'Anil's Ghost' by Michael Ondaatje

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I've just finished this book, and my brain is still rather clogged up with stray thoughts that I haven't processed yet, so I apologise if this review isn't very coherent.

First of all, I want to say that 'Anil's Ghost' is an amazing book. It is really really really good - the kind of good that gets inside your heart and your head and leaves you feeling slightly breathless after each chapter. The second thing I'd like to say is that this isn't an easy read. Michael Ondaatje started out as a poet, I believe, and like many poets, it shows in his writing. He writes through imagery, through capturing individual moments. His writing style isn't exactly linear, and his stories tend to twist and turn around in time, as if caught by some kind of current.

( Review follows with some light spoilers )

The Calligrapher's Night

[arantzain.livejournal.com]

I feel a trifle redundant, posting so recently after another community-member has reviewed this work, but I bought it on the strength of my interest in the subject, and wanted to offer that I enjoyed it quite a bit.

( Short review below. )

Christian Theology

[maebeth.livejournal.com]

Finally we are through the dead white guys (I exaggerate some, they are not all dead yet.)

So, some words on What it means to be church:

Lee, Jung Young, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology. (Fortress, 1995).
We've all been trying too hard to be in the center. True church is at the margins. This is an excellent book, hurt only by Lee's hyperbole when it comes to who is "in" and who is "out" of church. Yes, white churches are almost always focused on centrality, and have little experience on the margins. But that does not mean that ALL white people are trying to stay that way. Still, the basic theology is excellent and helpful.

Cone, James, Black Theology, Black Power (Orbis 1997).
This was actually written in 1969.
Excellent explanation of how white and black churches are tempted to buy into the idea of church as part of the status quo, and a radical call to give up that role. Sexist language was hard, but the preface to this addition includes an apology for that and an explanation that to have edited for this edition would have been to pretend he didn't have that very sexist past.

Bujo, Benezet, African Theology in its Social Context (Orbis 1992).
Radical idea of how Christian faith COULD be permitted to really adapt to local cultures, including an excellent section on how ancestor worship can be redeemed as ancestor appreciation and the idea of Christ as our common ancestor. This would lead to the idea that different tribes have the same ancestor and therefore can learn to cooperate. I don't have the knowledge to evaluate the African context, but appreciated the idea of radically removing the "christian" and "european culture" connection. This text was so sexist it was hard to read. Its hard to believe that Bujo even knows that women exist.

The Housemaid by Amma Darko

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

I'm going to quote from the back cover because I'm not good at summaries: A provocative portrayal of modern life in Ghana. A dead baby and bloodstained clothes are discovered near a small village. Everyone is ready to comment on the likely story behind the abandoned infant. The man have one opinion, the women another. As the story rapidly unfolds it becomes clear that seven different women played their part in the drama. All of them are caught in a web of superstition, ignorance, greed and corruption.

This book is basically all about the women. They're the ones who drive the story, it's told from their POV, and the male characters are almost insignificant. The women include a businesswoman, a street girl, a grandmother, two mothers, two daughters, a teacher, and the housemaid of the title. I thought seeing Ghana from all their different points of view was fascinating, and I loved the interwovenness of the story.

It's not a mystery in the conventional sense. 'Who' is revealed, I think, about half-way through. It then moves onto the why, which isn't what I first expected. I did like that, though: at the beginning of the book, various men were giving explanations as to why a mother would abandon her child (and calling for her to be hung, or to have her womb cut out and fed to her), and of course the true reason turned out to be far more complex. The ending is quite vague. It's never really revealed what happens to the mother, although it's hinted at.

I would definitely recommend this. It's short (only about 110 pages) but powerful, and I know I'm going to end up reading it again.

Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

This book is coming out in May from Kensington Press. I loved it. It's funny, surprising, bittersweet and big-hearted.

( Short, glowing review and very minor plot spoilers )

Please consider pre-ordering this book from your local independent bookseller! You can find a store near you here.

