness associated with losing a loved one (Joe’s brother gets killed in transport trying to escape from the Nazis) and dealing with covering up a pregnancy out of wedlock (Joe’s attraction – Rosa Saks), and the guilt that is caused by feeling you caused your brother’s death (Joe’s escape to the Army).  The relationship between the two cousins is at the core of the story as is Joe’s response to the take- over of his homeland.  Sammy’s desire to cover his sexual orientation with the marriage of Rosa to raise Joe’s son further illustrates the times.  There is a number of moving parts in the book and all make for an interesting read, albeit there is way too much detail at times – the story line with Joe serving in the Army does nothing to advance the story at all… I would say this is a strong read, though I wouldn’t say there was really anything “amazing” in the adventure. It is a good solid book, but certainly the title gives the reader some idea that there is amazing adventure… which I didn’t find.  The complexity of the times are captured and I really liked the setting of the “comic book” world as a backdrop  (I was a young avid comic book reader, though less in the past two decades – reading and collecting Spiderman – which I have a rich collection of about 200 early editions of the comics).   Again, good read, but not so amazing.  Have a little extra time, as this is not a short book.

A Problem from Hell

I often wonder what it is that our government leaders know and don’t know as it relates to foreign affairs.  Todays’ read is a frightening inside view to the horrors of life in very tumultuous environments.  In the book A Problem from Hell, reporter Samantha Power examines the idea of how much did American governmental leaders know about the killing of countries’ own citizens around the world.  Power, who served as a reporter from the fields in the Balkans witnesses first-hand the killing of innocent people by the government which leads her to come back to the US and begin to review all 20^th century mass murders in countries around the world that the US and other nations sat back and knowingly allowed to occur.  Through the research Power presents Raphael Lemkin, who escaped from Europe and attempted to tell the story of the atrocities occurring due to the Nazi occupation of his homeland.  Lemkin’s history of his efforts and coining of the phrase “genocide” – which was later added to the Webster’s dictionary because of Lemkin, lobbied American elected officials for decades to attempt to intervene in Europe and later bring to trial those who lead the innocent killings.  Unfortunately, history always repeats itself and Power has far too many stories to tell of the twentieth century genocide cases.  She provides in-depth data from primary sources on other individual genocides and the U.S. response in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo.  Power does find some leaders who tried to tell the story, such as Romeo Dallaire (a Canadian UN peacekeeping military leader) , politician Senator Proxmire, and even President Reagan, who eventually passed a US response to genocide during his term, 50 years after Lemkin began his efforts.  The book is filled with horrific details, some with pictures of the dead (graphic pics…) and outstanding supporting documents to illustrate her case.   Her story is based on her first-hand experiences often wondering how this could happen again and again.  The question seems to repeat itself, how do we know when it is really happening and what should outsiders be expected to do from a moral standpoint.  If you don’t believe intervention from the outside is necessary, then be moved by the data.  A harrowing tale that needed to be told.  Having the morals to act when needed is critical in political leadership and Power has been able to tell the story the citizens did not know at the time.  Kudos for sharing this tale to the citizenry.  Hard, but necessary read.

The Blind Assassin

Another journey story, this one by Margaret Atwood, who has two other books on the RA Favorite list, one I read just a few months ago (Oryx and Crake) and one of my favorite’s The Handmaid’s Tale.  This one was not one of my favorites, though well written, it is called The Blind Assassin. And yes the RAs suggest yet another award-winning book!  Why didn’t I like it all that much, long and drawn out, plus the book within a book had another twist, a THIRD story within a story – OH NO!, oh yes!  A new device I guess.  Try keeping this all straight when listening on tape, probably would suggest you read this one rather than listen to it, too hard at times keeping straight where I was within the stories!  To keep it very simple, two sisters growing up living with their father, who is a very successful business man, live without a mother, whom had died.  The story has the “writer” reflecting on what happened years ago.  The story takes place in the 1930s and 40s around the time of the war using Canada as a backdrop for the story.  Iris, the protagonist, reflects on growing up and the trials and tribulations of life with her sister, Laura and the turbulent marriage to Richard Griffen, a ruthless business man who ends up taking her father’s fortunes. The secrets of the sister’s tryst with another man and the suicide of Laura, whom all think writes the “story within a story,” “The Blind Assassin” comes out in the very end, which leads to the truth being revealed about Richard’s evil ruin of their father, his affairs, and the torture of Iris as a wife.  While the ending was riveting, the reader goes through a very lengthy drawn out story line to get to the ending.  When you get there you leave satisfied, but getting there is much longer than I would have liked.  Detail and more detail with the confusion of the multiple subplot stories make for one long read.  I’ll take a second pass on Ms. Atwood’s books.  Bring my Handmaid’s Tale any day!

