*Running the Rift, by Naomi Benaron

9781616200428
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2012
365 pp

I decided to read this novel because of my interest in the origins of genocide in general and because for years I followed the ongoing situation in Rwanda, and then the war crimes trials that followed. There is still a great deal of fallout from this time period that continues to interest me as well.  So when I heard about this book last year, I snapped it up via pre-order,  curious to see how a woman from America was going to pull off a story about a boy who grows up in Rwanda during the time of the massacres.  By and large she did a good job of it while simultaneously weaving the basics of this catastrophic time period  into her story.  The premise of the novel is also intriguing.  But unlike the rest of the reading public, it seems, I just didn't go uber-gaga over this book, largely because it reads like a young adult novel.  However, I think that once the word gets out about this book, it has the makings of a bestseller exactly because of its potential appeal to the young adult audience.

Divided into five parts and spanning a period of fourteen years, Running the Rift follows the life of Jean Patrick Nkuba,  a Tutsi boy who grows up pretty sheltered, with a father who taught him that  there is no difference between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes.   With the death of Jean Patrick's father in a car accident, the family's situation changes, and Jean Patrick  begins to discover that not everyone thinks the way his father did.  While the family is coming to terms with their loss, wondering about the future, an incident occurs in which a group of Hutu boys hurl rocks through the windows of the family home.  Jean Patrick chases after the gang, but fails to catch up to them, leaving  him feeling guilty about not being a faster runner.   The family moves to the home of Jean Patrick's uncle , where he and his older brother Roger did not initially want to go, where, as Roger thought, they would be "nothing but poor fishermen, running around dirty and eating with our fingers like the rest of Uncle’s children. ”  Uncle and the rest of the family are definitely poor and life is harder there, but the brothers discover that there is more to wealth than money -- that a loving family is at the root of everything good in life.  Things begin to change for Jean Patrick when an Olympic runner comes to his school and to celebrate, the school holds a race which he wins.  The prize is a poster which the runner dedicates to Jean Patrick, calling him "our next Olympic hero." At this point, Jean Patrick's life dreams and ambitions are born, and as he moves on to secondary school, he begins training in earnest under Coach, a strange figure who seems to have more going on than just helping young men get to the Olympics, and who offers Jean Patrick a Hutu identity card to stay  safe.   It's running, not the political situation, that keeps Jean Patric focused while things begin to explode all around him; he becomes very well known after running the 800-meter with an Olympic qualifying time, and it looks like he may actually realize his dream.  He's got good backing, too -- his picture appears in the paper with the Rwandan president; McDonald's hamburgers are flown in for a reception with an ambassador, and all eyes are on Jean Patrick.  But over time, politics, propaganda and ultimately the murder of the president  turn Rwanda into a full-blown, bloody killing ground and events occur that thrust Jean Patrick right into the heart of the nightmare.  This is his story, set against a time when "no safe or sane place exists within the country,"  when Tutsis are hunted down just because they are not Hutus.

While the Hutu/Tutsi story is a bit more complicated than the way the author depicts it in this novel, she still does a good job of describing the atmosphere of horror during this time of madness.  As events unfold, she examines the effects of this conflict on people at every level, from the family to the community to the nation, even to the world at large, where the Western countries more or less turn their backs to the slaughter.  In terms of pacing, the story plods along for much of the first half of the novel, as the characters are introduced and established, as Jean Patrick's early life is set forth, and as change is beginning to rear its ugly head for the worse.  My favorite section of Ms. Benaron's book, in terms of writing and prose, is in Book Three, when all hell breaks loose for Rwanda and for Jean Patrick as well -- it is there that the author amps up the pace, where the situation becomes very tense, enough to hold my attention for the longest time.  This section, personally speaking, is where I believe the author's true writing potential  comes shining through.  If the rest of the book had conveyed this much intensity, it would have been a much better reading experience for me.

