Book Review: ABIGAIL by Magda Szabó

Abigail by Magda Szabó
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“All my life I have been a wild thing… I am impatient and impulsive, and I have never learned to love people who annoy me or try to hurt me. Now I shall try to learn these virtues, and I shall do so for the sake of my father: for him I shall seek to be gentle and patient.”

My sister slash hand model helped me take a photo of the book set against a fountain during our last walk outdoors. And it’s a perfect photo to match the fountain of tears shed as I tore through this classic’s pages til the wee hours of this morning.

This little brown book is now among The Top Three of my favorites of ALL TIME! It’s like a combination of other loves: the wisdom of Little Women, the drama of A Little Princess and Jane Eyre, and the urgency of Anne Frank’s diary. But comparisons do not match the reality of Abigail, as three syllables do not suffice to convey the incredible gift of Szabó’s tale of the loss of school girl innocence. Even Anne of Green Gables has to grow up, especially during a war.

It is a book steeped in truth, for the author did indeed teach during World War II, and was part of the country’s Ministry of Education in wartime.

It is also a very wise book, written by one who herself used to be a headstrong, precocious teenaged girl chafing against the rules of teachers she looked down on. (Admit it: At one point in our lives as immature children, we all did. Only to grow up and realize how much wiser they were, and how kind, and how we never fully appreciated them while we were benefiting from their unsung heroism.)

It is also quite fitting for a Halloween read! Abigail is, after all, the name of a statue who MAKES THINGS HAPPEN. Heartbroken schoolgirls write to her in moments of despair, only to set off a series of events that help alleviate the source of deep pain.

Is it alive? Is there a supernatural horror behind this? But why fear ghosts when flesh-and-blood men allied with Nazis come knocking at the school’s gate, seeking to bear students away?

The teacher in me loves this book because it shows how schools, quite literally, save lives. Yes, they are imperfect institutions run by flawed humans. But sometimes… in school’s hallways walk living saints. These are people who willfully give up their own personal ambitions because they seek to form, and protect their country’s future.

So many immortal scenes abound, but my personal favorite is an unforgettable (and questionable) Parent-Teacher Conference towards the end. If that isn’t a battle cry for the importance of warrior-teachers in the soul of country, I don’t know what is.

The bookstagram hype is well deserved, the quest to collect all the Szabó books in English has commenced.

“Life, for all its horrors, was wonderful, and of all these wonders the most precious was youth.”

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A Cross - Post: Coffee Or (Moroccan Mint) Tea?

 

(The original post can be found at our book org's Instagram)

There is something magical about the combination of a wooden table, a book, and a cup of coffee (or tea)! There are thousands of hits when you type in either hashtag! #bookandcoffee #bookandtea

The sister and I went for a walk yesterday in a very picturesque area (in)famous for the slew of visitors it attracts, so many pilgrims in search of that perfect influencer shot. One has to be careful where one walks, for fear of accidentally ruining someone's take!

While others want to capture their outfit of the day (oh sorry, #ootd), those of a shyer, more bookish nature would rather photograph inanimate objects that give so much Life.

We capture photos for the memories they evoke. Hiding from a downpour by ducking inside a nearby coffee shop, watching a professional beggar solicit money from patrons seated outside and wishing one had an extra umbrella to share.

The incredible smell that belongs to only this particular tiny mall, that I've smelled nowhere else (it's like they pipe in Elizabeth Arden's Green Tea in the central ventilation system or something?!), that you can smell even through your KN95 (still keeping it on indoors, thanks very much, because if that smell can get through, then so can COVID!).

The joy of discovering that an old favorite restaurant has survived the pandemic when so many others haven't. The disappointment because there so many unavailable things on the menu, but also the excitement of finding new dishes to savor!

The bittersweet pain of dining in a place full of many happy memories when we last dined there with our dearly departed.

It is, after all, All Saints' and All Souls'.

We gratefully raise a cup of our chosen beverage to cheer their memory, and treasure their legacy: this eternal love for the written word, for after all, all Life began when God spoke.

A Cross - Post : The October Round Up

(Original post to be found at our book club's Instagram!)

