The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman

Title: The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
Author:  Tom Rachman
Original Publication Date: 2014
Publisher: Sceptre Books
Pages: 374
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction












“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
―Gabriel García Márquez

And indeed life has been this constant making and remaking of who we are, it is, the uncompromising search of meaning and truth. We all go out in the world, frantically searching for something, something we may feel only in vague stirrings, and sometimes, in our definite inevitable folly, something we don't know of. Whether we seek something that exist or something we have subconsciously created out of a desperate need to define ourselves has never been the question, for the search itself has always been the answer, hasn't it? And we never really come out of it do we? Then in some seemingly random manner which has always been forthcoming, we stand in retrospection, an inquisitive outside observer of our very own lives.



[book:The Rise & Fall of Great Powers|19104786] tells us of Tooly Zylberberg’s cathartic odyssey, a journey that spanned decades and crossed continents, a journey that did not only defy time and space, but masterfully that too of the traditional linear narrative form. The story is sequentially divided into three periods – 1988, 1999, and 2011 – corresponding to pivotal moments in Tooly’s life, moments that would define, and haunt her. Hand in hand with Tooly’s sojourns is the milieu of the decade including the technological advancements, political demographics and prevailing family dynamics.

To employ words in this case would, however definitely lead to failure, for the reader must be left to his/her own devices. One must know Tooly in a personal manner and not some insufficient words fraught with verbosity. So go, and read!

“Consistency in character is a form of tragedy.”(330)

Arguably some of the best characters live in this exquisitely written piece. I won’t mind loosing valuable time over a cup of coffee with any of the personas Rachman has brought to life. Their philosophies, their choices from life decisions to their dictions had me enamored. These exceptionally captivating characters left me in a daze, for their story is not of the everyday kind and yet I found myself in a corner sufficiently drunk in empathy. Rachman created universal and unusually personal characters that have necessarily, at the same time, relegated readers as outside observers and yet made them part of the narrative itself, for sublimely, one will come to realize that Tooly’s search is existent in every reader's life.

I enjoyed the candid humor;

“You don’t like sweet-and-sour, do you?”
“No,” he confirmed. “I want food that can make up its mind.”(57)

the crisp philosophically-charged conversations;


“I hate trivial beings.”
“I hate them also. But be careful; it is trivial beings that run the world.”(254)


and most of all, the universal (well it should be) love for books.

“People kept their books, she thought, not because they were likely to read them again but because these objects contained the past-the texture of being oneself at a particular place, at a particular time, each volume a piece of one's intellect, whether the work itself had been loved or despised or had induced a snooze on page forty.”
(334)

The prose is unique, lyrical and beautiful and conclusively ties this story in impeccability. The tone is always warm and tender.

Those who find difficulty in novels written in a nontraditional form may easily find this book’s delivery as fragmented and disjointed. My prayers go to you for such stifling preference or inopportune incapacity. The structure itself reflects Tooly’s ordeal, and in many instances, ours. We are battered with inconsistencies and unending questions, white lies and lies that have become truths, truths that have been lost in obscurity. But as Tooly unravels the cryptic nature of her life, we are reminded that people whom we call family are not defined by pieces of paper or definitive blood relations, they are those who stay, long after we have left.

My copy was provided by Random House Publishing via Netgalley.

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

Title: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Author: Haruki Murakami
Original Publication Date: 1992
Pages: 190
Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Contemporary Fiction












In denying a foothold to any portentous propensity of being needlessly repetitive, but more so in the interest of brevity, I opted to start forthcoming reviews, of which there seem to be many as this Murakami fever I have uncannily contracted has sternly refused abatement, with the Murakami Bingo! Murakami may have a definitive 'murakami' style but it still operates within a framework with formulaic themes and recurring plot devices.



So here we go!
Mysterious Woman? Operative truth!
Unexpected Phone Call? Check!
Old Jazz Record? Check!
Urban Ennui? Check!
Running? Check!
Weird Sex? Check!

So the Murakami in [South of the Border, West of the Sun is more of the Murakami of Norwegian Wood than his surrealist magical-realism books like Kafka on the Shore and Dance Dance Dance. It is however the usual Murakami of losing and longing, of searching and failing. This piece puts us in Hajime's shoes from his childhood to his middle years. To put it bluntly, this is a story of mid-life crises and marital infidelities. Murakami has written a real universal character that we occasionally find ourselves communing with in more ways than we personally acknowledge. We all go out in the world, frantically searching for something, something we only feel in vague stirrings, and sometimes, in our definite inevitable folly, something we don't know of. Whether we seek something that exist or something we have subconsciously created out of a desperate need to define ourselves has never been the question, for the search itself has always been the answer, hasn't it? That is why, strangely enough, even though I have yet to attain numerically sound midlife crises, get married and have children, I found myself sympathizing if not empathizing with Hajime.

