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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