It’s the end of October! For those readers who set Goodreads Goals, we only have two months left! Here’s an October round-up pic of what I bought (and read! Gasp!) this past month, which will go down in history as THE MONTH WE DISCOVERED AMAZON SHIPS TO MANILA IN AS LITTLE AS SIX-TO-TEN DAYS.

Goals are all well and good, but ultimately we shouldn’t rush this form of magic: how a writer’s metaphysical blood and soul poured onto the page can mould our hearts, expand our consciousness. Letting one’s self be renewed, be changed by a book is a time consuming process, and it’s why we read, after all! To be changed, and thus, be inspired to change our world for the better.

I’ve been setting myself a goal of one book a week ever since I started keeping track of books read in 2007. You’d think that the busier I got, the less I read, but that wasn’t the case back when I was juggling two jobs and studying at night for a licensure exam! More predictable was the surge during the pandemic and a series of family medical crises, when reading became not just a treasured pastime, but a way to cling to sanity.

Through the shadowed valleys and joyous summits of life, books are there for us. Through heartbreak and the ecstasy of first love, they help us put grand truths in words, making them more real. Giving us perspective on what feel like singular, all-consuming passions, to remind us that we are not alone, that all of us are fellow travelers joined in this incredibly rich journey. It humbles us, and makes us grateful for it all, sorrow and smiles alike.

Book Review: BALTHAZAR (#2 of the Alexandria Quartet) by Lawrence Durrell

Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“English has two great forgotten words, namely ‘helpmeet’ which is much greater than ‘lover’ and ‘loving-kindness’ which is so much greater than ‘love’ or even ‘passion.’ “

It was midnight, obsidian black outside, the dinner table lit with an electronic lamp. No sound but the endless ostinato of rain.

For some inexplicable reason I felt drawn to revisiting a compilation I had put down months before. Book 1 (JUSTINE) was beautifully written but failed to capture the imagination. Thankfully Book 2 (BALTHAZAR) had more to offer to this reader.

Perhaps it was a mix of a wiser friend’s recommendation, and our human desire for completion. After all, what is the commitment of reading one book above others in the context of spending precious finite time, but a form of love?

Into the muddy Alexandrian waters of lust without caution and love without responsibility I threw myself last night and early this morning. And I’m happy to report that, unlike the volume preceding it, BALTHAZAR had a lot more to offer. It reminded me of a more literary Agatha Christie novel, in that the murder in the first book is explained. This seems to be Durrell’s expertise: focusing on the problems of the rich and bored, but written in the most brilliant manner borne out of the best education possible.

And when one is stuck in a blackout, BALTHAZAR isn’t too bad a way to spend a few hours. Durrell’s shimmering prose almost, ALMOST ennobles what remains (for me) a messy cauldron of the messes of privilege and lack of honorable ways to spend one’s time. One would think there were more interesting things going in pre World War II Egypt than love affairs gone wrong.

I’ve come this far. Only two more to go, and perhaps one of them will raise the average of the sum of the quartet’s parts.


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My Review of Book 1 (Justine)

Book Review: EVERY FIRE YOU TEND by Sema Kaygusuz

Every Fire You Tend by Sema Kaygusuz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Burn me, I asked, that I may be unrecognizable by my ashes. Accustom me to not understanding, that I might not move heaven and earth in order to know. Purge me of my languor, that I might be scorched to purity. Don't let me become the zealot of someone else's faith."

To write of things the leaders of one's country would rather pretend never happened... to tell the stories of state-sponsored massacres and genocides. This is a very noble task that Turkey's women writers are doing with their historical fiction, but paying the price for their bravery in real life. Elif Shafak faced persecution from the courts with her literary depiction of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, and now we have Sema Kaygusuz's book filled with "suskunluk," grief-filled silence wrought by survivor guilt from the 1938 Dersim Massacre.

Again we have another important title from Tilted Axis Press, fast becoming a favorite publisher for its books chosen for literary worth, not marketability. They translate writers into English, thus introducing thousands to hidden histories. And yet they ring of universal truth to anyone living in a democracy under fire, where an imagined unity is enforced at the price of silencing a plurality of voices.

We are introduced to the great Turkish festival known as Hidirellez, held mostly in honor of Hızır, he who has drunk the waters bestowing immortal life and travels the world, guiding Alexander the Great and Elijah, witnessing man's destruction of his fellows while others jump through flame as part of the great spring celebration.

