POLYNIA

Polynia is defined as an area of open water surrounded by sea ice; in other words, icebergs. Well, our weird fiction guru, China Mieville, has written a delightful short story for Tor.com that surprisingly is not of his usual genre. The first line in the story makes the reader continue perusing, “When cold masses first started to congeal above London, they didn’t show up on radar.” Is it possible for icebergs to form in the sky? According to Mieville’s imagination, the answer is yes. This is the story of eleven year old Robbie along with his friends Ian and Sal running underneath these ice behemoths attempting to solve the mystery, so to speak. As the masses form into dangerous icebergs dangling over London, the government and greenhorn survey teams land on the bergs to investigate. Can they figure out the conundrum? What will happen if the icebergs bump into each other while the probers are still aboard the ice? And why has coral started to form on the buildings of Brussels?

This was an enjoyable break from Mieville’s normal neologistical and dubious style. Since I’ve read four of Mieville’s novels (The City & The City , Kraken , Embassytown and Railsea ), I’m not knocking his genre. It’s just that it’s refreshing to see that he can write in other manners. The great writers, such as Mark Twain, have been able to diversify their writings. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a satire with strong colloquial language, while The Prince and the Pauper is basically children's literature. Although Mieville isn’t in the class of the above mentioned author, he has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the British Fantasy Award. So lets give Mieville his due. Anyway, savor the story, it might be the last one that you can understand.

Is this one of the sky icebergs?


RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Reading Mieville’s short story got me thinking...What are the top three great American short stories? Wow, so many to choose from, but here are my choices:

Most likely number one in a lot of reviewer’s minds is The Gift of the Magi (1905) by O. Henry.Wikipedia says, "The Gift of the Magi" is a short story, written by O. Henry (a pen name for William Sydney Porter), about a young married couple and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been a popular one for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time. The plot and its "twist ending" are well-known, and the ending is generally considered an example of cosmic irony.

  Okay, now for number two. Since I love stories by Washington Irving, I picked The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), although I could have picked his Rip Van Winkle . Wikipedia says, “The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (historical Tarrytown, New York), in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. The most infamous spectre in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman said to be the ghost of a Hessian Trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during “some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head".

My last pick is again because I love the author, Edgar Allen Poe. But his The Purloined Letter is considered an American classic. Wikipedia says, “The unnamed narrator is discussing with the famous Parisian amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin some of his most celebrated cases when they are joined by the Prefect of the Police, a man known as G—. The Prefect has a case he would like to discuss with Dupin. A letter has been stolen from the boudoir of an unnamed female by the unscrupulous Minister D—. It is said to contain compromising information. D was in the room, saw the letter, and switched it for a letter of no importance. He has been blackmailing his victim.”

I must thank Wikipedia for making my explanation of these classic short stories easier.
 

BURNING UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

The author sent me a copy of his novel to review:

If I didn’t recently read and review (12/09/2012) Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom's Cabin, I would be attracted to Carl Waters’ (Volume 1) version of this American classic. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most important novel ever written for the American people with the possible exception of Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense. Mr. Waters' novel is the first of four planned novels dissecting the original novel. One would ask, why? Well, according to the author, “The Burning Uncle Tom’s Cabin series comprises four books whose narratives are told from the slaves points of view. I have removed many of the racial stereotypes, plot holes, and excessive preaching from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s world changing story.” Waters also states in the book’s introduction, “I do not understand or agree with Uncle Tom’s overall mindset.” This is where I disagree. In my mind, Uncle Tom is the most courageous and righteous character in American Literature. When Tom died in Stowe’s 1852 novel, it ignited a groundswell of opinion against the South and slavery. When Stowe met President Lincoln in 1862 at the White House, he called her “The little woman who started this great war.” And, I believe the character of Uncle Tom had a lot to do with purging America of slavery.

