Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison

Title: Travel Light
Author: Naomi Mitchison
Orignal Publication Date: 1952
Publisher: --
Pages: 157
Genre/s: Fantasy, Children's Literature











Travel light my child, as the Wanderer travels light, and his love will be with you."(57)


Travel Light

Travel Light tells the story of Halla, a girl born to a King, who will also take the very same gift that was given, for he casts her out into the wilds before any words could be spoken. She is nursed by bears and raised by dragons. But the time of dragons has come to past and magic is waning, our dear Halla is destined to make a choice. Who will she be? Halla Bearsbairn? Halla Heroesbane? or Halla Godsgift?

But this is not what Travel Light is simply all about.

“Perhaps she did not die,” said Halla, “perhaps her nurse turned into a bear and carried her away into the forest. Perhaps she was brought up by bears and dragons. Perhaps it was better for her in the end than being a king’s child.”

“That was never the story,” said Modolf.

“Forget the story,” said Halla.
(139)

And indeed it was never the story, just as Travel Light is not a simple children's book. It is about 'traveling light' in a muddled and muddied world, defining your own destiny and in the process finding yourself.

Indeed the story moves with Halla's narrative. The episodic story moves between and beyond conventions and structures of the literary landscape. It seemingly starts out as a didactic fable with Halla’s bearish infancy. In this episode Mitchison grounded the work to Nordic Mythos with the occasional appearances of Valkyries and passing mentions of other Nordic legends. But this didactic fable violently veers off to a dragonish fire-proof adolescence, and with it, the very nature of the narrative. Aside from an amusing discussion of dragons’ distinctive hoarding nature, Mitchison delves into human nature and philosophy and moves from Scandinavian landscape of Paganism to the heart of Constantinople and of Christianity. It is important to note that the Nordic Mythos facet of the tale is never lost as the Valkyrie seems to keep appearing intermittently. As the tale which did not provide a clear span and flow of time (for it would seem that a hundred, thousand years even, have come to past) comes to a close, Halla is seen as a mythic figure herself and the nature of the narrative ends where it starts, Nordic mythology.

As one can see, so much is in work here. Mitchison talks about human nature, beliefs systems and religion, but never, as I felt, did she shove it up to me. I felt that she kept true to the one thing she wanted to impart, ‘Travel Light’ and do so by being good to all. It has no form and defies the traditional linear progressions but I still enjoyed its exceptional and unprecedented transition from a fable-like story to a socio-political examination of human belief and dynamics, again in a sense, by ‘travelling light’, by simplifying matters and driving at its core.

I highly recommend this book, and do so while weeping that it suffers in relative obscurity considering how good it is. Perhaps because it was publish in the era of Tolkien and Lewis? The shadows they have cast have inadvertently and yet effectively laid down a shroud of obscurity over works like this, which is interesting in light of Mitchison’s relation to Tolkien. She was a dear friend to Tolkien, was among the first to read the unpublished The Lord of the Rings, and when the said book suffered from poor reception compared to the then anticipated sale, Mitchison was asked to do blurbs for its marketing promotions.

Naomi Mitchison

Mitchison must have been an exciting and principled individual too! She traveled the world engaging in social activism mostly fighting for Indigenous Communities, to which end, she was adopted as adviser and mother of the Bakgatla Tribe in Botswana. She died in 1999 at the age of 101, if anything; Mitchison herself indeed, ‘traveled light’.

Travel light!

You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense by Charles Bukowski

Title: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
Author: Charles Bukowski
Original Publication Date: September 1, 1986
Publisher: Black Sparrow Press
Pages: 320
Genre/s: Poetry

Charles Bukowski

While the Beat Generation was making its headway in literature with the likes of On the Road and Howl, Bukowski was, in most instances, dead drunk. In the post-World War II lit movement where the Beat Generation found its threshold, Bukowski was in engaged in what was to be a ten-year alcohol induced stupor predicated on his failure to  initially break in the literary world. He actually wrote in a time after the Beat Generation, and this perhaps have brought contentions of whether he is actually a Beatnik himself. If the Beat Generation talks about bohemian hedonism advancing a firm denial of conformity through experimentation with drugs, repudiation of social constructs of gender and sexuality, negation of societal materialism, and most importantly, the depiction of human condition and emotion in its truest and most explicit state, then, this collection pretty much speaks for itself and saying that he really is part of the generation is not an unfounded conclusion.

In this collection, one will see that Bukowski is an honest man, a brutally honest man, whether that honesty is anchored on his drunkenness is something I have yet to read on. The topics are varied, from protitutes, antagonistic views on other writers, drinking, horse racing, hurling invectives, daily life observations, his cats, loneliness, and did I mention drinking?


beasts bounding through time

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by the Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward
us
impossibly.

As the title would suggest, loneliness abound the poems, but underneath it, just beyond the listless landscape that define most of our lives, lives a triumphant man who seem to have come into terms with loneliness itself not by finding meaning in others but by remaining firm and steadfast, unyielding, choosing to live in loneliness itself.


how is your heart?

...what  matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

Indeed Bukowski, indeed!

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.

The Inner Beauty by Maurice Maeterlinck

Title: The Inner Beauty
Author:  Maurice Maeterlinck
Original Publication Date: 1910
Pages: 39
Genre/s: Classics, Philosophy














Nothing in the whole world is so athirst for beauty as the soul, nor is there anything to which beauty clings so readily. (5)

This has been a particularly hard piece to read, and by a necessary consequence, to write a review of. Maurice Maeterlicnk is, before anything else, a Nobel laureate (1911) who earned the coveted award for his plays which form a substantial part of the Symbolism Movement. Adherents believed that absolute truths could only be described indirectly, which necessitates a style of writing punctuated by metaphorical and suggestive prose. This is now our caveat by which we seek to assuage any difficulty in tackling this work.

The work is divided in three parts, Inner Beauty, Invisible Goodness, and Silence. This is a spiritual and ruminative work in all its aspects.

"Beauty is the only language of our soul: none other is known to it."(10)

Beauty is of course acts that we could generally and objectively categorize as good in man. Maeterlinck states that every man, even the unhappiest and the most destitute have at the depths of their being, this beauty that he speaks of. This necessarily lays down the premise that men by nature are good, or, in Maeterlinck's words, are naturally beautiful beings, who need only to acquire the habit of dipping into that nature, into that soul, and the greatest act by which we enliven this beauty is by loving.