"To tell a story is to fashion a shape out of time... this thing called legend isn't just the backbone of narrative keeping this community's spirit alive; it was his only solace in this infernal world, an inner shrine that allowed him to turn his back on the inhumanity of everything else."

This is a deeply moving and astonishingly beautiful book, which makes us reflect on the stories that we DON'T hear about on Tiktok or your favorite podcast. Kaygusuz makes us think past the temptation towards pettiness and shallow material obsession on mainstream media, towards the voices of people in the margins. Whose stories aren't we hearing about, and who would have it so? We must remind each other to keep asking, and keep listening.


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Book Review: OF STRANGERS AND BEES by Hamid Ismailov

Of Strangers and Bees by Hamid Ismailov
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Now I understand something: all my searching -- in truth, it had all been a search for myself, for how I belong to something more important than the small, idle details of everyday events in this inhospitable world. We find ourselves only when we lose ourselves in the Other."

What do two men -- one an Uzbek author in the 1990s, and the other the great medieval polymath, Ibn Sina ("Avicenna") -- and a bee have in common?

They all hold within poison and honey, with the power to either kill or bring life. It now boils down to individual choice: which essence will we choose to spread around us?

This is my third title from Tilted Axis Press, and they're always, always INTERESTING reads! This was my first Ismailov, and it's a refreshing change from the usual Western literary fiction. For one thing, the dates are not in common era ("in the year of our Lord" etcetera), but rather in the year of the hijra. It's a wonderful thing, to be reminded that a big part of the world measures time differently, with a different historical epicenter than what a Westernized education has.

Three very different main characters make for three different stories told in an interwoven style, but done in such a light manner that it was easy going, and not at all mentally taxing, despite the serious themes dealing with religion, philosophy, and of course, the existential. There are threads that bind us all together, man and bee, Christian and Muslim, with God / Allah and our brothers and sisters in Creation. And while Ismailov writes of the pain of an exiled author (his work is banned in his home country and so he has stayed away for years, bemoaning decades of separation from family and his home library in interviews), this particular book is more hopeful than sad. When one sees one's life as important as that of one busy bee in a hive, dancing as dervishes do to tune themselves with the Divine harmony of the cosmos, it is both a relief and a reminder. For if God cares so for each bird and bee, then there is hope yet for egotistic me.





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Book Review: BLACK BOX by Shiori Ito

Black Box by Shiori Itō


I can't imagine anyone enjoying this read. But that's not why this was written, nor why it is imperative that each woman does. Forgive my unusual reticence regarding this particular book, as it brings up memories it took years to get over.

#metoo in Japan has become #wetoo , and while the author is braver and luckier than many, this book also made me realize how much more difficult it is, instead of easier, to determine fact from spin, innocence from guilt. There are so many cultural and specific circumstances, that each case MUST be taken solely on its own merits.

It speaks of the timeliness of the story that headlines still appear connected with this case, dating from yesterday.

For our October book club sessions, we were told to pick a book about horror. And this shall be mine. Shiori Ito is all of us.

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Book Review: BUTCHER'S CROSSING by John Williams

Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Young people... you always think there's something to find out. Well, there's nothing... Then you know you could of had the world, because you're the only one that knows the secret; only then it's too late. You're too old."

Sometimes social media can ruin the experience of a good novel. Had I not seen fellow book lovers rave about "the best Western ever" on Bookstagram, I daresay I would have enjoyed the experience of BUTCHER'S CROSSING more, without the weight of all these raised expectations.

(And I don't mean to offend, but I think if we're ranking Westerns, John Williams' fellow Texan, Larry McMurtry, and his epic LONESOME DOVE surely takes first prize.)

Don't get me wrong. BUTCHER'S CROSSING is good! How can it not be?! It's by John Williams, who is incapable of writing anything bad! His STONER was life-changing, his AUGUSTUS something I need to re-read because I don't think I was mature enough for it the first time round.

The appeal of Williams is how he seems to be a different author in each novel. He is not bound by genre, because he merely uses the expected trappings to set forth his own very American, very 20th century world view: a unique blend of anti-romantic, no-BS, no-time-to-waste style all his own.