Burning Uncle Tom’s Cabin deals with Stowe’s sidebar story of George Harris, his wife Eliza and their son, Harry. George lives on the plantation of the wicked Frank Harris. George is on loan to a hemp factory where he invented a hemp-cleaning machine to the delight of his foreman, Charles Wilson. Understandably, George, through his hard work, has earned the right to occasionally visit his wife and son at the Shelby Plantation five miles away. George is planning his escape to Canada. Meanwhile at the Shelby’s estate, Eliza and her son are treated as family (if that’s possible). But trouble is brewing. One day a slave trader appears at the plantation. Eliza overhears the trader, Dan Haley, calling in a debt from Mr. Shelby. He wants Uncle Tom and Eliza’s Harry to settle the debt. Eliza warns Uncle Tom and then runs for Canada with three year old Harry.

Back at the hemp factory, Mr. Harris suddenly appears and wants George back on the farm, so to speak. Why? On page thirteen, Mr. Wilson protests losing George and the contemptible Frank Harris says, “I won’t have him stayin’ another minute, pickin’ up airs and thinkin’ too high of himself! This boy’s a lazy, no good Negro, ain’t never done anything worthwhile at my plantation!” Once back on the plantation, Frank Harris treats George badly, giving him the worst chores possible. George is told that he will never see his Eliza and Harry again; in fact, he is forced to take a wife that Frank Harris picks out. When George objects, he is severely whipped and branded on the palm of his hand. Later that night, one of Uncle Tom’s sons sneaks over to George’s shack and informs him that Eliza and Harry are on the run to Canada. Now George is also on the run! All of this happens during the first 77 pages. The rest of this unique rewrite revolves around the pursuit of the Harris family by the slave traders. Will they make it to Canada, or will tragedy strike? You will have to buy your own copy of this revised version of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic to find out.

I believe it would be more advantageous for Mr. Waters to write his own Southern Gothic novel rather than pursue this project. The task he is taking-on is very difficult. I see talent in his writing, but certain attributes he is trying to change are very difficult and awkward to modify. For example: the language used in his variant of the novel. In the 1850s, writers like Stowe and Mark Twain used the African American Vernacular English dialect spoken by the negroes of the time period. The author could have used a cleansed version of this dialect. I’m talking about using the local colloquial expressions of the whites (which the author did occasionally) and the negroes (which the author didn’t do) to make the novel more believable. This is very hard to do and still accomplish what Mr. Waters set out to achieve, namely a novel where the slaves are not inferior to the whites; have equal intelligence, and have the courage to shed their shackles. In a certain way, the author did that, but lost credence by not using a purified version of the local vocabulary of 1851. Anyway, I commend the author for taking on this very difficult endeavor, but it wasn’t original enough for me.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: In 1853, Stowe published, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin to dispute the claims from the South that the original book exaggerated the cruelty of the slaves. In the new book, Stowe gave documented examples of cruelty along with corroborative statements. The book was well received worldwide except for the South. The book sold 90,000 copies in the first month alone.

Goodreads.com states, “When first published, Uncle Tom's Cabin brought with its huge success enormous attention to the depravity of slavery. Many people, however, questioned the basis of truth of the novel. In response, Ms. Stowe gathered her research materials and published them in this now rare book.”

Wikipedia.org states, “The reaction of Stowe’s contemporaries to A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin was very similar to the reaction to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with both very positive and very negative reviews. The responses of abolitionists and Northerners in general were among the positive, lauding the proof of the evils of slavery and the confirmation of the truth of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The great interest in Uncle Tom’s Cabin in England also transferred to the Key. One English review of the 1853 publication called it a “marvelous book, more so if possible than Uncle Tom’s Cabin itself.” This same review also commends Stowe’s self-control and character. This impression of Stowe and the reception of the book is much different than the reaction to the Key in the South.

The pro-slavery response to the Key paralleled the response to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Despite Stowe using documented examples to make the Key a verification of the truth of Stowe’s depiction of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, most Southern reviews still claimed that Stowe was misrepresenting slavery and exaggerating the cruelty of the institution. A review in the Southern Literary Messenger called the Key a “distortion of the facts and mutilation of the records, for the sake of giving substance to the scandalous fancy, and reduplicating the falsehood of the representation.” Although these reviews claimed that Stowe was misrepresenting slavery, they did not accuse Stowe of using false documentation. Rather they claimed that the examples that Stowe provides are the most extreme instances, which she gathered to give the worst possible impression of the institution of slavery, and of the south. One critic, William Simms, accused her of using faulty argumentation by gathering facts to prove her assumption, instead of forming assumptions based on facts. Another pro-slavery reaction to both Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin was, rather than critiquing the work itself, a critique of Stowe’s character. Many reviews made insinuations about what sort of woman Stowe must be to write about such events as were found in the Key. One review by George Holmes questioned whether “scenes of license and impurity, and ideas of loathsome depravity and habitual prostitution [are] to be made the cherished topics of the female pen” and appealed to women, especially southern women, not to read Stowe’s productions.”