Is it not in love that are found the purest elements of beauty that we can offer to the soul?(19)

To him, to love means losing every bit of 'ugliness' in our souls. It is the state by which we come closest to God. But to be good, to be able to love with real ardent affection, we must first go through suffering, a harrowing by which we are molded to become better and end up in tune with our soul, our inner beauty. "Grief is love's first food, and every love that has not been fed on a little pure suffering must die like the babe that one had tried to nourish on the nourishment of a man." (20)

And there would always remain between us truth which had not spoken, which we had not even thought of speaking... and only in silence could we perceive it.

And he counsels the reader to search for this intermittent pockets of silences in life which holds the 'real' secrets and calls them 'secret silences'.

One has to forgive my limited and modest uptake of Maeterlinck's philosophy as contained in this work. Admittedly, this is only one way to look and deconstruct this highly suggestive and metaphorical work. It bears mentioning that nowhere was beauty explicitly defined within the work except from derivable contextual references, and even then it was questionable and equivocal. The work, however clearly references  to spirituality and to God, to a human soul, but not religion. The chapter on Invisible Goodness clearly refers back to the Soul and its nature of goodness and nobility. The silence he refers to is also curious as he does not clarify as to whether he refers to spiritual silences or a physical world of a noiseless condition. Indeed he says that:

There is no silence more docile than the silence of love, and indeed it is the only one that we may claim for ourselves alone. The other great silences, those of death, grief or destiny, do not belong to us. They come towards their own hour, following in the track of events, and those whom they do not meet need not reproach themselves. But we can all go forth and meet the silence of love.

But then again he writes,

If I tell someone that I love him - as I may have told a hundred others - my words will convey nothing to him, but the silence that will ensue will make it clear.





This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

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

Memoirs by Pablo Neruda

Title: Memoirs
Author: Pablo Neruda
Original Publication Date: 1974
Pages: 378
Genre/s: Non-Fiction, Memoirs













"Perhaps I didn't live just in myself, perhaps I lived the lives of others…My life is a life put together from all those lives: the lives of the poet." (1)


Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda,  born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was a Nobel Prize for Literature laureate (1971), a poet whose verses breathe life themselves, whose life, was poetry itself.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez fearlessly called him the  "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language." Che Guevara in his diaries revered Neruda as his favorite writer, and carried only two books with him till his death, one of which was Neruda’s Cantos General (the reason of which will be readily apparent later on). He was not just a poet; he was THE poet of the people, of the oppressed, the unheard, and the forgotten.

Primera Vida: A Child of the Forest "Perhaps love and nature were, very early on, the source of my poems." (19)


Temuco Chile, who wouldn't fall in love with that?

Neruda aptly starts his Memoirs by writing where it all began, in the then frontier lands of Temuco, Chile, emblazoned by nature’s ardor.   Nature made me euphoric (7), Neruda writes and indeed, nature did become an indispensable aspect throughout his poems as the reader would conspicuously experience throughout his works.  He characterized his childhood with modesty and austerity when referring to their economic and fiscal means, and yet one cannot help but feel that he was nothing but rich beyond measure as he reminisced his childhood with picturesque landscapes, forest adventures, and long walks defined by an indescribable affinity with nature.   I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world (7).  And sing he did.

Segunda Vida: A Barred Poet, Militant Student, and Gabriela Mistral’s Touch.

 
A later photo showing Neruda with Mistral, they were both diplomats

As expected, Neruda’s father did not welcome the fact that his son wanted to become a poet amidst their challenging living conditions. The encouragement he failed to find in his father, Neruda found abounding with Gabriela Mistral(later to be a fellow Nobel Laureate (1945)), who introduced him to Russian classics. Neruda was undaunted, he continued to take poetry as a profession and went to a university at Santiago, Chile. While in the university he got acquainted with hunger and intermittent homelessness, his poems were all that kept him defiantly warm and firm.

Tercera Vida: A Diplomatic Affair"I learned what true loneliness was, in those days and years” (49).


Neruda visits the USSR

Neruda opted to accept an appointment as a consul after leaving the university and was first assigned in Rangoon, that further lead him to Colombo, Batavia, Singapore, Paris, and Mexico to name a few, the memoirs would suggest that Neruda welcomed the appointment, but other accounts tells that it was dire financial need that compelled him to accept the said appointment.  Whichever the case was, his consulship had a very profound effect on him, meeting a vast number of notable personas, chief of this was Loneliness. Solitude, in this case, was not a formula for building up a writing mood but something as hard as a prison wall; you could smash your head against the wall and nobody came, no matter how you screamed or wept. (92)

Unlike most poets, loneliness was a revolting concept in literary endeavors to someone like Neruda who celebrated love and life. And to combat this loneliness he wrote, “I went so deep into the soul and the life of the people" …i fell and lost my heart to a native girl (90). He sought to immerse himself with the land and the people wherever he was based, this aside from meeting personalities like Nehru, Miguel Asturias (awarded the Nobel in 1967), Picasso, Joliot-Curie, Federico Lorca, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (later on). "The poet cannot be afraid of the people. Life seemed to be handing me a warning and teaching me a lesson I would never forget: the lesson of hidden honor, of fraternity we know nothing about, of beauty that blossoms in the dark."(89) Indeed this philosophy modeled by this consulship will lead him to directly take part in defending the Spanish Republic through propagandas and more essentially, his poems (an aspect which will be fully utilized in Chile’s very own struggles).

Cuarta Vida:  The People’s Poet, A Senator, and a Communist on the Run "…politics became part of my poetry and my life. In my poems I could not shut the door to the street, just as I could not shut the door to love, life, joy, or sadness in my young poet's heart."(55)


Neruda embracing Allende, also from the Left Wing, whom he supported for the Presidency

With his direct participation in the Spanish Civil war, he was removed from his post and returned to Chile. He entered the political scene and was elected a Senator in 1945, and later officially joined the Chilean Communist Party. The President elect of the same term hailed from the same Communist party but turned on against the Party and he banned the PArty altogether in 1948, with Neruda being removed in office, he surreptitiously escaped Chile and lived in exile for the next three years. Throughout those unwelcoming times, Neruda’s greatest weapon was his poems. “At hundreds of rallies, in places remote from one another, I heard the same request: to read my poems. They were often asked for by title.” (170)

His ardent feeling towards the people and his poetry at this point cannot be denied, and it was riveting.