 I'm sort of torn here -- on one hand, I appreciate the author's choice of subject matter and her willingness to tackle it and the fact that she  brings this terrible situation to the attention of  members of the reading public who may be familiar with events in Rwanda from movies or from TV news of years ago.   The basic story is good, and she does manage to get across many of the terrors faced by a young person coming of age in Rwanda during this time.  At the same time,  with the exception of Book Three, I just didn't think it delivered that punch I was looking for,  considering the topic at hand.  After having finished it, I  thought that Running the Rift  was a book my daughter would enjoy much more than I did. It has that young-adult lit feel, and would not be out of place on high-school library shelves, or as a required text for a high-school history course.  It really reminded me of books I read when I was younger, where there was enough to tug at my heart strings and to capture my intellectual interest, leading me to want to find out more about the topic.  If the book is  geared for readers of young adult fiction, then it's a perfect fit; if it was supposed to be more of a literary read, well, it just didn't do it for me.

Still, despite my personal feelings about the young-adult style, readers are loving this novel, and there are many good things about it to recommend.  The book is extremely approachable in terms of reading, and despite the 365 pages, it moves quickly. If you're squeamish about violence, beware.  Running the Rift works (imho) largely on an emotional level, so if that's what you're looking for, you'll probably love it.

Shehan Karunatilaka wins the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature with Chinaman

Congratulations to Shehan Karunatilaka for winning the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.  I've been sitting on this book now for months, but it's definitely going to be popping up in my reading list within the next couple of weeks.

Karunatilaka's competition was as follows:

•    U.R. Ananthamurthy: Bharathipura
•   Chandrakanta: A Street in Srinagar
•   Usha K.R: Monkey-man
•   Tabish Khair: The Thing About Thugs
•   Kavery Nambisan: The Story that Must Not Be Told 

and, as it just so happens, I've read Khair's novel and loved it, and the other 4 are sitting here on my floor just begging to be read. 

Now I'm more eager than ever to get started on Chinaman!

Publish Post

Adding two more challenges to the list -- what the hell

My tbr pile is absolutely out of control, something I noticed when I started having to slide books around on my office floor to get to my computer.  I'm 100% determined to cut down the number of books that have been laying around here forever.  So I'm adding two more challenges to the list to help pare down the number of unread books.

First is the Aussie Author Challenge, which is hosted by Jo at Booklover Book Reviews and has been an ongoing part of my reading life for the last two years.  I think I contributed a whopping grand total of 6 books read for that challenge last year, but at least I cleared out that many books from my shelves.  Six doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it's shelf space. I absolutely adore Jo and all of the other book people from Australia I've met through the internet, and I'm hoping I can make it to the 12-book "Dinky-di" level this year.  I've got a ton of Aussie books that will work for that challenge, and they'll work for the Mt. TBR challenge as well.

Moving on to number two, this is a first for me: the 2012 South Asian Challenge hosted by S. Krishna at her website, S. Krishna's Books.  I've become a lot more serious about literature from this area of the world lately, and have a number of books from this region that need to stop being neglected. I'll start of with 12 books for the year and see if I can do more.

Since I can't keep track of every single book for every single challenge on a list on the sidebar, I'll be posting a monthly challenge tracker to see how far I've come.

More books read means more books to new homes -- so stay tuned.

The Goodreads book rescue -- have you heard about it?

Sometimes I take myself off line just because.  There's no specific reason -- it's just because.  But today I started thinking that this isn't such a good idea because I miss way too much stuff when I do this. For example, I've recently finished two books by Boris Akunin trying to get to the latest one published,  and I go to Goodreads to post the reviews.  Next to each book is a little note saying that this book needs saving.  I'm like "what?" (sorry about the like, I really do talk like that and I can't help it because I was born and raised in California -- it's not affected on purpose).  So I do a bit of research and find this link at the site, which basically says that Goodreads will no longer be using Amazon's database for book listings at the Goodreads site, because evidently, according to the powers that be,

"Amazon's data has been great for us for many years, but the terms that come with it have gotten more and more restrictive, and we were finally forced to come to the conclusion that moving to other datasources will be better for Goodreads and our members in so many ways that we had to do it. It may be a little painful, but our aim is to make it as seamless as possible for all our members.

Amazon data that we will stop using includes data such as titles, author names, page counts, and publication dates. For the vast majority of book editions, we are currently importing this data from other sources. Once the imports are done, those few remaining editions for which we haven't found an alternative source of information will be removed from Goodreads."