Historyengine.richmond.edu discovered some disdain for Stowe’s Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin dated 7/1/1853, “In 1853 Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the companion to her famous novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and she titled it A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her purpose in writing the book was to explain why she thought that whites were still unwilling to take pity on slaves. While Stowe claimed that she understood that slaves were more than property, she postulated that other whites still saw slaves as sub-human. Stowe did admit that she did not fully understand blacks, but she thought that by applying Christian kindness to them, their situation might be helped. One shocking thing that Stowe revealed was that she believed that slaves repulsed themselves; she wrote that they thought they were evil because their skin was black. She did not think that blacks were capable of reaching the same intellectual and moral heights as whites, and she blames that inability on their disgust in themselves. Southerners were not at all pleased with Stowe's book. Critics characterized it as having a narrow field of view. She was accused of making generalizations about Southerners as being unaffected by the plights of slaves. This bothered critics who felt that Southerners were not deficient in their morality. One critic tried to explain that the North had the same prejudices as the South. He wrote wherever man is found, we find equally the same vices, crimes, and weaknesses. Southerners were also alarmed at the lack of biblical references in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. They felt that she was writing too righteously not to be using the Bible. The outrage caused by Stowe's book in South was significant because it exemplified the schism between what southerners thought about northerners, what northerners thought about southerners, and the truth.”

Drawing of Eliza and Harry jumping the ice floes (a 1938 book edition)

The GOLDFINCH

Donna Tartt’s novel certainly merits the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, but does have some discernible flaws (we will discuss later). I saw the CBS interview with Donna Tartt and now understand why her prose is so impeccable. She takes ten years to write a book! She wrote one novel each at the ages of 29, 39 and 49. She is influenced by the writing style of Charles Dickens, which accounts for her incredible, descriptive writing. The aftermath of the museum explosion extends for a suspense filled eighteen pages (pp. 31-48). We see the outcome of the detonation through the eyes of our narrator and protagonist, Theo Decker. This was one of several sections the author wrote that I thought was exceptionally proficient. I also thought introducing Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1868 novel, The Idiot, was a clever writer’s ploy since the Russian novel is a classic study of the conflict between good and evil, which abounds in Tartt’s novel. Lastly, this might seem trite, but I loved the author’s generous use of commas, semicolons and dashes. I know that there are grammatical rules for their usage, but I like ‘a little extra cheese on my pizza’ (is that a idiom?). What is the story about?

Okay, Theo Decker is a thirteen year old student living in N.Y.C. who gets into dubious trouble in school and gets suspended. Now his estranged mom and Theo head for the school for a meeting. They are early, it’s raining, so they duck into an art museum to pass some time and see the Dutch artist exposition, mainly Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson and C. Fabritius’s The Goldfinch. Theo is mesmerized with a red headed girl (Pippa) his age accompanied by a old man presumed to be her grandfather (Welty). As Theo and his mom walk to the gift shop, mom decides to go back to see the painting one more time, leaving Theo in the shop alone when he spots the girl and her companion again. Just as he approaches the girl, a massive explosion occurs in the museum. He is covered in debris and disoriented. He hears the old man groaning and goes to him. The girl is nowhere to be seen. The old man is dying. Where is mom? The old man spots “a dusty rectangle of board” covered in rubbish and wants Theo to get it. My God, it’s The Goldfinch painting. The old man (Welty Blackwell) wants to know where Pippa is. Theo doesn’t see her (why am I using so many short sentences?). He gives Theo his “heavy gold ring with a carved stone” and tells him to take it to Hobart and Blackwell. “Ring the green bell.” Theo finally finds his way out of the museum, dazed and hurt, unable to get anyone to help him. He still has the painting. He walks home in the rain to wait for his mom to return from the museum. Guess what, she’s dead, and suddenly Theo is alone.