The world is crap, we can imagine Williams saying, and sometimes we're dealt a crappy hand in Life. But a man's gotta have faith in something, and it's better to do SOMETHING than whine and do nothing. In an interview, Williams said "You've got to keep the faith. The important thing is to keep the tradition going, because the tradition is civilization." And while he may have been referring to STONER in this particular interview, I think this theme is very present in BUTCHER'S CROSSING as well.

How, in the face of the wild West and the utter cruelty of Nature, is a man meant to hold on to civilized values?

We have our protagonist, a civilized Harvard college drop out, who could not find meaning in books and cities and looked for it by going West, where he's roped into a dangerous dream: looking for an elusive herd of buffalo, to make a quick fortune.

Part adventure story, part parable about the dangers of capitalist greed, BUTCHER'S CROSSING is a quick read but will last long in memory. Stripped of social status markers, alone in the wild, would we move through the world as confidently? Do we even dare venture out of the comforts of our familiar haunts? Williams' novel shows the pain and the danger, but also a different kind of reward that money can never buy.

I just found out that the book was turned into a movie by Nicolas Cage last month, and now I'm excited to see if the film lives up to the book!

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Book Review: THE WORLD AS I FOUND IT by Bruce Duffy

The World as I Found It by Bruce Duffy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world," famously said the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein, he who studied language and misunderstanding after growing up in pre World War II Austria. If so, then author Bruce Duffy has created a universe unto itself, which every book is in some small way, but in THIS book is richly, abundantly true, with a depth requiring the James Webb Space Telescope to illuminate.

I'm shocked at how this book isn't more famous! There's barely anything about it on social media! Which is a crying shame, for in terms of craftsmanship, it is almost perfect! The language intelligently assured, the phrasing rhythmic and beautiful.. you wouldn't believe it was a first novel! In terms of plot, it was shockingly brave for its day: a reimagining of the lives and loves of three philosophers (Ludwig Wittgenstein, G.E. Moore, and Bertrand Russell) living through a shockingly uncivilized world war and its aftermath. If one questions EVERYTHING, is a happy life possible?

Every teacher knows about the limits of multiple choice exams. The more intelligent students are the ones in danger of overthinking. Sometimes, one needs to think "less intelligently," in order to ace lower order thinking tests.

And so it is with philosophers, Duffy writes... those suffering geniuses who envy us mortals capable of "eating and inhaling life like fire, not forever analyzing it like a gas."

The bulk of the novel centers around tormented Wittgenstein, unhappy son of a wealthy-beyond-imagining family, who gave it all up to live in solitude and teach, in pursuit of an ethical perfection no human is capable of attaining.

"Ethics could not be taught or expressed; it could only be shown through an exemplary life. And the whole point of his life and work was moral - otherwise what was the point of living?"

Being a teacher, the parts I appreciated the most were the portions about Beacon Hill, the school Russell put up, as well as the parts set in Trattenbach, where Wittgenstein sought to teach the most unfortunate. The success and failures of every teacher were also met by these two philosophers, and it gave me much to reflect on.

Teaching, ultimately, is the craft of passing on through words entire images and processes. It is demonstrating another way to be. It is the most magical, the most important thing in the world. The book will mean many things to different people, but for this teacher, it seemed to say: See how these souls sought to change the world for the better. See how they sought to reconcile the joys of private life and the pains of public conflict, of mundane petty daily trafficking, by actively forming the future through teaching. And I gratefully found it most encouraging, as well as edifying.

"Philosophy... was traditionally a case of weighing theft - the theft of assumptions and givens - over honest toil."

This was by no means an easy read, and the two weeks it took to get through it will stand out for me as a tumultuous period, both personally and professionally. But it is a book that leaves one feeling richer for having been steeped in the wealth of its many ideas, not always upheld by these same philosopher-men with human weaknesses, but held as a standard for all to strive for.

If I've learned anything from this book, it is that language fails, inevitably. So don't take this review as an accurate measure of the book! Go read it!

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Book Review: LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

McMurtry begins his novel with a quote from T.K. Whipple: "Our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream."

The difference between life and dreams. McMurtry draws upon generations of his family history and Texas legends to weave a tale that rings true, winning it the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 1986.

Before we go on, I need you to Google the map of the USA and look at how far apart Texas and Montana are. Now think about driving a huge herd of cattle (and horses! and pigs!) all that incredible distance, in a pivotal moment in history: post-Civil War, pre-strip mall, the transition from a Wild West to a kinder, more peaceful one.

