The Human Stain

#1067
Title: The Human Stain
Author: Philip Roth
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2001
384 pages

This surprising novel from Roth is like being at the surf line. The water, though in motion, has a calm, unbroken surface. Then suddenly something snags, or accumulates, or breaks its surface tension. It foams, bubbles, gushes, gnashes. If you're standing in it, you might be knocked down, dragged under, your ears filled with its roar as you tumble and scrape to the sudden calm liminal edge, emerging filthy with blood and seaweed, sand in your hair. That's what it's like to read this, and though it can be anticipated, the shock of the sudden chaotic surge never normalizes. I read along. Zuckerman; fine. I know Zuckerman. Then things tip just a little and I'm in someone else's point of view. That's okay, it's indirect discourse; no, not I'm really in it rather than having Zuckerman broker it for me. Now there's a growling, seething upswell of emotion, a torrent of personal information, a dislocation from the previous narrative, a searing, a pounding, a scouring--and back to the shallows with mud in my eyes and horrible crustaceans scuttling off. Sappho said, "If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble." This is only and entirely beach rubble, yet magnificent.

As to the plot, the plot is entertaining and witty. That's not what captivated me, though. It was the sustained and undulating and crashing waves, Portnoy's final rant fractally enhanced to become the whole world.

Highly recommended as an audiobook.

Muay Thai Fighter: A Farang's Journey to Become a Thai Boxer

#1066
Title: Muay Thai Fighter: A Farang's Journey to Become a Thai Boxer
Author: Paul Garrigan
Publisher: Maverick House
Year: 2012
223 pages

The title is a misnomer that I wouldn't pick at except that Garrigan identified the distinction between being a fighter and training. This is in some ways a shaggy dog story, in that Garrigan in fact never fights. "Muay Thai Training" would be a more accurate title. What happens here isn't a lot, and it could have been had Garrigan shifted his focus when it became clear that he wasn't actually going to fight. I think he could have had more to say about  his relationship to Muay Thai, its effect on his life philosophy, and how, in the end, not fighting might be an anodyne to the all-or-nothing thinking that he notes as part of his addictive approach. Not-fighting as a triumph of moderation is an interesting story. Not-fighting because so then I didn't fight after all isn't.

A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)

#1065
Title: A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)
Author: Khamboly Dy
Publisher: Documentation Center of Cambodia
Year: 2007
84 pages

Written at a high school/intro college level, this volume describes the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge using photographs and explanatory text. Generally clear, though additional sources of information might be useful for novices to this history, and valuable for the detail and immediacy provided by the photos.

World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2)

#1064
Title: World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2)
Author: Susan Ee
Publisher: Skyscape
Year: 2013
320 pages

This second installment advances the story through both action and information.

The reader learns more about angels and their politics, as well as the utility of strong relationships. Penryn matures over the compressed time scale covered here, evincing greater empathy and continuing to articulate her relational needs to herself. This, against a foreground of fast-paced events and sword-mediated flashbacks, demonstrates that it is possible for lovestruck teens in urban fantasy dystopias to enact their angst without artificially intruding on and disrupting the urgent momentum of the story's events.

Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide

#1063
Title: Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide
Author: Chum Mey
Publisher: Documentation Center of Cambodia (Documentation Series #18)
Year: 2012
108 pages

As is true for Bou Meng's book as well, this is one of three more-or-less first-person narratives from the group of 7 survivors rescued from Toul Sleng (S-21), a Khmer Rouge prison in Phnom Penh, when the Vietnamese retook the city. Chum Mey's account is somewhat less-well edited than Bou Meng's, but his book includes his confession (sic), as recorded by his interrogators.

Like Bou Meng, he describes his life, incarceration, torture, and preservation by the Khmer Rouge. Like most people held and interrogated in this prison, he has little idea why he was suspect.

Chum Mey sells copies of this book in the courtyard of the prison. He is politically active in Cambodia. For more information, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/world/asia/17cambo.html?_r=0

Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison S-21

#1062
Title: Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison S-21
Author: Huy Vannak
Publisher: Documentation Center of Cambodia (Documentation Series #15)
Year: 2010
86 pages

One of, I think, three more-or-less first-person narratives from the group of 7 survivors rescued from Toul Sleng (S-21), a Khmer Rouge prison in Phnom Penh, when the Vietnamese retook the city. (More than 7 survived Toul Sleng, but the others seem to have been early releases.) Bou Meng's account, which forms the core of this volume, appears to be an edited oral account. With the additional explanatory matter included, it is coherent and easy to understand, if not to fathom. Bou Meng describes his life, incarceration, torture, and preservation by the Khmer Rouge. Like most people held and interrogated in this prison, he has little idea why he was suspect.

Bou Meng sells copies of this book in the courtyard of the prison. For more information, see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/world/asia/17cambo.html?_r=0

Allegiant (Divergent, #3)

#1061
Title: Allegiant (Divergent, #3)
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Year: 2013
544 pages

Better than the first two in the series, this concluding volume explodes the narrative's assumptive frame and answers some of my earlier concerns about reductive culture-building, revealing this to be a structural element of the story rather than a failure of the writing. Good job, Roth!

I haven't read any other reviews yet, but I assume that all teen readers everywhere feel ripped off and angry that Tris and Four's love cannot conquer all. Them's the breaks in a non-wish-gratifying dystopian tale. Again, good job! Roth escapes the genre in the end. That, too, is frame-breaking.