So I "rescued" the two Akunin books I just read, plus the one I'm getting ready to start, and then discovered that 197 titles in my own Goodreads library are in need of rescuing.  Hmmm. I'm willing to hunker down and get to work on saving them, but at the same time, the powers that be say not to be in a hurry to do so since they're working on other book databases to try to remedy the problem.   So I'll check back soon to see where we're at in the process.

So what's going on? Is Amazon getting all bitchy or wanting more money or what? I've been really really really upset since the whole Amazon/Book Depository thing which has totally screwed me on buying books at the Book Depository.  I still get them from there (BD), but I end up having to do an end run through Alibris or places like that to get new releases that aren't going to be released here in the US for some time.  That means that the free postage from Book Depository no longer exists for me, since Alibris isn't so generous with their mailing fees.  Plus I have to wait longer to get my books now, etc. etc. etc. Plus, here's the kicker: Book Depository says "book not in stock" but yet I can buy it from Book Depository via Alibris.  Go figure. 

You might want to go look at your Goodreads library and see if you have any books needing rescuing -- I probably wouldn't have noticed at all except that I'm a stickler about keeping track of my reading.

The winner of the Orphan Master's Son is....

Christina! Christina was commenter #6, the number generated by random.org for this giveaway. I'll be mailing your book next week, and congratulations!

As usual, I wish I could give you all a copy, but well, you know. Thanks for commenting, and I'll be back with another giveaway soon.

*The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson

9780819292793
Random House, 2012
443 pp

While 2012 is not yet even three weeks old, it's just possible that I've found the novel that come next December I'll be listing as my favorite book of the year.  Go ahead -- scoff or do the eyeroll if you so choose, but as I said in an earlier post, The Orphan Master's Son has just set the bar for my reading year.  Rarely do I find something that affects me the way this book did, and when I have, it's generally been by an author from another country.  But with this novel, the prose, the characters, the story and the author's imagining of life under totalitarian rule in  North Korea all combine to produce the literary equivalent of the perfect storm in my reading universe. 

While getting my thoughts together and perusing the internet, I discovered an interview where the author notes that

"... in North Korea there is a national script, conveyed through propaganda. There is one notion about who the people are and what the national goals are, and you as a citizen are conscripted to be a part of this national narrative. . .  You have to relinquish your own personal desires.” 

And the main character in this story, Pak Jun Do, has spent a great deal of his young  life following the script.  His early life and career are laid out in the first part of this novel, "The Biography of Jun Do,"  which even by itself would have made an incredible story.  His father is in charge of the orphan camp called Long Tomorrows near Chongjin, where Jun Do grows up without a mother.  Orphans are very low in the social order, and are  hired out to various companies or other work details; when they get older they are sent directly to the military, where they are usually assigned the most dangerous jobs.  Jun Do, although not technically an orphan, ends up as a tunnel soldier, then ends up on assignment kidnapping people from Japan. From there, he is assigned to language school, then to a listening post on the fishing boat Junma, where he monitors radio transmissions.  After an encounter with an American interceptor at sea and later a defection, he is proclaimed a hero and recruited for a secret mission to Texas.  It is there, looking through of all things a telephone directory, that he comes to realize that there's a bigger and better world out there, and that he hates his "small, backward homeland, a land of mysteries and ghosts and mistaken identities." His return to North Korea leads directly to part two of the novel, "The Confessions of Commander Ga," where in a rather abrupt change, we find Jun Do in a prison mine where one of the outputs is the blood of the dead that is shipped to the capital, Pyongyang.  From there Jun Do's life takes on a new twist, one I won't reveal here, but it is a story guaranteed to keep you awake and turning pages because you do not want to miss even a second of Jun Do's story.

There is not one useless character in this novel, down to Brando, the dog, and they all serve to illuminate life in North Korea under the "Dear Leader" as imagined by the author. While some of the scenes in the book are downright funny and will make you laugh out loud, the author is quick to keep the reader in mind of some of the harsher realities that exist, some of which go beyond the prison camps and torture of inmates.  For example, there's an unforgettable scene in the second part of the novel where an interrogator flashes back to when he was eight years old, listening to  "a talk that every father must have with his son,"  a talk is meant to teach him how he must act to survive in this society:

"He told me that there was a path set out for us. On it we had to do everything the signs commanded and heed all the announcements along the way.  Even if we walked this path side by side, he said, we must act alone on the outside, while on the inside, we would be holding hands."