"Uva uvam vivendo varia fit" ("A grape becomes mottled by being a grape," a round-about way to say that character is destiny) is a Latin phrase that hangs on the sign by Lonesome Dove, the ranch in the middle of nowhere where there is so much to do but so little evidence of it being done.

LONESOME DOVE is unlike any book I've ever read. If this is the best of Western literature, then I must warn you readers that you're in for a gritty, tough time. So much sorrow lies between the pages, interspersed with moments of incredible humor. The title isn't just the name of a ranch where two retired Texas Rangers are killing time. It speaks of the human condition: of how one can be lonely even when surrounded by all kinds of folk; the kind of inner isolation that drives some to despair, others to heroism. The kind that drives the White Man across the country, in the vain hope that he will find peace over the next mountain pass, across that next river. Only to find in the end how futile it all is, as he leads his loyal companions to death.

This is a book for more mature readers, for its main protagonists are "old" men past their prime. Media has a way of being unkind to those who have looked better, been stronger. But readers will never forget Gus and Call, who personify the word "legend." McMurtry writes very simply but has the gift of making each person in the huge cast of characters breathe and live, each hill and vale drawn in technicolor, it comes as a shock to me when I have to put the book down to take care of Real Life Matters! Rare is the book that is capable of this degree of mental transportation! McMurtry made me care about ornery cowboys, impatient youths, down-on-their-luck whores, all drawn vividly and without judgment. There is evil, too, but McMurtry shows how everyone is capable of evil, if they're not careful. Woe to them who do, because Gus and Call (and the hanging tree) will come for you.

My golly but I didn't expect to feel so many feelings for a Western! It brought me to tears, not once but many times, and made me stay up late nights to finish "one more chapter."

And now it is done. And how I wish my Pa were alive so we could discuss this book, and watch the series inspired by it.

Folks, the hype is real! LONESOME DOVE is well worth the read, and your time (it's rather thick!).

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Book Review: FEMINA - A NEW HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES, THROUGH THE WOMEN WRITTEN OUT OF IT by Janina Ramírez

Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramírez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Controlling access to the past controls populations in the present, and determining who writes history can affect thought and behavior."

Yesterday, a friend shared a travel photo that sent chills up and down my spine: She was up close with the Bebelplatz plaque in Berlin, commemorating the Nazi burning of books, some years before they starting burning bodies of those they murdered in concentration camps.

It had a quote from Heinrich Heine: "That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also."

What easier way to change history than by erasing it through fire?

But Janina Ramirez's book title features another way: crossing them out or erasing them, with the remark "femina" written by a masculine hand on the margin. This outrage was done some centuries later, with misogynistic notions not reflective of the times these remarkable women lived in... Wiping out a fellow human's lifetime of work in the process.

Ramirez tells the stories of those who were lucky enough, and important enough, to escape this selective re-telling. This is "herstory" through and through, and it's rather remarkable to read a popular history book fresh off the press, to see dates as recent as 2021 already in the books: a timely reminder that we are living history even now.

Ramirez is a medievalist, and she tells stories from this incredible period, subverting this reader's mistaken notions that all women were oppressed (some were, but a lot weren't) during these dark ages. I was delighted to see Hildegard of Bingen included, as she was my chosen confirmation saint, as well as Jadwiga of Poland, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe, among other lesser known but no less incredible women! They wielded worldly power, both political and material, as well as social influence. Ramirez also pointed out how a lot of the suffragists were either medievalists themselves or drew heavy inspiration from the Middle Ages.

This book was meant for popular reading, with simple and concise language. Don't be put off by the length, because around 1/4 of the book is made up of endnotes and a bibliography. Ramirez meant this book to be a mere introduction, and she exhorts the reader at the end:

"Scrutinize how you have been taught, ask questions about what stories you're not hearing," for "it is our responsibility to think about how we want it (history) recorded and remembered."

We all have stories. Who are we allowing to tell ours?

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Book Review: THE NETANYAHUS by Joshua Cohen

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've always had a special fondness for books on teachers or about teaching. Some of my all time faves include campus novels like Wallace Stegner's CROSSING TO SAFETY and John Williams' STONER. I thought this would be similar... BUT NO! It's very much a contemporary novel (published last year and winning the Pulitzer while at it), reflecting 2021's concerns: a divided world increasingly obsessing over racial divides and a capitalist generation growing up core-less.