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.” (Ernest Hemingway)

The good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was,  all belonged to me, all became mine. Thank you, Murakami, for yet another wonderful sojourn!




I have reviewed other books by Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance (3 Stars)
Kafka on the Shore (4 Stars)
Norwegian Wood (2 Stars)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle(2 Stars)

This review, along with my other reviews, has been cross-posted at imbookedindefinitely

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Title: The History of Love
Author: Nicole Krauss
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Original Publication Date: April 1, 2005
Pages: 260

This is now one of the greatest novels I have read.

I would have settled with that, except that the History of Love is just too pleasing, that my terseness was rather forcibly rooted out by the book. I seldom review (if one could call them that) books that I rate with 4 to 5 stars.

I remember reading once, where I did I have long forgotten, a witty reason that justifies speechlessness. I have once tried to verify this and failed to substantiate the claim (perhaps I looked at the wrong place), though I have held on to it because of its appeal and the propensity for people to believe it, much like common myths we choose to believe in (like how taking vitamin c supposedly cures common colds).

I'm telling you this because I was literary left speechless, reeling, contemplating and pondering numerous times in the book. The fact that I am writing to you now tells you of the triumph this book has precipitated upon my centuries evolved amigdula. What it doesn't tell you however is how it won that battle.

Everything about this book is pleasing from the typesetting, the form, the plot, the characters, the message.

I mean how could have Krauss presented such depressing lives in a riveting manner? She has presented the book in such a way that I have felt that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And that kept me going.

I think the message that the book wanted to impart, or what at least it was able to impart to me in this convoluted setting is that moving on and letting go cannot be done (or is next to impossible) in solitude, that we can only move on with the help of somebody else, whether that be another love interest, a friend, or most especially, a family member. It was a simple message carried out in a convoluted manner perhaps the aspect that could have founded of diminished the beauty of this book.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Somehow a very predictable plot. When I say this what I mean is that Norwegian Wood is discernably portraying Japanese culture, impeccably. I'm struggling to grasp the novel theme inside this work that makes Murakami so celebrated, and distinct as claimed – a struggle in vain (Perhaps there is none, and my inherent failure to connect with Murukami's elegiac writing is barred by my preferences. One thing that have always remained in earnest interest is that misery does love company and perhaps a reason why melacholic writings proliferate under this arrangement. A depressed book for a depressed world). Even Murakami is baffled at the popularity of this work. Until then I'm inclined to agree that Murukami is really not worth a Nobel after all.

Now, off to his other works which I hear treat suicides more thoughtfully, or perhaps nothing else beats a talking cat.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Redeeming. The innumerable opinions and notes on this work do not give justice to the masterpiece that it is. Now this is distinctively Murukami, epic, superb, astounding, is what I would have said, but alas, as clichés are, the book is boring.

The surreality the readers love about this book (and of Murakami) is a trap. The story carries an atmosphere where anything can happen, which antithetically results in nothing happening. That is only the tip of the iceberg though (a cliché of which I'd say, Murakami did nothing to avoid employing). What bugs (cliché) me however is that Murakami knowingly wrote a 600-paged novel tackling an epic story only to leave out things unexplained, unsubstantiated and unanswered.

Surreal. Defined by Merriam-Webster as:

1. marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream; also: unbelievable, fantastic

Under the definition Murakami hits the spot (cliché). The book was irrational and dream like. In some instances (cliché) the prose is simply too verbose it was practically begging for brevity to make some sense, but not even the kind that would give you a minuscule fragmented understanding of the story. Not to mention it was repetitious (perhaps the fault lies in the translation of the material? perhaps this too is a compliment).

Someone on this site said that the book is a flawed masterpiece. I interject, out of sheer audacity more than the cheated feeling of reading a 600-paged novel absolutely arriving nowhere, that technically a masterpiece is something done with extraordinary skill and a flaw is an imperfection or weakness. This is what is now either a masterpiece or a flawed work of art. Either way, I give up on Murakami.

To his credit I enjoyed a subplot (on the WWII) better than anything contained in the book. But alas, even that was lost and forgotten.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

I get the fact that Junot Diaz is a pioneering author when it comes to writing the experience of Dominican immigrants approximating the American dream. I also get that the gritty writing, the occasional offensive Spanish references, and the objectively sexual portrayal is his trademark. What I don't get however is what this book is all about. One doesn't need to be a literary pundit to know that Diaz is telling us that CHEATING is how you lose her and Diaz presents this to the readers by writing every male character in the books as a cheating fornicating bastard. So yeah, definitely, this is how you lose her, sadly, this was how you lost me too. But I guess there must be something profound here, meriting the adulation this book has garnered, so please do tell, that this book has a message aside from that one redundant thing that says, Cheating fucks you up. Genius!