“I have lived for my poetry and my poetry has nourished everything I have striven for. And if I have received many awards, awards fleeting as butterflies, fragile as pollen, I have attained a greater prize, one that some people may deride but not many can attain… That is my reward, not the books and the poems that have been translated, or the books written to explicate or to dissect my words. My reward is the momentous occasion when, from the depths of the Lora coal mine, a man came up out of the tunnel into the full sunlight on the fiery nitrate field, as if rising out of hell, his face disfigured by his terrible work, his eyes inflamed by the dust, and stretching his rough hand out to me, a hand whose calluses and lines trace the map of the pampas, he said to me, his eyes shining: "I have known you for a long time, my brother." That is the laurel crown for my poetry, that opening in the bleak pampa from which a worker emerges who has been told often by the wind and the night and the stars of Chile: "You're not alone; there's a poet whose thoughts are with you in your suffering." (179)

Neruda returned to Chile in the next presidential elections, abandoning his nomination to run for the Presidency and instead supported Allende’s run, who will later win.

Quinta Vida: A Lover’s Life "Perhaps love and nature were, very early on, the source of my poems." (19)


Neruda with Mathilde

Love completes the vital elements that comprise Neruda’s impeccably conceived poems. And of course, to write poetry as good as he did, inspiration must have come by the lot. Neruda had the penchant for overlapping love affairs characterized by sudden departures and intermittent unconventional sexual encounters. an encounter even, In my modest opinion, clearly bordered rape by any standards already. The incident concerned a househelp of the lowest caste. Neruda wrote, “One morning, I decided to go all the way. I got a strong grip on her wrist and stared into her eyes. There was no language I could talk with her. Unsmiling, she let herself be led away and was soon naked in my bed. Her waist, so very slim, her full hips, the brimming cups of her breasts made her like one of the thou¬sand-year-old sculptures from the south of India. It was the com¬ing together of a man and a statue. She kept her eyes wide open all the while, completely unresponsive. She was right to despise me. The experience was never repeated. (99) Neruda had three wives and each have been the subject of a set or collection of poems. Matilde Urrutia, however was the inspiration for the 100 Love Sonnets.

--
Neruda died twelve days after Allende was killed (1973) by Pinochet’s attack of the presidential palace. As it stands, Neruda’s cause of death was by prostate cancer, although later claims emerged that he was poisoned for his Pro-Allende stances enough to call for an exhumation of the body, the same act is claimed to have been ordered by the Pinochet Regime. The body was exhumed in 2013 (the Neruda Foundation fought against exhuming the body) and test results revealed in November 2013 negated any existence of chemical compounds. The great poet succumbed to cancer.
____________________________________

Originally entitled  I Confess I Have Lived, Memoirs was first published in 1974, under the editorial ambit of Mathilde Urrutia. Memoirs, is essentially a poem in prose by the manner Neruda wrote this. His lyrical style was unrelenting. Take for example this excerpt on one instance when an earthquake hit,

“…Sometimes it all begins with a vague stirring, and those who are sleeping wake up. Sleeping fitfully, the soul reaches down to pro¬found roots, to their very depth under the earth. It has always wanted to know it. And knows it now. And then, during the great tremor, there is nowhere to run, because the gods have gone away, the vainglorious churches have been ground up into heaps of rubble.(59)”

Or this reaction upon seeing the sea the first time,

“The first time I stood before the sea, I was overwhelmed. The great ocean unleashed its fury there between two big hills, Huilque and Maule. It wasn't just the immense snow-crested swells, rising many meters above our heads, but the loud pounding of a gigantic heart, the heartbeat of the universe.(25)”

This is the general tone by which Memoirs was written so those who relish and live by Neruda’s verses are never truly alienated in this prosaic work.

The entries intermittently jump through pivotal years, but not one chapter failed to contain people and individuals that helped, changed and loved Neruda however monumental or minuscule that was, and so as it goes, he mentions unpublished poets, forgotten names and acquaintances to people who rocked the very foundations of life. Humorous instances are also contained in this work, how he reacted to the alleged awarding of the Nobel, to his pet mongoose, to a hysterically paranoid woman, and the reason why he choose the pen name Neruda. Along with this, Neruda nonchalantly tells of his sexual encounters, of which, of course, there were numerous. If you opened the spoiler above, you will understand my reservation to this seminal Author exist, perhaps, in that instance only.

After reading his Memoirs, what came across is that Neruda is a poet through and through. It’s interesting to read that whatever he was subjected to, in whatever kind of instance or predicament he found himself in, the poet never left. He tells us of the various literary stimuli that lead to a specific work. To Neruda, his poems were not only both his sword and shield, it too was his soul.

“The poet who is not a realist is dead. And the poet who is only a realist is also dead. The poet who is only irrational will only be understood by himself and his beloved, and this is very sad. The poet who is all reason will even be understood by jackasses, and this is also terribly sad. There are no hard and fast rules, there are no ingredients prescribed by God or the Devil, but these two very important gentlemen wage a steady battle in the realm of poetry, and in this battle first one wins and then the other, but poetry itself cannot be defeated.(265)”

_______________________
*Neruda is said to have written only in green ink, probably a color closest to the forest, other yet say that this was his personal symbol for desire and hope





I have reviewed other works by Pablo Neruda:
The Book of Questions (4 Stars)
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (3 Stars)

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Title: Kafka on the Shore
Author: Haruki Murakami
Original Publication Date: 467
Pages: 2002
Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism













Crazy.

Legit crazy.

But compelling riveting crazy.

I guess it is only with Murakami that the reader will experience a philosophically charge Hegel quoting prostitute, a spectral discount-giving pimp, pragmatic talking cats, a retelling of the oedipal Greek tragedy through a schizophrenic reincarnated personality, an unfathomable leech-filled-rain commanding simpleton, all bizarrely intended to constitute an introspective metaphorically peppered coming of age story, keeping you at a sublime reverie the entire time, if not devouring its pages, the voracity of which the world has never seen.

Everything I liked about this books concerns the style.

He doesn't provide much detail but gives you irrefragable operative truths in his written work, the rational closure-seeking mind may not find a welcome place here.