"I am interested in the antagonisms," says visiting professor Dr. Ben-Zion Netanyahu (father of the Israeli former prime minister, Benjamin). Cohen took a true anecdote shared with him by THE Harold Bloom and wrote a 239 page book that managed to cover so much in a few pages, I'm stunned by the breadth of it!

From a plot perspective, it's about a pulpit-thumping Zionist coming to lecture and basically audition for a permanent teaching job in an American university in the '60's, bringing with him his wife and three sons (two of whom are destined for greatness), and causing much controversy and scandal in a few days. So much crap went down, it's downright crazy!

But Cohen demonstrates his Pulitzer-prize winning prowess by infusing his simple plot with so much family drama, bits and pieces of academic writing, and yes, hilarious biting observations on the question of identity, of generation gaps between hardworking fathers scorned by their entitled, privileged sons, of the antagonism between a secular and religious education, and of the ideology of hatred that results in a future world leader normalizing the persecution of people of a different faith along the Gaza Strip.

It's about Jews, yes, but can also be read as a commentary on how history is taught and disseminated, and politicized by those who understand that he who revises the past is also reshaping a country's future.

Cohen cuts deep. He describes students as "so tolerant of others' psychosocial fragilities and resentments as to become intolerable themselves, junior Torquemadas, sophomoric Savonarolas, finding fault with nearly every remark, finding bigotry and prejudice everywhere."

Cohen says their boredom is borne from "a raging resentment that nothing she can find to do in her life holds any meaning... and every challenge is small, compared to challenges such as how to make a new people in a new land forge a living history." The problem lies in a life "rich in possessions but poor in spirit, petty and forgettable..."

This was the most succinct answer to the question of why so many Filipinos/immigrants supported Trump's politics: "The transmogrification of ancient feuds remains the primary process by which immigrant nativize... to renew a conflict is to acculturate."

There's something special about reading this book on Teachers' Day, and a day that work brought me to my alma mater. Even in pre-pandemic times, I'd be lucky if I got to visit once or twice a year. Each pilgrimage is always a special occasion, as these are moments for introspection while gazing at the Sunken Garden: how much have I changed in fourteen years? (Thankfully, not much internally, although my pants' waistline would disagree!)

Happy Teachers' Day to my fellow brothers-in-arms, and may we continue to fight ignorance in the Motherland, in all its forms!

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Book Review: THE ECHO MAKER by Richard Powers

I read parts of this book beneath the gentle shade of a tree, with sunlight winking above, and a gentle cow chewing cud one storey below. Our cafe was in the middle of a rice field, and it was the ideal place for a Richard Powers book. Written 12 years before THE OVERSTORY and 15 years before BEWILDERMENT, THE ECHO MAKER seemed to be an earlier echo of Powers' themes: how we are all connected, and how humans forget the threads that bind us to Nature at our peril.

Parts of this book were read during a long trip out of town, ironically so because it begins with a car accident. A young man, in the prime of health, is mowed down and suffers extensive brain damage in the horrific form of Capgras Syndrome. Unable to recognize those dearest to him, the young man's sister and friends do all they can to bring him back to "himself." And therein lies the problem. If selfhood is merely storytelling built up over a lifetime, what kinds of stories can reconstruct a man, instead of destroying him?

The novel is a mystery/drama with sustained nerve wracking tension, but slowly, over the course of 400 pages. This is Powers, writer extraordinaire, who manages to connect seemingly disparate elements, and it will take a re-read to fully appreciate how every little event is foreshadowing of some sort... echoes through time. Powers is powerful, this earlier work showing glimpses of the full bloom of his genius that emerged in his two more recent novels.

All the details of the human brain, its glory and its frailty, make one question "the solidity of the self." When neuroscience makes us question free will and self-hood, we come to realize that our hubris is just a defense mechanism against the reality of the puny human pitted against Nature.

How small we truly are.

I felt this instinctively, as I sat sipping lemonade, gazing at the distant mountains, its cloud-kissed peaks and below, the rice that gives life. How I wish I could go back there soon.