To illustrate his point, his father goes on:

"Now take my hand," he told me. I put my small hand in his, and then his mouth became sharp with hate. He shouted, "I denounce this citizen as an imperialist puppet who should be remanded to stand trial for crimes against the state." His face was red, venomous. "I have witnessed him spew capitalist diatribes in an effort to poison our minds with his traitorous filth."...I was terrified, on the verge of crying. My father said, "See, my mouth said that, but my hand, my hand was holding yours. If your mother ever must say something like that to me, in order to protect the two of you, know that inside, she and I are holding hands. And if someday you must say something like that to me, I will know it's not really you. That's inside. Inside is where the son and the father will always be holding hands." 

The author's range from funny to downright heartwrenching is amazing; his prose, his characters' dialogue, his sense of place and time are all nearly pitch perfect. 

The strongest  parts of the novel are found in how different people retain their dignity and integrity after enduring incredible hardships, and in what really constitutes a hero, a word that is bandied about at the upper echelons in keeping with the national myth. North Korea is a place where above all the myths behind the cult of personality endure, no matter what methods are used to ensure its survival -- "re-education," fear,  torture, etc.  While the author shows that not everyone buys into it, there is also propaganda everywhere, made very clear by the loudspeakers in everyone's living room, factory floors, offices, etc.  Announcements beginning with "Citizens"  are a device the author uses often throughout the novel, often related in a  tongue-in-cheek manner,  used to broadcast not only the latest good deed done by the Dear Leader  -- "Kim Jong Il was seen offering on-the-spot guidance to the engineers deeping the Taedong River channel," but also the myth: "While the Dear Leader lectured to the dredge operators, many doves were seen to spontaneously flock above him, hovering to provide our Reverend General some much needed shade on a hot day."

The Orphan Master's Son is a wonderful novel for several reasons, and I've just skimmed the surface of the story here.  I had only a small problem in terms of reading, and that was with the juxtaposition from part one to part two, where I read a few pages, scratched my head and had to go back again to make sure what I'd read was correct.  Once I figured out what was happening and continued reading, all was explained and back into smooth reading zone I went. 

 It's very obvious that the author has done his research, even traveling to North Korea.  At one point I looked up kidnapping of Japanese citizens by North Koreans and was amazed to discover that this practice has been going on for some time.  Furthermore, the propaganda and mythmaking around Kim Jong-il so beautifully incorporated into The Orphan Master's Son is now being ramped up in real life for the new leader Kim Jong-un, as shown in this article. 

Very highly recommended, although his book may not be for everyone -- many readers might find the story too dark or bleak to get through, so if you're looking for a lighthearted read,  forget it.  It is gritty and often difficult to get through, with scenes of torture and prison life, starvation, famine and other hardships endured by regular people in a situation in which they have little or no control.  And although this book is very approachable from a reader standpoint, some  may be bothered by the change in narrative form from part one to part two, which admittedly is a bit confusing at first.   On the other hand, it is a book in which the author's imagination regarding this closed society comes to life and translates into a credible look at a place most people know only through news reports.  

I can't say exactly why I loved this book, but it is one that made its way under my skin and one  I will not soon forget.  Bravo, Adam Johnson!

first international giveaway of the year -- The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson

I'll be back to post what I think about this book shortly, but in the meantime, I LOVED this book so much I just bought a signed copy. That means I have my current copy available to give away.  There are no gimmicks, no this-many-points-for-doing-whatever, all you have to do for a chance for it to be yours is to leave a comment with an email address or your blog link.  International is no problem.  One week from today, January 20th, I'll be using random.org to select someone to take this book home & it will be off to the lucky person the following week.  Only one comment per person, please, to keep it fair.

Let me just say this about the book: for me, The Orphan Master's Son just set the bar for the rest of this year's reading -- I've never read anything quite like it and never expect to again.  I rarely ever give a book five stars -- this one is 5 plus.

Good luck!