Is Theo going to experience the same problems that Pip in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations endured? Maybe. Mom doesn’t come home, a social worker from the Department of Child and Family Services calls, and the story is off and running (idiom alert). The reader is going to encounter the peculiar Barbour family, agonize over Theo’s life with his dad in Las Vegas, meet his crazy Russian friend, Boris, and delight in Theo’s relationship with Hobart (Hobie). What happened to Pippa? And what about The Goldfinch? Who has it and what will become of it? It is the focus of the story, yet the author occasionally seems to forget about it for a hundred pages or so. I guess that can happen in a 771 page novel. The cigarette smoking, vodka drinking and drug using Boris is a character that the reader loves and periodically hates. The author has the unique ability to make the reader like the characters she wants you to like (Theo, Hobie, Pippa, Mrs. Barbour, Andy and sometimes Boris) and hate the characters she wants you to hate (Theo’s dad, Boris’s dad, Lucius Reeves, Tom Cable and sometimes Boris). Can this lady write or what?

Alright, now for the flaws. When the reader gets to page 643...suddenly it’s a race to the finish line; the author can’t wait to get to page 771. Why? The novel was plodding along nicely for 642 pages and probably nine years of Donna Tartt’s life. If you are writing a book that long, what difference does it make if the novel is a couple hundred pages longer? The extra pages would have given the author the time needed to develop all the new characters that turned up near the end. Lastly, what was that life and death tirade (in the last five pages) all about? Don’t get me wrong, I loved the book...it’s just that it could have been better.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: As I said before, Donna Tartt has only written two previous novels, The Secret History (1992) and The Little Friend (2002), winner of the WH Smith Literary Award (2003).So lets take a look at these books:

The Secret History: Amazon.com says: “Donna Tartt, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her most recent novel, The Goldfinch, established herself as a major talent with The Secret History, which has become a contemporary classic.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.”

Goodreads.com says: “Richard Papen arrived at Hampden College in New England and was quickly seduced by an elite group of five students, all Greek scholars, all worldly, self-assured, and, at first glance, all highly unapproachable. As Richard is drawn into their inner circle, he learns a terrifying secret that binds them to one another...a secret about an incident in the woods in the dead of night where an ancient rite was brought to brutal life...and led to a gruesome death. And that was just the beginning....”

The Little Friend: Amazon.com says: “The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss. Filled with hairpin turns of plot and “a bustling, ridiculous humanity worthy of Dickens” (The New York Times Book Review), The Little Friend is a work of myriad enchantments by a writer of prodigious talent.”

Goodreads.com says: “Bestselling author Donna Tartt returns with a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence and evil.

The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss.”

Picture of The Goldfinch by C. Fabritius (1654), the main focus of the novel:

Ashlynn's Dreams

The author sent me an autographed copy of her novel to review:

Gadzooks! An epistolary novel with a whisper of science fiction. A remarkable novel written by Julie C.Gilbert based entirely on letters, journals and once with post-it notes sent to our heroine’s shrink lady, Dr. Sokolowski. Does this story measure up to my favorite epistolary novel, Elizabeth Kostova’s, The Historian? No, but this is a YA novel, not a dark adult story involving Vlad the impaler. Gilbert is a different kind of writer and I like that. I prefer writers who gamble with artistic techniques that might not be discernible to the provisional reader. Hey listen, I’ve read four novels by China Mieville. Did I earn my stripes? All I’m saying is that I like a novelist who pushes the envelope a tad. This is a well written novel with a little bit of bounce. Good job, Julie!
 