The prose is lyrical and the transitions are fluid. But for all its beauty and fluidity, the reader does not know where he is being drawn, you have faint gleamings of the story but that is all you are afforded.

The other aspect I loved was the narration. The omniscient narrator suddenly changes tone by directly addressing the reader.

"...you say, i forgive you. And audibly, the frozen part of your heart crumbles (398)"

A technique used by Italo Calvino in If on a winter's night a traveler and masterfully by Saramago in some of his prose. In both instances, the effect was that the reader was made part of the narrative, it was as if it removed objective barriers between that of the reader and the story. The same riveting interactive effect made me care more about Kafka, it made me connect more with the story.

Any reservation I have towards this book concerns the weird crazy sexual encounters Murakami wrote.

Crazy.

Legit crazy.

But compelling riveting crazy.





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

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson

Title: Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
Author: Jon Lee Anderson
Original Publication Date: March 1997
Pages: 832






“Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
     -Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s last words* (Anderson, 1991:735)






Those words make me shudder. And one will wonder, who this man is, that in his irrepressible idealism enlivened in clandestine activities and political conspiracies, dare deprive death of his satisfaction, for indeed decades later, Comandante Che, is now heroically revered.

Born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, Che Guevara, was, unlike the ideology he died for, born in an affluent family of landed Argentinean elites, albeit a family on a sole route certain to lead them to modest living later on.  Ernestito, as he was fondly called, was born with asthma, and throughout his life, this will limit and define him.

At 7, barred by his recurring and debilitating asthma attacks from engaging in strenuous activities reinforced by a concrete mother-son relationship, Ernesto developed a love for literature. He was, in most instances in his life, a voracious reader.


The Young Che groomed in an elite society

At 16, “Everything began with literature for him” (89). At this age he has quoted Freud and Nietzsche in his journal. He read Jack London, Bertrand Russell, Faulkner, Kafka, Camus, and Sartre. Most often, he said, Neruda was his favorite.



At 25, While in Medical School, Ernesto has traveled a sizeable part of South America first through his bicycle later outfitted with a motor and later with a motorbike. The travels are of monumental importance, in this austere travels characterized by the occasional begging of food and hitch-hiking rides, Che met the people of South America and for the first time saw the world through their forgotten faces and unheard voices. Indeed he writes, “The person who wrote these notes died upon stepping once again onto Argentine soil. The person who edits and polishes them, me, is no longer. At least, I am not the person I was before. The vagabonding through ‘America’ has changed me more than I thought.” (167)


Che with his faithful bicycle he used for travelling

At 27, He meets Fidel and Raul Castro, who will later on invite him in, to which he giddily joined, the July 26 Movement for the liberation of Cuba from Batista. This critical step launches Ernesto away from his paradoxical behavior of complete apathy and radical declamations that characterized his earlier years. “I will be with the people, and i know it because I see it etched in the night that I, the eclectic dissector of doctrines and psychoanalyst of dogmas, howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or trenches, will bathe my weapon in blood and, mad with fury, will slit the throat of any enemy who falls into my hands." (201)

At 32, The July 26 Movement finds daylight, Batista flees the country, and a newly established revolutionary government with Fidel Castro as the head pronounced Che Guevara as a Cuban Citizen by birth. Che helps implement land reforms and literacy improvement projects in the liberated Cuba.


Che with Castro

At 36, He left his ministerial position, commander’s rank, and family to spark off new revolutions.

At 39, Che Guevara was caught in Bolivia, while tied down and kept as a prisoner, he was shot to death, his hands were cut-off, and buried in an unmarked mass grave. The remains were exhumed and later found through a confession of a retired Bolivian General who came clean to this book’s author.
__________


Jon Lee Anderson made a splendid job writing this biography. He was an international investigative reporter, war correspondent and staff writer for The New Yorker. His fastidiousness and training as an investigative writer was thoroughly employed in an outstanding manner. This is a well researched work grounded on extensive and exclusive primary sources that were given to Anderson when he approached Che Guevara’s widow, Aleida March, a distinction other written biographies lack that inevitably strips them of some semblance of true portrayal of Che’s life if not sheer outright veracity that led to biographies that have often resulted to sanctimonious and romanticized accounts.

Anderson’s narrative is fluid and light. He presents the social milieu operative in Che’s environment and in so doing, the reader is made to understand how this helped shape the man. Anderson intermittently interjects his intuitive comments on the narrative which are always rational if not factual. What I have come to appreciate the most was Anderson’s tone in writing which was, if not totally objective, was not defined by a ‘western’ bias in the least.

This is a great piece of work not only because of Anderson’s capacity and technical aspects in writing but more so in what it has substantially achieved. He was able to peel layers and layers of laudatory accounts and legends on this icon and revealed the man within.

Did I enjoy reading this biography? Definitely, yes!

Did I come to know Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara? Yes!

Will I recommend this? This is the book one must read to know Che Guevara.





________
*Accounts vary on this, and the incident itself has attained an exalted position, sometimes mythologized. Other accounts point that this is Che’s  last written word as contained in his Bolivian diary.

The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda

Title: The Book of Questions
Author: Pablo Neruda
Original Publication Date: 1974
Pages: 96


You don’t want to answer me.
But the questions do not die.
-(Neruda, 1924)


The Book of Questions is a collection of 316 questions that compose the 74 poems. 316 questions which no rational answers exists, says the introductory part of my copy. No rational answers may exist for these questions, but the rational mind will strive beyond conventions to grasp its meanings. If you will ruminate on this 74 poems, one will find that some answers do exist, albeit spiritual and mercurial answers validated by allusive affinities.

Neruda’s recurring style, his use of nature, and things from nature are indispensable aspects of his, but the only correspondence one will find between the poems is that they are questions, for various thematic characteristics are at play here.

There are some poems one must simply take in visually and revel in the imagery they invoke discarding their literariness.

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?
(Poem V)

For whom do the pistils of the sun burn in the shadow of the eclipse?
How many bees are there in a day?
(Poem XXI)

Some are consummately surrealistic.

What happens to swallows who are late for school?
Is it true they scatter
transparent letters across the sky?
(Poem VII)

Others would seem to be derived from pure sadness.

Do tears yet spilled
wait in small lakes?

Or are they invisible rivers
that run towards sadness?
(Poem LX)

Some are allusions and undeniably metaphors for diurnal activities.