#6 Chimamanda Ngozi Achidie, Purple Hibiscus

[waelisc.livejournal.com]

Purple Hibiscus is beautifully written and compelling, and at the same time there's a lot of sadness in it. I ached for the characters.

The narrator is Kambili, a 15-year-old Nigerian girl. Her father is a wealthy and influential man - he owns factories, and a newspaper in Nigeria's capital city - and is widely respected. He has recently won an international human rights award, he gives money to every charity, he pays the school fees for scores of children from their home village. But at home he's a fanatically religious Roman Catholic and incredibly dictatorial about every detail of his family's lives. Kambili has protectively drawn into herself so completely that she rarely speaks, and has difficulty with stuttering when she does try to say anything. Her classmates envy the advantages they think she has and mock her awkwardness.

At the beginning I was horrified at how strongly Kambili's father identifies with white colonial power (including the white missionaries) and has absorbed all their worst, racist attitudes and beliefs. He criticizes everything Nigerian and aspires to do everything like the white people. As the novel goes on, though, it's harder and harder to sympathize with him. I'm still thinking through my reactions, but the question I'm wrestling with most is how the father became so extremely tyrannical. Was it only exposure to white European assumptions of superiority in his schooling that made Kambili's father the way he was? Or was he a man who was inclined to be domineering and controlling anyway, and that was encouraged and deepened by what he experienced in European-run schools and churches? The author doesn't speculate on this directly (that is, Kambili doesn't wonder how her father got to be the person he is) but there is the contrast of Kambili's aunt, her father's sister, who had the same education and religious training but lives a very different life.

Spoilers/warnings: Not a spoiler for the whole plot, just a heads-up that there is one incident of severe domestic violence 'onstage' and another half-dozen references to Kambili's father inflicting violence on his wife and children.

The Light Sang as It Left Your Eyes

[rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com]

I hope it's all right to post about poets as well. While the book below has been classified as poetry, it's actually more than that.

Here's a brief review: 

Eileen Tabios is one of the most prolific Filipino-American poets. She has a varied and exciting body of work in which the desire to engage the reader in a conversation is central.

"The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes" is an account of the passing away of Eileen's father as well as an account of the historical and political reasons behind their leaving The Philippines. There are plenty of poignant images in this book, and while it is classified as poetry, it could also be easily read as a memoir.

While this book is highly personal in its account, it is also very much political. The poet talks of the mail-order bride phenomenon, the phletora of Filipina penpal sites on the Internet, the objectification of the Filipina and how she has been transformed into a commodity.

Alongside this, is the personal aspect of the poet coming to terms with the loss of her father.  The poet reminds us of the transcience of life, our own human frailty and our vision of our parents.

Here is a poignant line that I think would resonate with many readers: 

I want my father immortal, but that’s beyond my control.

This book is available also from amazon.com as well as from Marsh Hawk Press
Eileen's blog can be found here.

01: Coming Through Slaughter

[mllesays.livejournal.com]

In Coming Through Slaughter, Michael Ondaatje reimagines the life of New Orleans jazz originator Buddy Bolden — who was never recorded — and spins scant details and one lone photo into a poetic fever dream of a novel.  In glimpses, short scenes, hymns, and epistolary-style documents, the novel uses the unstructured, improvisational style of jazz to tell the story of Bolden's life and his unexpected descent.  He was a cornet player like no other, loud, a parade favorite; he once disappeared for two years without a trace, and he spent the last years of his life in an asylum in northern Louisiana, where he never played a note.

This book is small, only about 150 pages, and it prefigures the book that made me love Ondaatje first, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid.  I wouldn't recommend to readers who need a structured narrative or who dislike experimental forms.  But I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in Dixieland jazz, New Orleans, strange tales about fairly tragic characters, prose poetry, or epistolary fiction.  Fans of Ondaatje's more traditional books should also find something of interest here.