American Gods

A third book that makes the RA favorite list by this author, Neil Gaiman writing American Gods.  This guy can write good books!  This one was an award winning novel.  History, mythology, fantasy, mystery, it’s all there.  The opening of the book places our protagonist, Shadow, in jail and preparing for his return home to his wife.  He gets a call from the warden to meet and receives “good news/bad news” – he is being released early from jail, the bad news, his wife just died.  Wow, what an opening… and think what happens a few pages later he learns of how she died, giving oral sex to his best friend while driving and losing control of the car – pretty interesting beginning, the rest is only more intriguing and “fantastic.” To the enth degree!  Enter the man who will hire him now that his life is all changed, Wednesday, who is either a god, a magician, conman, or a figment of the imagination.  People have lost faith in human nature and the gods who they looked up to in life for centuries as society is changing at an incredibly fast pace. Shadow goes on a journey, led by Wednesday through cities, assisting in robbing banks, and being pitted by the Gods (the new ones vs. the old ones).  Shadow’s journeys and introduction of characters in the battle between the gods is exciting and the author is at his most creative state in introducing the Gods as Shadow travels across the US.  Wednesday, who seems to play the Houdini role, eludes his enemies until he finally is killed by the new Gods, which rallies the Old Gods to move into action.  One never really is clear on which side the on-going entry of new characters actually fall.  Re-enter Laura, Shadow’s dead wife to propel him to reimagine their love and life together.  She actually saves him on at least two occasions from his attackers.  Shadow plays a central role in the final fight, in which he finally convinces both groups of Gods that America doesn’t need them, it seems to be running fine without them, maybe it was his own magic (using his disappearing coin skills) that gets the Gods to go away for good.  My favorite part of the journey was his life in the city of Lakeside, where Wednesday had sent him to hide.  Wednesday’s interactions with the locals leads him to solve the mystery of the disappearing children which leads to the capture of a unsuspecting murderer.  There were a number of “interludes” of other short stories interspersed throughout the story depicting mythological stories in America through civilization.  While many were interesting, I thought they took away from Shadow’s story.  A well written and interesting, yet complicated read.  You really need to pay attention throughout this read.  Gaiman is an outstanding writer, but this book’s symbolism and underlying story may not resonate with all readers.

The Truce

Once in a while you read a book about the journey of one’s life that touches you deeply; this was the case with Mario Benedetti’s The Truce, a book translated from the author’s native Spanish language.  The book is written in a “journal format” with daily entries by the protagonist, a forty-nine year old man (Martín Santomé), beginning in February 11 and ends February 28 the following year.  Martin, a widower of 22 years, works in a government accounting office and has three children, all in their 20s.  His wife died during the childbirth process of their third child, Jaime.  The other two children, Estaben the oldest, and Blanca the middle child all live with the father.  Over the course of the year Martin is faced with the idea of retiring at 50 (man can one believe that?  Who retires at that age now?) and is encouraged by his son Estaben.  Over the course of his journal entries, Martin explores his relationship with his children, his lost life with his wife, and a developing relationship with one of his staffers, a young woman (Avellaneda) who is the same age as his children. Benedetti perfectly captures the anguish and internal debate the widowed father has first, for the feelings he has for the woman, second for the challenge of how to share this with his children, and third for the development of the budding relationship with Avellaneda while working with her side by side in the office each day.  For 22 years Martin has satisfied his sexual needs with 1-1 secret trysts with women he meets on the street and through colleagues who visit the shop.  Martin also has trouble with understanding the relationships he has with his own children, having played father and mother to his children.  Martin’s youngest son disappears from the family after announcing that he is gay, a troubling lifestyle during the period in which the story was set (circa 1960s).  The love story that evolves is quite beautiful and the author takes painstaking measures to present in a way that is quite beautiful.  Finally through his struggle of realizing the thirty year difference between he and Avellaneda is something superficial because of the love he has for her, Martin faces his final fate once again…. well, I will leave that part out as I don’t want to ruin the ending for you.  Being 49 years old and thinking about what life would be like as a widowed man, I felt a real connection to the feelings that Benedetti described in the book.  What a joyous and sad book all wrapped into one.  I hear that the book is also a movie… (you know how I feel about books into movies…oh well).  This is a very poetic read with extreme character development for a very short book.  Exploration of a father and a man nearing the “declining days of his life”.  I guess in today’s world it would be a 69 year old man J  Definitely worth reading.