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

9780345521309
Ballantine Books, 2011
320 pp

In early December, I selected Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast for my book group to read. While most of the group didn't share my enthusiasm toward that book, I loved it enough to read both versions.  During our discussion, one member of the group whose opinions I value started telling us about The Paris Wife, and she was so taken by it that I figured this book was something I really had to read.  You know those blogging memes that ask the question "Have you ever recommended a book to someone and they really disliked it?" or something along those lines -- well that's the situation here, but in reverse. With apologies to my friend Maxine, and feeling like a lone fish swimming against the current, I just wasn't all that impressed with this novel. 

McLain's book focuses on the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley, from their meeting to their decision to divorce, and then adds an epilogue with a phone call from EH to Hadley and then her learning of Hemingway's death thirty-plus years later.  The first part of the novel details their time together before their arrival in Paris, but the meat of the novel, of course, as in the couple's real lives, is found in what happens once they arrive there, told largely from Hadley's perspective, with a few entries from Hemingway's writing thrown in here and there so the reader can hear his voice once in a while. The Paris setting is something McLain writes well: the cold Paris winters, the shabby, cramped apartment the Hemingways called home, the Bastille-day celebrations where music playing outside kept them awake all night, the bohemian lifestyle of the artists in residence there, etc.  She also shows a changing Hemingway who once scoffed at the rich, but who later "saw a different kind of life and liked what he saw," as he moved from living the life of a poor, suffering writer to noticing that the "rich had better days and freer nights."  It is also very obvious that she's done a great deal of research in preparing to write this book.

My real issue with this book is this: if someone is going to write a novel in which the title character, "The Paris Wife," is the central focus, then that character should have some kind of personality. Instead, Hadley comes across as flat, a stick figure who even after finding out her husband is having an affair just sits and tries to wait it out. There's a scene where Hemingway and Hadley are napping one afternoon and Pauline, the future ex-Mrs. Hemingway #2, slides into bed next to Ernest and here's Hadley, describing her reaction:

"I was feeling so languid and so drugged,  I didn't even know Pauline was in the room until after she'd slipped under the sheets on Ernest's side of the bed. The afternoons were hot and we slept naked. I knew what was happening, and I also didn't want to come awake enough to feel it. I never opened my eyes...No one spoke or made any noise that would shake me out of my trance. The bed was sand, I told myself. The sheets were sand. I was still in the dream."

I don't know about you, but if a woman I knew was after my husband slipped into our bed while we were sleeping naked, I'd be a little pissed, and I definitely wouldn't be just laying there trying to ignore things.

Or try this one:

"He might ultimately fall out of love with Pauline and come fully back to me -- that was still possible -- but nothing was in my control. If I gave him an ultimatum and said she couldn't stay, I would lose him. If I got hysterical and made public scenes, it would just give him an excuse to leave me. All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game."

Really? Does she really want him back after all of this?

All through this book Hadley  is depicted as a flat, paralyzed kind of doormat person who shows very little emotion.  I get it that she started out as Hemingway's number one supporter, staying out of his way, making it possible for him to write because she felt that was what he needed, but another woman is an entirely different ballgame. As I was reading this novel, I kept saying to myself "why doesn't she do anything?" Okay, she gets sad, but so what? Hadley's monotonal and one-dimensional portrayal is unforgiveable since the book is about her.  And the rest of the characters also pale against what is known about them in real life.  Zelda Fitzgerald's character is a bit steamrolled here; Scott Fitzgerald barely gets a mention.  It's almost as if the author sacrificed character to get to the story, which is already well known. Too bad, really, because in terms of story, she does well -- given the events, it's difficult not to feel some pity for Hadley, and it's also interesting in terms of learning about Hemingway's early career years, so fleshing out the characters would have made this a top-notch read. 

I'd say that if you have a keen interest in the Paris years, I'd recommend Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, where that time comes alive in terms of time, place and his relationship with Hadley. There's also Gioia Diliberto's biography Hadley, reissued last year as Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway’s First Wife.  I may have to dig that one out and reread it here very shortly. However, there are many ardent fans of this novel out there, so maybe it's just me. With hefty 4 and 5-star ratings behind this book, readers are finding something to love about it.