State of Wonder

#706
Title: State of Wonder
Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2011
353 pages
Audiobook.

 A somewhat silly premise and conclusion, though that's okay for this light fare. I don't buy for a minute that she'd leave Easter. Another 20 pages of agonized decision-making could have rescued this. and served the novel's need for Marina to have learned something about herself, her own choices, and moral relativism in order to moderate her contempt for Mr. Fox.

The Shadow of the Wind

#705
Title: The Shadow of the Wind
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2005
500 pages

Grand themes of destiny, conflation/collapse, and perfect coincidences are engagingly drawn in broad strokes, similar to but grander than Q & A (Slumdog Millionaire). Occasional slips into magical realism weren't necessary and bugged me. Some parts fit together better than others; at best, it was like seeing something sucked into a whirlpool, disintegrated, and miraculously emerging in a different form. The burned man's identity was obvious early on. Oddly, I was simultaneously reading The English Patient, with its own burned man whose identity was important and concealed. 

The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come, Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream

#704
Title: The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come, Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream
Author: John Bunyan
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Year: 1666/2000
325 pages
Audiobook.

This is not a review of the religious sentiments expressed in this early allegorical novel.

The allegory itself was heavy-handed, perhaps because the art of fiction was still young. There is much in the way of deus ex machina, miracles and the like, while the plot is not much developed. It falls somewhere between Jaynes's "[the] god told me to do it" structure described in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and Forster's description of a plot (rather than a picaresque series of "and then... and then..." events).

Part 1 is far more engaging. Part 2 ("oh, yeah, women can be saved, too") seemed repetitious.

Emotionally, it was similar to reading the Left Behind series in that I have a hard time viscerally understanding why faith trumps acts. That, I suppose, demonstrates that I was raised in a very different spiritual and philosophical milieu. 

The English Patient

#703
Title: The English Patient
Author: Michael Ondaatje
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1992
302 pages
Audiobook.

The first of two books featuring a burned man with a mysterious, plot-twisting identity I happened to read simultaneously in some weird kismet-y thing.

I never saw the film, and this was so much better than anyone led me to believe that I must now a) re-evaluate everything I've ever been told; and b) read everything by Ondaatje that I haven't already.

The complaints I'd heard were that "it's boring" and "nothing happens," neither of which were my experience of it. I did think the parallelism, symbolism, and complementary aspects of characters and actions were pretty obvious and overblown, but I didn't find that this detracted from my enjoyment. I kept thinking, "If they made a film of this, I'll bet they'd...," so I suppose I'll have to see if they did.

The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice

#702
Title: The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice
Author: Trevor Corson
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2007
256 pages
Audiobook

This is two intertwined narratives, one interesting, one not. The uninteresting narrative is an account of a sushi training academy that doesn’t ring true for two reasons: First, the focal character, Kate, does nothing right until she is fairly advanced in her program. For someone who wants to work in sushi preparation, she and her classmates know less about sushi than I do as a casual consumer of Japanese food. Second, the knowledge deficits of Kate and company too neatly serve the structure of the book, providing the hook on which the interesting exposition hangs. Though the book identifies a website where one can see photos of these people, the audio version doesn't explain the author's relationship to them. Who are they to him? Did he follow them for three months? Reconstruct from interviews? Make up a tale based on some other source?

The part of the book that works well is the informational/descriptive sections, though early on I almost stopped listening when the author referred to ATP in the cells as "power pellets." This is a mystifying description and weirdly oversimplified given that he frequently references osmotic processes, amino acids, and the like. Perhaps the author was advised that the book would draw more readers if he associated the explanations about dashi, eels, and Japanese food preservation with a human story. This might work, but not if I don’t believe in this particular set of characters.

I did read this as an audiobook so it’s hard to check my recollection, but I come away with the impression that Kate is tolerated in the class because she is cute and wears tight clothes. Perhaps the real barrier to being a female sushi chef is that the profession, judging by this narrative at least, requires a great deal of oogling female patron’s breasts. 

#701
Title: Some Girls: My Life in a Harem
Author: Jillian Lauren
Publisher: Plume
Year: 2011
352 pages
Audiobook


The title is a misnomer—the author spent several months in a contemporary harem, but not her life. This is not a memoir about social justice or women’s rights, so although the author mentions the Asian women who may not have the option to leave, it is only in passing and without analysis.

Lauren is definitely a handful, and though her parents are not portrayed as stellar, neither does she seem particularly easy to have a relationship with. This is her self-report, but there was not enough emotional depth for me to tell whether the tone is intended to be matter of fact, proud, repentant, or something else. I experienced two commingling impressions throughout this fairly psychologically superficial book: First, that there were even more drugs involved than the narrative names; and second, that fairly early on, the author saw herself as writing a contemporary version of The Happy Hooker. Although there is a fair amount of detail, the “plot” of the story isn’t very compelling.

Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China's Other Billion

#700
Title: Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China's Other Billion
Author: Michael Levy
Publisher: Holt
Year: 2011
256 pages

Another in the Tales of the Peace Corps/Tales of China categories, though a reasonable rendering of both. More like River Town than Iron and Silk, Levy's memoir manages to be both entertaining and educational. Like Hessler, Levy captures the absurdity and at times the horror of living in an unfamiliar culture. Unlike Salzman, he describes what he's doing in the classroom ands his relationships with his students. The Chinese fascination with Judaism allows Levy certain outs of the "I'm not an American, I'm a Jew" variety. These are often useful when he needs to distance himself from inaccurate assertions about US culture. The statements about Jews are also often stereotypical or incorrect, but they are more admiring than vitriolic.

Levy wrestles with questions of identity and how to balance Peace Corps ideals with his own beliefs and practices. In this regard he does a better job than many, and I'd have wished for even more. Though not stylistically the best of the Returned Peace Corps authors, his writing is straightforward and flows without awkwardness. This and his self-reflection make this memoir better than some others for teaching international studies/field work preparatory classes.