Why does agriculture laugh at the pale tears of the sky?
(Poem XXX)

Some unequivocally express Neruda’s political beliefs.

And to position sad Nixon
with his buttocks over the brazier?
Roasting him on low
with North American napalm?
(Poem XV)

What forced labor does Hitler do in hell?
Does he paint walls or cadavers? Does he sniff the fumes of the dead?
Do they feed him the ashes of so many burnt children?
Or, since his death, have they given him blood to drink from a funnel?
Or do they hammer into his mouth the pulled gold teeth?
(Poem LXX)


And a handful refers to his personal thoughts on the reception of his poetry by the posterity.

What will they say about my poetry who never touched my blood?
(Poem X)

Some too were infused with wit.

And why did cheese decide
to perform heroic deeds in France?
(Poem XX)


The book of questions may just have something for everyone.




Other work by Pablo Neruda:
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (3 Stars

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore

Title: The Crescent Moon
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Original Publication Date: 1913
Pages: 124



Of the seemingly governing heavenly bodies that grace our diurnal lives, it is, in innumerable instances, the Moon that stands as the epitome of womanhood, and by necessary operation, motherhood. Father Sun and Mother Moon and Children Stars, so it would go. The raison d’etre for such association is conspicuous. The moonlight always seemed so intuitive, warm, subtle and welcoming, as warm as a mother’s embrace, as welcome as a mother’s love.

The crescent moon, which follows a new moon, would suggest new beginnings. But in the cyclic fabric of the Lunar phases, everything may, inevitably, stand for beginnings and endings.

This is what The Crescent Moon contains, poems and rhapsodies about motherhood and their children in varying degrees of this supreme bond. Verses talk about a baby’s heavenly birth, a child’s charming precociousness, a mother’s concern, and the inevitable bittersweet sadness over the emotional transition of a child growing up, the beginnings and endings of the mother and child relationship. This explores the beauty of the child’s world and the boundless nature of a mother’s love. These are the pervasive themes in this book.


“I wish I could travel by the road that crosses baby's mind, and out beyond all bounds;

Where messengers run errands for no cause between the kingdoms of kings of no history;

Where Reason makes kites of her laws and flies them, and Truth sets Fact free from its fetters.” (18)


The 4 star rating should suffice to validate that beyond Gitanjali, Tagore’s sublime touch and masterful grace is still present.

This is my most favored among the lot.



THE BEGINNING

"WHERE have I come from, where did you pick me up?" the baby asked its mother.

She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast,-- "You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.

You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then.

You were enshrined with our household deity, in his worship I worshipped you.

In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived.

In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages.

When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it.

Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before the sunrise.

Heaven's first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world's life, and at last you have stranded on my heart.

As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine.

“For fear of losing you I hold you tight to my breast. What magic has snared the world's treasure in these slender arms of mine?”




Other works by Rabindranath Tagore:
The Gardener (4 Stars)
Gitanjali (4 Stars)
Nationalism (3 Stars)

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Title: Stranger in a Strange Land
Author:  Robert Heinlein
Original Publication Date: 1961
Pages: 528 (Abridged); 756 (Original)



“Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s at least partly her own fault.” (511)

Perhaps this is the single most quoted statement from this work, and also the statement by which Heinlein is critiqued and berated, the same statement by which this philosophically charged work is sullied by 1-star ratings. Whether by inadvertent straying into a faulty conception and erroneous application of intentional fallacy or the failure to recognize that Heinlein sought this work to stand as historicization of the prevailing attitudes at the time of writing juxtaposed with those of the future, as represented by the Man from Mars, the loss of substance predicated upon such mistakes are saddening.

Most reviews needlessly nitpick this book by implacably quoting sexist remarks offered to us by a cantankerous Jubal, who symbolized the attitude of a bigoted past, but that is missing the big picture, and missing the very idea this book seeks to impart. That is the point, to present homophobic, sexist, resistant-to-change personas that stand for the past, because in the end, we see that Jubal, is opened up to a new philosophy, divested of all improprieties and finds himself realigning his beliefs, a belief which is open to change.

By doing so, Heinlein, through Jubal and the Man from Mars, asks the reader, by extension, to reexamine beliefs and conventions. To disregard this by literally focusing on the sexism is to lose the quintessential aspect of the book.

See beyond the literal. Challenge the conventions.

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard by Anatole France

Title: The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
Author: Anatole France
Original Publication Date: 1881
Pages: 148



Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard, a member of The Institute, a philologist who in the twilight of his years lives in a City of Books accompanied by his condescending cat, Hamilcar, and Therese, his adroit and remarkably annoying house help, finds himself committing a crime. And you wonder, what crime he did commit? He commits two actually, both of which stems from love. The former impelled by the haunting quest for redemption of a failed unrequited love, the latter, inevitably constrained by a passion unmatched. Of the two, he was not indicted for the former, and I am sure you will understand and forgive the latter, as I did.

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard  is divided into two stories, The Log and Daughter of Clementine, both presented as Bonnard's diary entries. The entries are intermittently  recorded, sometimes years apart. In both stories, Bonnard is the central character, and the connection in the stories are subtly and beautifully formed.

Of all of France's works I've had the pleasure of reading so far, I've come to appreciate he Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard the most. The differences were readily apparent. Bonnard is a warm and gentle kind man. He was not cynical, only true and honest. He wore his heart on his sleeves. "Then he said to her that the troubles in which we often involve ourselves, by trying to act according to our conscience and to do the best we can, are never of the sort that totally dishearten and weary us, but are, on the contrary wholesome trials."(148)The profound human sympathy and grace France is known for defines this book. It was poignant and beautiful, down from the vivid imagery he employed up to the ruminations in life, but still remaining to be critical without any hint of naivety just as he did on his later works. France's development as an author and a person is evident in this work too. Written earlier in his career in 1881 compared to Penguin Island and The Revolt of the Angels written in 1908 and 1912 respectively, both books the majority of which are criticisms on the church and of faith in the divine, the Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard professes however a faith in the church, and France even goes so far as ending this work by leaving a blessing in the name of God! It is so evident that what faith he had lost through those intervening years was still there. And it is interesting and amazing to experience a writer change and develop, and at times contradict himself, almost like how the young Nietzsche is so different to the old Nietzsche. And I like this kind and warm story, it makes you appreciate life.




