Just Below the Surface

Book Review: Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

" ... men who spend their lives on the water know that magic is real."

On the surface, Tiphanie Yanique's Land of Love and Drowning is a multigenerational tale of a family in the Virgin Islands in the early 20th century. As such, it is an interesting enough novel, detailing the ways in which the characters interact -- their lives and loves and travails. The reader gets a taste of the island culture: the flavor of the language, the beauty of the landscape, the aroma of indigenous cooking.

But when the reader dives deeper, into the warm depths of Love and Drowning, he finds an entire world hidden below the relative calm above. Strong currents of racism, roiling storms of war, schools of segregation, and whirlpools of adultery lie in wait.

The transfer of the Virgin Islands from Danish rule to American guardianship turns out to be simply the exchange from one type of colonialism to another. The Americanization of the Virgin Islands brings the foreign concept of private property ownership, and the fencing off of the beaches. There was a gain in material comforts, but it was in exchange for a loss of liberty.

With the influx of American cars and plumbing and electricity came American racism and segregation. The fences on the beaches extend into daily life, with restrictions based on color lines. Miscegenation was frowned on, the historical mixing of African and European and Asian and Carib. Islanders who served in the armed forces returned from the mainland disillusioned; they had expected to be accepted by their new American compatriots, only to find doors closed to them.

Yanique skillfully interweaves the personal stories with the larger events to create a whole cloth - we see history from the personal perspective of the characters, and each is given equal weight. Placed against the magical, mystical background of the islands, Land of Love and Drowning gives us the Virgin Islands as microcosm; where Jim Crow and Hollywood intersect with the ebb and flow of the Caribbean and the bleached bones of a shipwreck, lying just below the surface.

"There are no cats in America"

Book Review: A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka by Lev Golinkin

In the animated movie, An American Tail, the simple immigrant mice have an idealistic view of the United States, including the belief that in America "there are no cats". Needless to say, they are shortly relieved of their naivete, and nearly of their lives as well.

In A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, Lev Golinkin presents us with a deceptively simple story - his story - and we follow this childhood memoir down its seemingly predictable path. And then, like a matryoshka doll, we find that there is another story tucked inside it; and inside that one, another -- and another.

"The anti-Semites didn't know -- they hated because they had been programmed to hate, and they obeyed because they had to obey to survive. No one knew, no one understood, and, as the old saying goes, one will always fear what one doesn't understand."

Inside Golinkin's childhood memories nestle the dark tale of anti-Semitism, the story of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the ongoing history of immigrants to America. Inside those are the personal stories of the Ukrainian people, the struggle of Jews seeking escape to the West, and the organizations and individuals trying to aid them. And deep inside it all, the story of Lev Golinkin and his family.

As I dove farther down into the nested stories inside Golinkin's Backpack, I began to reflect on how this plays out in America today. Immigration has become a hot button issue - but then it always has been. It was no different in decades past when the immigrants were Irish, or Italian, or German. Those who had already managed to secure the blessings of liberty were all too eager to quench the lamp, close the golden door, and leave the masses huddled outside.

"Every immigrant expects something from America. People don't scale fences, trudge through deserts, abandon careers, friends, loved ones, the graves of their parents, risk their lives without hope of something waiting for them on U.S. shores."

My grandmother emigrated from Russia at the turn of the 20th century. Her family was German, among many who had been invited to settle in the Volga Valley; but the political situation had changed, dangerously. Her parents put their two daughters, barely teenagers, on a ship to the United States. For them, America represented hope, and freedom from fear.

A Backpack and a Bear is not an essay supporting immigration. It is just the story of a Jewish boy in the Ukraine who held that hope. In the process it becomes the story of all those who have ever made that journey to stand in the light.

A Collection of Pieces and Parts

Book Review: Problems with People by David Guterson

I love short stories. There ... I said it.

It started with Steinbeck, but branched out into Hemingway, Kipling, and Edgar Allan Poe; then on to Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers - I was hooked. Detective stories, science fiction, horror ... pick a genre. They are short, sharp, succinct; something that you can read in a sitting but that can stay with you for a lifetime ("The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Snows of Kilimanjaro").

David Guterson is a skillful writer; I especially enjoy his crafting of dialog. There is no shortage of excellent writing in the ten stories that comprise Problems with People. Yet somehow, the great writing does not seem to jell into great stories. At times I felt as if I was reading a character sketch, or a chapter randomly lifted from another book. I appreciate that the short story puts constraints on an author in terms of character development and plotting, however "short" should not mean fragmentary - there still needs to be a story.

At times, especially in the stories "Shadow" and "Hush", Guterson is almost there. I did not have that same feeling with those as I did with the remaining stories - that this was a longer work with some pieces left out, like a badly edited newspaper story. Guterson's use of the language approaches poetry at times, and can be a joy to read, the words like fine wine on the tongue. The pieces within the stories are very well done, sadly the parts don't come together as a whole.

The Man and the Myth

Book Review: Enduring Courage: Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed by John F. Ross

Are heroes made, or are they born?
Webster defines a 'hero' as "a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities". It seems then, that to be a hero requires other people, people to admire and idolize; it is an extrinsic quality. Yet the same source defines the term 'heroic' as "having or showing great courage" - a purely intrinsic characteristic.

In reading John Ross' Enduring Courage, the reader is able to get a sense of the often conflicting definitions that we apply to our heroes. How many of our sports heroes, elevated to that status by media coverage and hype, have fallen from grace when we find out that they used performance enhancing drugs to get there? We maintain the expectation that somehow they are different, that they possess some inner strength or character trait that makes them different, we are disappointed to find it was simply a quest for their fifteen minutes of fame.