The story itself is about a gifted twelve year old girl named Jillian and her high school babysitter (is there a better word for one who watches a twelve year old?), Danielle. Jillian just moved to New Jersey with her mom and stepdad, Jeffrey, who manages a candy store. Everything is great until one day Jillian and Danielle are kidnapped at home. They find themselves in an unknown lab filled with scientists and researchers headed by a Dr. Devya. Welcome to Devya’s Children! Jillian doesn’t know what they want from her, but quickly realizes that it’s not ransom (certainly not from a candy store manager). She does find out that she was a test tube baby with genetic material from four women and two men and then put into to an artificial womb. She finds out that her real name is Ashlynn and she has seven siblings living in the compound. Is Dr. Devya experimenting with genomes in order to produce gifted children? If the answer is yes, then why? What is Jillian’s gift?

Dr. Devya discloses to Ashlynn that her gift is the ability to shape dreams, in other words, get into someone’s dreams and make them do what you want. And he makes her practice while he holds Danielle hostage. He is not nice to them. Finally, Dr. Devya explains that her twin brother, four year old Benny, has been kidnapped from the Governor of New Jersey, an ardent supporter of Dr. Devya. How can Ashlynn’s twin brother be eight years younger? Well, he was frozen for eight years. Don’t ask why, you will have to read the book for that answer. Anyway, Dr, Devya wants Ashlynn to find out where Benny is being kept so his men can bring him back. Did the rival group of scientists called the Guardian take him?There are a lot of mysteries among these two groups and the gifted children that will culminate into a terrific final hundred pages.

I have to tell you that I do enjoy avant-garde writers and their novels, not that Julie’s book was that far out of the box. But I don’t think that it is easy to tell a story using only letters and journals. All these letters written to Dr. Sokolowski (Dr. S), beginning on page four, were written after the kidnapping was over. I would like to see Julie do an ergodic literature novel involving the same eight gifted children. That would be a trip. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves . Anyway, I highly recommend this novel by another female writer ‘on the rise’ (yes, I still love my idioms).

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Lets talk about the two books I mentioned in the review. Elizabeth Kostova’s novel, The Historian  was a true epistolary novel and the scariest book that I’ve ever read. Her second book, The Swan Thieves , didn’t quite do it for me, but hopefully she is working on a third novel that will rock me again. Elizabeth says this about her first novel: “To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history…
Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to ‘My dear and unfortunate successor’. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of – a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history.” And believe me, you future readers, this novel is groundbreaking.

The second novel that I mentioned in the review is not only epistolary, but also ergodic. If you haven’t read this book, do yourself a favor and read it. Goodreads.com says this about the novel, “Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.”

What does Goodreads.com think is the number one epistolary novel? Well, it’s Mary Ann Shaffer’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.”

By the way, the book that came in second is Alice Walker’s classic, The Color Purple . My biggest problem with literature is the fact that I will not live long enough to read all these great books. Oh, well. Is there a book heaven?

Are these the people waiting to analyze Ashlynn’s dreams?

ACROSS GREAT DIVIDES

The author sent me a copy of her novel for review:

Monique Roy writes an rousing story about a Jewish family leaving Germany during the start of WWII with the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) hot on their tails. The author must have paid attention at SMU because her prose is excellent. On the other side of the coin, the story is a little calculable at times, especially in regards to the family’s close call escapes. By this I mean the author seems to be overprotective of her characters. She says that this novel was inspired by her grandparents flight out of Germany, so I’m assuming that the family in the novel is fictitious. By the way, God bless her grandparents for their harrowing experience circumventing the Nazis. In my opinion, when writing a story of this ilk, the author has to have a little of George R.R. Martin in her. In another words, have a little unpredictability about the safety of her main characters. It makes a normal novel into a suspenseful page-turner. Okay, enough said about that, because I don’t want to start adding spoiler alerts. I’ve done several reviews recently involving Nazi Germany, including Ellen Marie Wiseman’s The Plum Tree and Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, and I would say that Monique Roy’s novel is on a slightly lesser plateau, although very entertaining and well written.  