Other Books by Anatole France:
Revolt of the Angels(4 Stars)
Penguin Island (3 Stars)

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Awardees

Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

Title:  Gitanjali
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Original Publication Date:1910
Pages:90

'I read Rabindranath every day, to read one line of his is to forget all the troubles of the world.'

-Unnamed Bengali Doctor addressing W.B. Yeats, contained in the Introduction

Isn’t it just fitting that this masterpiece be introduced by a person no less than William Butler Yeats who is another Nobel Laureate? Tagore received the Nobel in 1913 and Yeats in 1923. It is ostensibly perceivable that Yeats managed to capture the focal points in his Introduction, so quoting parts of Yeats introduction and placing my heartfelt impressions, let me try doing justice to this book, however insufficient that may turn out to be.

Gitanjali is a collection of poems,  ruminations and rhapsodies, or more accurately Song Offerings, and when you do offer something, you offer it to a higher being, a divine existence of which belief is professed, and so, much of the verses are addressed to a Lord, God, and Master.

Yeats in introducing this work to William Rothenstein says:

“For all I know, so abundant and simple is this poetry, the new renaissance has been born in your country.”(7)

And this is true in both instances that I have read Tagore, just as it was in The Gardener, the poetry was actually simple but it communicates at so many levels owing to the depth that is carried by Tagore's ruminations.

“These verses will not lie in little well-printed books upon ladies' tables, who turn the pages with indolent hands that they may sigh over a life without meaning, which is yet all they can know of life, or be carried by students at the university to be laid aside when the work of life begins, but, as the generations pass, travellers will hum them on the highway and men rowing upon the rivers.”(8)

And more than a hundred years since its original publication, where in those hundred years we have witnessed, through history’s questioned objectivity, men doubt the ideals of their forefathers and see thier beloved posterities entirely discard what has been handed down, it is extraordinary to enjoy sometime like Gitanjali, which in all its completeness is certainly worthy to be read beyond its year if not entirely a timeless masterpiece on its own.

“I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days, reading it in railway trains, or on the top of omnibuses and in restaurants, and I have often had to close it lest some stranger would see how much it moved me.”(9)

I too have carried Gitanjali over the days, over a span of daytrips, through the inevitable but longed-for ride home, through talks with friends, and ardent discussions with other students, I sometimes find myself, reading parts of this work, and you really do “forget all the troubles of the world.” But unlike Yeats, I did not hesitate to show the world how much it moved me. If words so masterfully chosen and phrases adroitly matched delivered a gamut of emotions, I welcomed it. If it made me smiled, I smiled, if it made me ponder, I ruminated. I wanted the world to see, I wanted to tell them, this is Gitanjali, and you should read it too.

“These lyrics— which are in the original, my Indians tell me, full of subtlety of rhythm, of untranslatable delicacies of colour, of metrical invention—display in their thought a world I have dreamed of all my live long.”(10)

And in the same vein, I am perpetually grateful and irretrievably wounded that my experience is defined by a translated medium. Now that is one hell of a dilemma. I could feel the “subtlety of rhythm, of untranslatable delicacies of colour, of metrical invention” which must be so richly contained in Bengali, just inches beyond my reach, but still gravely beyond my reach, unrelentingly clawing at my thoughts reading this.   But if there’s one thing that I’ve learned through Tagore, that is, to be thankful for what comes in life. And this is also what I appreciate in Tagore, he loves life, he loves the world, and for that he welcomes death itself in its entirety.

I leave you with a customary quotation.

“On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.”




Other works by Rabindranath Tagore:
The Gardener (4 Stars)
Nationalism (3 Stars)

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Awardees

A free ebook copy is legally downloadable here, along with a voluminous number of other works: Gutenberg

The Gardener by Rabindranath Tagore

Title: The Gardener
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Original Publication Date: 1913
Pages: 87


“It is a game of giving and withholding, revealing and screening
  again; some smiles and some little shyness, and some sweet useless struggles.
This love between you and me is simple as a song.

No mystery beyond the present; no striving for the impossible; no
  shadow behind the charm; no groping in the depth of the dark.
This love between you and me is simple as a song.

We do not stray out of all words into the ever silent; we do not
  raise our hands to the void for things beyond hope.
It is enough what we give and we get.
We have not crushed the joy to the utmost to wring from it the
  wine of pain.
This love between you and me is simple as a song.”

One of my favorite excerpts from this wonderful book. It is amazing to read Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali polymath, a hundred and one years after he received his Nobel Prize for Literature, a hundred and one years after being the first non-European awardee of the Nobel. The Gardener is a book of poetry. In the beginning, a modest servant pleads to the queen to be her gardener. She asks the reason why. He answers, the simplicity of which carries a subtle unfathomable heartbreaking depth. But perhaps, the servant turned gardener was compelled, inescapably, by an unrequited impermissible love for the queen, the kind that makes you queasy and uncharacteristically giddy all around, for much of this book contains aphorism, euphemisms, and ruminations for love in its varying forms, shortcomings and eternal joys, or perhaps the Gardener wanted the queen to know the real beauty of life, as ponderings in life too are contained in it. Tagore's use of colloquial language is spiritual and mercurial. There is depth in his rich use of imagery and allegories and one can read this in varying degrees but it is strange that at the same time it is straightforward in its delivery that it taxes credulity knowing this has been written a century before. And I think, it too is wonderful how he ended this work. Strange and beautiful.

"Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the
  spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.”

“From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the
  vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang
  one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred
  years."





This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Awardees

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1) by Catherynne Valente

Title: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)
Author:  Catherynne Valente
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Original Publication Date: May 10, 2011
Pages: 247

“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.” 

― George Bernard Shaw

I love reading, and I want my future children, and my future children’s children to love it too. I cannot however, just as any form or object of love, force them to love it too, what I can do however is guide them in learning to love it, by helping them sort through the millions of books out there, directing them to the good ones, to the really really good ones. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making now occupies a special place in that future for my children. This goes to show that I too enjoyed this book. 