At the same time, there have been people who worked hard, persevered, and conquered. John Ross gives us a mixture of hyperbole and reality that truly conveys the dual character of Eddie Rickenbacker - on the one hand the hard-nosed, often un-likeable son of immigrants; on the other the self-promoting race car driver and aviator. Sometimes the flowery language of Enduring Courage seems to have been cribbed right off a 1914 advertising poster: "... his ability to handle with nerve and clear calculation those insanely chaotic moments at the edge of speed and fear." This is the 'hero' side of creating the idol, and Ross often goes over the top with his adjectives.

The heroic side of Eddie Rickenbacker lies between the lines, in the character and courage that he brought to bear in times of stress and adversity. This inner strength often alienated those around him, but it was an integral part of Rickenbacker, a foundation for all that he did and was to become. While it may be a less attractive target for flowery phrases, that core is what differentiates paper heroes from the truly heroic. Perhaps without really meaning to, Enduring Courage illustrates what we really want our heroes to be.

A Man and His Owl and a Reader's Dilemma

Book Review: The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar: Living with a Tawny Owl by Martin Windrow

In general, I do not approve of people keeping wild animals or "exotics", as pets. Quite frankly I don't care much for zoos or aquariums either, especially where the emphasis is entertainment rather than education (for example, Sea World).

The process of taming or containing our wild co-inhabitants often results in their physical and mental degradation and early death. To me, an integral part of the beauty of wild things is seeing them IN the wild.

Martin Windrow decided he wanted a tawny owl as a pet. And while I objected to the reasoning behind his decision, I found The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar to be a thoroughly entertaining story that is educational as well.

So much for preconceptions.

Interwoven with the stories of the trials of having an owl in your apartment (not for the faint-hearted!) there are lessons in the biology and behavior of owls in general, and of tawny owls in particular. Windrow obviously approaches his owl adoption seriously, although not always realistically. As with any pet, there are always unforeseen issues - but the scope of those issues is dramatically different when we're talking about a raptor as opposed to a tabby cat. But owl and man seem to come to a mutually agreeable compromise.

And there is no doubt that Windrow cares deeply about his feathered friend. Depending on how much emotion you want to ascribe to an animal, Mumbles the owl regards Windrow as a central figure in her life as well. That mutual regard and respect is key in our desire for relationships with others, regardless of the species.

Despite my reluctance, I was drawn into the story of The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar; it is filled with humor and humanity that appeals to the naturalist inside all of us. At times I felt there was a certain tunnel vision, a sort of denial on the part of Windrow that caging an owl was not exactly the humane thing to do, regardless of its birth. But aside from my personal objections, it is a captivating and enlightening story that is well worth the read.

Authentic Western

Book Review: Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks

"It begins and ends with horses, now and in history ... the horse alone has the power to transport us".

I was born and grew up in the Western United States. I have traveled from one side of this country to the other; I have seen some great places, but I cannot imagine living anyplace else. There is a flavor to the West that satisfies something inside me. I know that every part of the United States has its own personality, and that for different people, different places feel like 'home'.

When I read a story that is set in the West, I can quickly tell if the author has actually lived here. There is a different way of talking, a different way of looking at life that comes from long, empty spaces and sharp stark landscapes. I think you have to live it to describe it. There are a handful of writers who 'get it'; in Painted Horses Malcolm Brooks shows that he is one.

Painted Horses transports us to another decade, another way of thinking, yet not one that is really all that foreign to us. The battle between progress and historic preservation is still ongoing; we lose a little bit of our history every day. Brooks sets the scene, and begins to fill it with characters on both sides. With a playing field as big as the West, it can sometimes seem that the characters aren't even in the same game, but love of the land and its history ties it together.

Painted Horses has the marks of a mature and seasoned author, and the facets of the story are as varied as the colors of a Colorado sunset; when the glow finally fades and the stars come out, you can't wait to do it all over again.

Where Worlds Collide

Book Review: The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi (translated by Darryl Sterk)

"No other creature can share experience like this. Only human beings can, through writing, experience something separately together." - The Man with the Compound Eyes

Most of us lead what we consider simple lives. We look at the mundane activities of daily life - eating, sleeping, working - without consideration of how they affect, or are affected, by the world around us. Indeed, our quest for individuality seems to demand that we see ourselves as separate, living at the center our own little world.

The Man with the Compound Eyes is a novel of interconnectedness; where people, places, things, and even time periods come together, and "the finest movement of any organism represents a change in an ecosystem." Author Wu Ming-Yi takes us to a place where our mythic past of oral legends and wrathful gods meets our technological present of live news coverage and cell phones. There, on a beach in Taiwan, they must confront not only each other but the uncertain future as well, when the rising ocean dumps back all the trash people had dumped into it.

As if we have compound eyes, Wu Ming-YI allows us to see a single series of events from multiple perspectives; each intimately personal, yet remaining interrelated. Woven together with the threads of life, death, love, and loss, the characters in The Man with the Compound Eyes face their shared trials and individual travails. "Life doesn't allow you any preconceptions. Most of the time you have to accept what life throws at you, kind of like walking into a restaurant where the owner dictates what you're having for dinner."

Lyrical, mystical, yet ultimately real, The Man with the Compound Eyes is a subtly layered novel that shows us an intricate and multi-faceted world - the world we just happen to live in. An enjoyable read; the translation by Darryl Sterk is seamless. A welcome addition to my library, and highly recommended.