At a performance of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1932, twins Eva and Inge spot a beautiful woman wearing a dazzling diamond and emerald necklace. They also see a small man with a attractive lady on his arm that terrifies the twins. He is Adolf Hitler. Thus begins the story of Oskar (father), Helene (mother), the twins, and their brother Max, a law abiding Jewish family living and working in the upscale diamond district. I think that the diamond and emerald necklace plays an interesting part in this novel. Well done, Monique Roy. Anyway, in 1933 the mood in Germany changes drastically. Hitler has new laws passed that make Jews second class citizens. The twins school friend, Trudy, is suddenly distant and joins the Nazi Youth Party. Jews are no longer allowed to own a business, they can’t have sex with a non-Jew, and finally they are no longer citizens. Then on 11/9/1938 Kristallnacht happens (the "Night of Broken Glass"). Over a thousand Synagogues are burned down, and 30,000 Jewish men and boys are sent to concentration camps. The Nazis relieve Oskar of the diamond and emerald necklace that he just repurchased from the lady at the concert in Berlin.

Oskar’s family decides to leave Germany with their diamonds sewn into their clothes. With the help of Max’s friends and a lot of luck, they make it to Antwerp, Belgium. They settle in the Jewish part of town in the heart of the diamond district. Oskar and his family start a business with all the diamonds they smuggled out of Germany. Life is okay for awhile, Inge marries Isaac and Eva and Carmen get married. “MAZEL TOV” to the couples. Then the unthinkable happens - Germany attacks Belgium. Here we go again. Now the family tries to find peace in Rio de Janeiro. You will have to read the book to find out what happens there. I’m guessing probably not good. After two years, more trouble arrives! Okay off to Cape Town, South Africa. Will they finally find tranquility, or more distress and/or harassment? Now, I left out a lot of previous trouble they got into to get to this point of the story. By the way, what happened to Eva and Inge’s Nazi classmate,Trudy? There is a lot going on in this story that moves from Germany to Belgium to Brazil to South Africa. Here is what I wanted to know: How is this honorable Jewish family going to react when in 1948 the Reunited National Party of South Africa declares Apartheid as a policy of rigid segregation? How did Oskar’s family feel about their neighboring Aryan German citizens when they didn’t do anything to stop the Nazis from attacking them? Will they stand aside like their German counterparts and watch the blacks get trampled, or will they stand up for the blacks. The answer is very engaging. I highly recommend this novel by Monique Roy.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: My question of how Oskar and his family will react to ‘Apartheid’ is a good one. In other words...How do you feel with the shoe on the other foot (I love idioms)? Oskar didn’t like it when his neighbors did nothing to help him, but will he risk his safety and go against South Africa’s stern policy of segregation to help the blacks?  Believe it or not, there is a good book about this subject called, My Race: A Jewish Girl Growing Up Under Apartheid in South Africa by Lorraine Lotzof Abramson. Goodreads.com says: “My Race is the memoir of a gifted Jewish athlete growing up under the apartheid system of South Africa.

As both an outsider excluded from the conservative Christian mainstream and an insider who reaped many of the benefits of a society founded on white supremacy, South African track star Lorraine Lotzof Abramson had a unique vantage point on the apartheid experience.

Her grandparents left Eastern Europe to escape oppression, only to find themselves in another oppressive society. This time, by virtue of their white skin, they were on the same side of the fence as the oppressors. Lorraine's first-hand account shares her ambitions, her achievements, her losses, her family ties -- and her growing unease with the system of social inequality that simultaneously excluded her and celebrated her.

She eventually closes the door on the South African chapter of her life by immigrating to the United States, while her family remained in South Africa. Along the way, Lorraine learns that the real race -- the marathon that is a long and eventful human life -- is a journey towards compassion.”

A provocative book written by Ruth Kluger, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered is one of the best written about the subject. Goodreads.com says: “Instead of God I believe in ghosts," writes the literary scholar Ruth Kluger in this harrowing memoir of life under the yellow star, a controversial bestseller in Germany.

Born in Vienna, Kluger somehow survived a girlhood spent in Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Gross-Rosen. Some of the lessons she imparts are surprising, as when she argues, against other historians, that the female camp guards were far more humane than their male counterparts, and when she admits that she has difficulty today queuing in line, a constant of camp life, "out of revulsion for the bovine activity of simply standing." Her memories of her youth are punctuated by sharp reflections on the meaning of the Shoah, and how it should best be memorialized in a time when ever fewer survivors are left to act as witnesses. Those reflections are often angry -- "Absolutely nothing good came out of the concentration camps," she writes, recalling an argument with a naive German graduate student, "and he expects catharsis, purgation, the sort of thing you go to the theatre for?" But they are constantly provocative, too. Though readers will doubtless take issue with some of her conclusions, Kluger's insistent memoir merits a wide audience.”