The book’s narration shifts back and forth from an omniscient narrator to the second person point of view. The usage of the technique is wonderful. It radiates the feeling that the book itself is telling you the story, an aspect that perhaps highlights the book’s age appropriateness as a children’s literature. The narration gives of a lively, vibrant and engaging narration. There are a lot of references to creatures of fantasy both familiar and unique to the book which is in keeping to its general plot. These creatures however are vividly portrayed in manner that will not give children the nightmares. I do not recall encountering big words, jargons, or technical definitions. The conversations were natural, crisp and direct. What sets this book apart from most children’s lit is the prose with which Valente wrote in. It is neither an exaggeration nor romanticism in play when I say that this is one of the most fluid and beautiful prose I’ve have read. The book cover and the drawings are adorable. The book’s entirety is simply riveting. 

As most children’s books go, this is no exception to its class in its distinctive features in respect of the substance and weight of its message, subtlety in delivery of that message and of course the conclusion, to which I am reminded again that it is us, adults who have suffered through a decadence of belief and imagination, who need dumbing downs in our daily serving of dreams, fantasy, and literature. Let me liberally quote statements from the book which adults know of as reality.

“And she definitely wanted to get somewhere, even if she didn’t know where somewhere was. (25)”

“But splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it’s the fright that makes them splendid at all. (39)”

And one of my personal favorites…

“When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living.(56)”

“Of course not. No one is chosen. Not ever. Not in the real world. You chose to climb out of your window and ride on a Leopard. You chose to get a witch’s Spoon back and to make friends with a Wyvern. You chose to trade your shadow for a child’s life. You chose not to let the Marquess hurt your friend—you chose to smash her cages! You chose to face your own death, not to balk at a great sea to cross and no ship to cross it in. And twice now, you have chosen not to go home when you might have, if only you abandoned your friends. You are not the chosen one, September. (162)”

These are some of the messages in this book to which pales however to the message its entirety seeks to impart, that of loving, losing and letting go. Truly it is a masterpiece to deliver this kind of real life lessons in a medium such as children’s book and still convey it without loss of substance. I will be looking forward to the other books in this series with delight, designate a special place in my future children’s book shelves and definitely recommend it to someone looking for a delightful read.  

Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France

Title: The Revolt of the Angels
Author: Anatole France
Original Publication Date: 1914
Pages: 282

I read this book as part of my Nobel Prize for Literature Awardees reading list. As it turned out it is one the longest list I will ever try to finish. Sometimes I too wonder where I found the audacity to attempt to foray in this kind of reading list.

The Revolt of the Angels is my initial foray into Anatole France's works, which definitely is not my last one. It was not his first, as France was apparently a poet and a journalist too, but is considered to be his most profound novel. I was a sucker for riveting titles and killer first lines, so I picked this book and read. And read I did.

Anatole France, born 16 April 1844 and died 12 October 1924 was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. His was a lifetime of books. The family business was a bookstore, one which, arguably, could be the best environment to raise a future Nobel Prize awardee. He was schooled in a private Catholic institution which lends credulity to the fact that Anatole France was one hell of a radical as exacerbated by his writings. The rest, as one would say, is history. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. Shortly, in 1922, as a response by the institution we all know as the Roman Catholic Church, all his works were banned through the Prohibited Books Index, a list which has been abolished since 1966 and contained the likes of Sartre, Rousseau, Voltaire, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Galileo to name a few. Oh what a delight that list was.

The book itself was written in 1914, a time when France was besieged by the incoming Germanic invasion brought around by the First World War and was troubled at home by the numerous Socialist objections. What dominated this part of French history however was the power struggle between the Church and the State, one that is contained in this exceptional book and which probably served as the backbone for this exceptional work. Overly simplifying this dialectical issue, the struggle existed because the Church is seen to be representing the archaic system of institution embodied by the Monarchy against the desire of the Republicans who utterly detested political and class affiliations that are perpetuated by these monarchies. So from here, Anatole France wrote.

I obtained my FREE e-book copy through Project Gutenberg and was translated from the original French by Frederic Chapman. Apparently, licenses on century old books do not exist. As expected of a work in the early 1900s, a lot old English words and words derived from both Latin and French were used like architrave, frieze, verbena, narcissi, demiurge, though let that not deter you from missing on this work. The prose is beautiful as expected from an Nobel Awardee.

Revolt of the Angels tells us of the story of Arcade, a Guardian Angel, the lowest caste of the nine-tiered order of these heavenly beings. It narrates his pursuit of knowledge and how such knowledge led to become the foundation with which he challenge GOD, or as he called it, the DEMIURGE – the creator of the material world – or Ialdabaoth. Yes, this is the same GOD most Christian churches would profess belief to.  The book further tells us how he conspired with other ‘fallen’ guardian angels and plotted the overthrow of Ialdabaoth. Intertwined with Arcade’s story is Maurice’s plight of losing his guardian angel, his dishonor and fornication (to which a certain extent Anatole France himself engaged in).  The novel’s theme perhaps lies in the age-old philosophical conundrum of knowledge (or science) pitted against religion. Perhaps this conundrum is epitomized by Arcade’s statement:

“When the angels possess some notions of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and physiology; when the study of matter shows them worlds in an atom, and an atom in the myriads of planets; when they see themselves lost between these two infinities; when they weigh and measure the stars, analyse their composition, and calculate their orbits, they will recognize that these monsters work in obedience to forces which no intelligence can define, or that each star has its particular divinity, or indigenous god; and they will realize that the gods of Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, and Sirius are greater than Ialdabaoth.” (39)

What comes across to me however is that we human individuals are like Arcade, like these Angels in revolt. We seek the truth behind things. We learn, and learn and still crave for knowledge. But to where does this knowledge lead us? To me too at the same time we are Maurice. Just like him we all seem to have fallen into a trap. We love life itself so much that we fear losing it, that in any semblance of hope or continuity, we have sometimes turned to belief in numerous institutions, uncritical and naïve. That instead of uplifting the human soul, we have formed for ourselves unbreakable shackles that continue to limit our perception of the world.

"I sought out the laws which govern nature, solid or ethereal, and after much pondering I perceived that the Universe had not been formed as its pretended Creator would have us believe; I knew that all that exists, exists of itself and not by the caprice of Iahveh; that the world is itself its own creator and the spirit its own God. Henceforth I despised Iahveh for his imposture, and I hated him because he showed himself to be opposed to all that I found desirable and good: liberty, curiosity, doubt.” (139)

But what does exactly limit our perception? Is it really a religion, a church, a system of belief? Is it not fear and ignorance that severely limits human understanding and compassion, so much so that in the first place, no actual conflict exists between these forces? Is knowledge really the answer? What does this knowledge refer to?

