We Need New Names

#1038
Title: We Need New Names
Author: NoViolet Bulawayo
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Year: 2013
298 pages

Linked short stories generally follow Darling, a Zimbabwean girl, from her hungry, conflict-saturated childhood in Africa to her dislocated/relocated young adulthood in the U.S. Most of the sections worked well, though the end point of some didn't resonate or satisfy. There are some intrusions of a poetic narrator, best understood as Darling's philosophical future self, perhaps. They add complexity and perspective, but are at times heavy-handed and detract from the intensity I imagine the story would have had if it stayed tightly connected to the developing and acculturating protagonist.

A creditable first novel. Nicely read by Robin Miles.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

#1031
Title: Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1990/1991
216 pages

A YA novel that is delightful in and of itself for its story, language play, and relationships. However, knowing that Rushdie wrote it for his son while he was in hiding, and why he was in hiding, adds additional levels to the reader's appreciation. 

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

#1017
Title: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Author: Karen Joy Fowler
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Year: 2013
310 pages

Quite a lovely novel--poignant, funny, upsetting, redemptive. If possible, read this without reading any synopses or the jacket copy until you're about maybe 75 pages in (I listened to it, so I'm not sure) when you'll recognize the big reveal that, for some reason, everyone thinks it's fine to expose for you. I enjoyed the plot, as I think many psychology students would, and its narration by a smart and socially awkward young woman. I here disclose that I got in some trouble as a 4th grader in a way that this narrator would identify with: Asked by the teacher if anyone knew what made an animal a mammal, I shouted out, "Mammals breast-feed their young!" While accurate, this is evidently not how 9-year-olds are supposed to express this idea.

In addition, I would swear that Fowler sat at a cafe table behind me and my best friend one day as we were recapping events from our lives. In this fantasy, Fowler jotted notes like "Stanford" and "herb names for offspring" and "X dies in late 50s" and "cross-dressing Shakespeare??" and then appropriates these details for her novel. At some points it was uncanny. I've only had this experience with Maso's The Art Lover before, but Fowler manages to channel enough details about me and my friend that it's almost creepy.

UFO in Her Eyes

#1009
Title: UFO in Her Eyes
Author: Xiaolu Guo
Translator:
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2009/2010
Country: People's Republic of China
208 pages

I do have some trouble with Chinese writers on tyranny, since their conclusions seem obvious to me. I have to keep reminding myself that the context in which they're published is much more dangerous than that in which the translation appears.

Here, a peasant may or may not have seen a UFO, which she dutifully reports. From there we observe the attitudes of villagers and outside officials toward each other, and the exploitation of the event. Abuse of power is a strong theme.

Nazi Literature in the Americas

#998
Title: Nazi Literature in the Americas
Author:  Roberto Bolaño
Translator: Chris Andrews
Publisher: Picador
Year: 1993/2010
Country: Chile
260 pages

While I found the concept and execution of this novel (fake lit crit) interesting and engaging, I also found it emotionally inaccessible. I kept waiting for more connections to the Americas' own repressive regimes. While this was present, and more so in the longest end piece, it seemed uninspired and thus plodding.

The Good Muslim: A Novel

#997
Title: The Good Muslim: A Novel
Author: Tahmima Anam
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2011/2012
Country: Bangladesh
320 pages

A sad novel about identity and how different family members make meaning of horrific events in the wake of the country's independence movement. I stands alone, though it's the second of a series. Some sections that seem thin may assume the reader has knowledge from the first book; not having read that book, I can't say.