This is what Kristallnacht looked like in the Jewish section of Berlin on 11/9/1938:

THE ROAD TO GOD

The author sent me an autographed copy of his novel to review:

When I first got a hold of this novel, I thought it was going to be one of those Holy Roller publications. Then when I got into the book, I thought that this novel was heading for the road to perdition. But it’s really a mixture of these two predominant religious/anti-religious pathways. In my opinion, Anthony Rhine wrote a credible story balancing the inner happenings of a large Christian Church (not sure what denomination but most likely Protestant), and the mystery of afterlife. This book didn’t seem like it would work, but it did in a far-reaching way. The novel held my interest for all of the 346 pages. I’m not sure I can compare this novel with another since the subject matter is so diverse. As a sidebar to the story, the reader is also educated on the differences between Scientology (all eight dynamics), Buddhism, Mormonism, and Hinduism from page 222 through page 241. So what is this story about? Okay, it’s time for a synopsis.    

Our protagonist and narrator is Daniel Bolton. Dan has an unusual trait passed onto him by his mother. He can talk to the dead (mentally) right after they die, normally between four to ten days after passing. The dead are always in a dark transition room waiting to see the light. He has learned bits and pieces of information from them over the years. It seems that the light is called concatenus, which is a place where all spirits go to be linked together and share the intelligence with the whole (God?). Some of the dead get reincarnated instead of going back into the light. Dan is not sure about the people who are going to hell since he has never talked to one. On page 84, Dan states, “You see, enough chats with spirits in transition have given me small glimpses into what awaits us beyond this earthly world, and I have been able to piece those glimpses together to get a sense of where we are going.”

After High School, Dan gets a job with the Elizabeth Community Church as an actor in a play being performed at the church. The Pastor, Greg Woolfe, is a vile, bigoted man married to Violet Black, a cold, offensive assistant to the pastor (these are the road to perdition people). Somehow Dan prospers at the church and keeps moving up the ladder until he is on equal footing with Violet. Greg sends both of them to the seminary for gratis with the stipulation that they have to stay with the church until he retires. Greg and Violet have many poisonous foul mouthed arguments throughout the novel. Then Dan has a one-night stand with Violet (very bad move). Subsequently, Dan falls in love with a teenage actress, Melissa, acting in one of their plays at the church. He now has the obnoxious Violet Black as a enemy for life. The affair with Melissa is also going to cause grief for Dan in the future.

What I liked about the novel was the way the author switched back and forth from the church activities to Dan’s talks with the dead. Most notable was Dan’s discussion with a dead man named Chen. Apparently, they were speaking Mandarin. They had a long talk while Chen was in the dark transition room. On page 246, Chen says, “I can tell you this: I was right  to live a good life. I was right to believe that I would one day be where I am now and I was right that I  would eventually go back to where I am to go back to.” “Concatenus?” I (Dan) wanted to say it again, seeking further confirmation. “Daniel, that is only a word” (answers Chen). This is some good stuff. So what I am wondering is this: Does the author believe in the afterlife that he describes in this titillating story? Well, maybe he will post a comment on this review and reveal his thoughts. Listen, I only gave you tidbits of what this novel is about, there is much more woe ahead for our hero Dan in the ensuing pages. I highly recommend this enlightening novel, so go out and buy your own copy.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Having previously read Mitch Albom’s The First Phone Call from Heaven: A Novel and Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven (both reviewed on my blog), this is the third novel that I have read recently dealing with the afterlife. I’m not sure if it is because I’m getting old or just coincidence. There are two more novels dealing with the afterlife that I want to read:

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones . goodreads.com says: "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, THE LOVELY BONES succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.

The second book is Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven . goodreads.com says: “Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination, but an answer.”

“In heaven, five people explain your life to you. Some you knew, others may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

Is this what the transition room from Anthony Rhine’s novel looks like?