In the closing part of the book, when the Army has been assembled and Arcade went to ask Satan to lead the army on their march, Satan said this in response:

“As to ourselves, celestial spirits, sublime demons, we have destroyed Ialdabaoth, our Tyrant, if in ourselves we have destroyed Ignorance and Fear." “…We were conquered because we failed to understand that Victory is a Spirit, and that it is in ourselves and in ourselves alone that we must attack and destroy Ialdabaoth.” (292)

The beauty of this statement lies in its verisimilitude.  Our demons are given birth by ignorance. It is nurtured by fear and is encouraged by blind obedience. These demons have always been personal in nature. Yet the discrepancy in societal response has become fundamental in nature.  We have raised countless institutions that are impersonal and by being so, wholly unresponsive. And more vital to all of this, we fail to recognize “that it is in ourselves and in ourselves alone that we must attack and destroy Ialdabaoth (292).” 

I have left the institutional church long ago, embarking on a more personal attempt in understanding things. In a sense, I have aspired to be spiritual without being religious, and have met a great many debates and contest on this aspect. Since then however, I have struggled to conquer my own demons. I have sought to eradicate cynicism and suspicion in receiving and responding to others, and have tried to look for that piece of kindness in everybody. The first step is always recognizing that perhaps the fault lies in ourselves, for this too is the hardest step to make.

This here is a good book. It may literally challenge fundamental beliefs of the religious institution, but what it truly offers is a much needed case of retrospection and examination which doesn't hurt to engage in once in a while.  I would recommend it to everyone except that one should still take caution choosing whom you recommend it too. Perhaps if you enjoyed this book like me, a similar theme albeit carried in another plot was written by Jose Saramago, yet another Nobel Prize awardee, entitled The Gospel According to Jesus Christ(3 STARS).

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Title: The Last Unicorn
Author: Peter S. Beagle
Publisher: Viking Press
Original Publication Date: 1968
Pages: 294

Beautiful. Beautiful. Pure soulful beauty. Though I still find it hard that this is compared to Tolkien's The Hobbit. Things lose their luster when they are compared. No. There is no need for comparison here. Still, this is beautiful enough on its own that it must and should be read by every fantasy genre fan.

Feed by Mira Grant

Title: Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy #1)
Author: Mira Grant
Publisher: Orbit
Original Publication Date: April 10, 2010
Pages: 571


When I was looking for the a book to get back at my roots, that is fantasy and science fiction, and under science fiction the proliferating post-apocalypse, dystopia and zombie genres, I happened to stumble on the Newsflesh trilogy. I however was not transported back to my beloved roots in my reading experience of Feed.  To put it bluntly, this is a conspiracy story with zombies as plot devices rather than being the plot. And still, I was able to appreciate iyt, reading it was a breath of fresh air a person needs a looks for once in a while.

The incremental world building process and origin story was well thought out. It is convincing enough by reason of its possibility and complexity. The effort at research and study for the backbone of the story is apparent and conspicuous and it is enjoyable to know the lengths the author has gone to bring this story to life.

I've said it before regarding book in this genre, the zombie genre has suffered the inevitable saturation that proliferating genres are so susceptible of. In this case, zombie literature has been chucked out the linear narratives, stream of consciousness school and the theme of plain old survival perspectives inter alia as the standard works. This is no surprise as these mediums are traditional, accessible and appealing to the market the genre is supposedly targeting. Included in these modes is what one could call dumbing down. What is perhaps more disturbing and perhaps worrying is that this dumbing down thematics are carried out in the YA fashion. Mira Grant is guilty to some extent of this. On some instances, she rubs down and shove in certain aspects of the story, like for example the repetitive checkpoints. But then again, credit is given to Mira Grant because shed did not saturate this book with the YA dumbing down, especially with the relationship/romance story in the book that is so out of context and blatantly disjointed in some zombie books where the insertion is conspicuously forced for marketability if not acquiescence to the bandwagons.

The book had minimal zombie encounters, but it was exciting all throughout. It was good how Mira paced the story itself. I'm looking forward to reading the second part in this series.

On Love by Alain de Botton

Title: On Love
Author: Alain de Botton
Publisher: Grove Press
Original Publication Date: 1993
Pages: 194

I have been having different slices of the same loaf. And I plan to continue on finishing the platter until kingdom come. After reading Fromm's Art of Loving, Alain de Botton's On Love was consequently partaken of.

At the outset, Art of Loving must be considered as a league of its own. The theorizing Fromm achieved was incomparable in that love, like any other concept in the social sciences, could be easily demystified, unraveled and explained by the use of inquiry and reason; even though what Fromm wrote in the intro that every endeavor committed to such pursuit is bound to end in failure still held true until the bitter end of his book. An aspect which De Botton's work did not tackle (and conclude with) in a  significantly different matter.

If Fromm wrote about the origins of love and how love can be successfully pursued as an art in itself in a very scholarly manner, De Botton on the other hand wrote on the inception of love and the processes it goes through, albeit ending in an unideal and rather depressing manner. For all it's worth however, On love manages to encapsulate the reader for the very personal, realistic and relatable (most especially) manner De Botton has chosen to write this book.

The book is divided in essays on particular issues connected through out a developing relationship. We are treated to numbered paragraphs under these essays. The riveting aspect of this book however lies in the manner De Botton was so successful in enlacing the theoretical aspects to the fictional aspect that objectified and so perfectly represented his theories and arguments. De Botton not only theorize love well, he presented the readers with something they can objectively relate to through Chloe's fictional love story, and in doing so, managed to humanize what was conceived in abstract. More than that, it managed to establish a connection with the reader, by a common thread of experience in the story. De Botton did not only theorize actions of love like putting meaning where there is none, holding hands, happiness, betrayal and fear of loving again and of loving again, he wrote about it through Chloe. De Botton is one great love story writer that most YA Romance novelist will ever dream of.

The sentences were beautifully written, incomparably so. I remember reading Hemingway and having the same reaction. De Botton simply writes beautifully.

If there were any limitations to this book, we have to concede that it is written in a certain perspective, a man's perspective, which sometimes arguably is guilty of permeating the objectiveness of the arguments.