Interesting Recently-Read Books

"The British Museum Is Falling Down"

Adam Appelby, a postgraduate student and already a father of three children, wakes up to a sense of intense worry -- his wife's period is overdue. Are they to become parents to another child? They certainly cannot afford it. But despite the infrequency of their intimate moments and the care with which they follow the only birth control methods allowed by the Catholic Church, the children keep on coming. As Adam says, "Literature is mostly about having sex and not having children. Life is the other way around..."

The book follows Adam through the rest of the day. A day full of worry and listless (and unproductive) hours in the reading room of the British Museum, where Adam is coming nowhere closer to even starting his dissertation. A meeting with his advisor and a departmental sherry hour later in the day are a source of further anxiety for Adam, and a chance for the reader to have a glimpse at the immensely complicated world of academic politics.

Strong minded priests, an eccentric friend by the name of Camel, butchers with missing fingers and a teenage girl bent on using Adam as an instrument of her defloration complete the cast of this short novel intended as another voice in the discussion of the attitude of the Catholic Church toward birth control. The novel is written in a lighthearted tone even though it makes it clear that its subject is very serious for some people, notably Adam Appelby and his wife Barbara. Hopefully few people can truly relate to their problems but the book is still an enjoyable and interesting read.

"Animal Farm"

This well-known allegorical story tells of a farm where animals, fed up with being mistreated by the farmers, one day chase humans away and start their own idealistic society based on equality and freedom of all animals. On a self-managed farm all animals contribute according to their abilities, nobody steals and the work is done faster than under the human rule with the animals feeling much more contented with their lot than ever before. A year or two later problems begin to emerge however: there is a clear rift in the leadership that results in a violent clash between two most outspoken leaders. The equality of all animals becomes less obvious as the animals in positions of power award themselves new privileges. Eventually, a new system of exploitation emerges.

The story shows a beautiful but vulnerable dream turn into ugly reality. Lies and intimidation perpetrated by some of the animals, supported by blind idealism of others and cowardice and stupidity of the rest, allow the system to degenerate, while appearances of success are crudely kept up.

The story was meant as a criticism of Stalinist Soviet Union. Orwell, himself an idealistic socialist, had once fought in Spain's civil war in a unit where many of its members were followers of Trotsky - one of the key figures in early Soviet Union. When Trotsky was later declared an enemy of the state, his memory was diligently purged from all records and photographs. Orwell saw how the purge resulted in many of his friends being short, imprisoned or abducted without a trace. This and other observations are reflected in the events that take place on the Animal Farm.

Although the Soviet Union no longer exists, the book is still worth reading to remind us of how persistent lies and intimidation can turn a good idea into an ugly nightmare.

"Life of Pi"

This book is about a Story, and the Story is about an Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel but "known to all as Pi Patel". The Story is as incredible as it is convincing: it tells us of a sixteen year old boy, who survives 227 days in a life boat in the sole company of a Bengal tiger drifting across the Pacific Ocean. But this Story is more than just "The Young Boy, A Tiger, And The Sea."

It is Pi himself, who narrates the Story, and he begins by telling us of the times, early in the history of Indian independence, when his family became the owners of the zoo in the town of Pondicherry. The unusual upbringing in the company of animals from all over the world, gives Pi a deep, even if unorthodox, insight into the feelings of the zoo animals and their needs, happiness and notions of freedom. The originality of his thinking is not confined to the zoo animals, however, and he proceeds to tell us how he ended up becoming a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim, all at the same time. But the heart of the Story begins later.

The real Story begins when Pi's family, frustrated by Indian politics, decides to sell the zoo and emigrate to Canada. Pi is 16 years old when his family boards a Japanese cargo ship headed for the cold and unfamiliar North American country. A fair number of the zoo animals end up on the same ship, on their way to zoos throughout the United States. When the ship sinks, only Pi, a hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, an orang-utan and a Bengal tiger manage to avoid drowning by boarding a life boat. The rest of the Story is about the ingenuity and the resolve that allow Pi to land safely at the shores of Mexico more than seven months later.

This is a beautiful piece of prose and it should be read by everybody, especially those, who upon reading the first few pages of the book reach for a phone book to look for Mr. Piscine Molitor Patel to congratulate him on his survival and to and to ask if this really is his story.

"The Black Obelisk"

The Black Obelisk paints a portrait of Germany in early 1920's, a period marked by hyper-inflation and rising nationalism. Although I saw some people describe the book as boring, I could hardly stop reading it and it is my favorite book by Remarque at this point.

Ludwig is in his early 20's and he, just like most of his friends, is a World War I veteran. Although aspiring to be a poet, he works for a friend of his, Georg, running the office of a small tombstone company. He tries to earn some extra money as a private tutor to a son of a bookstore owner, and by playing the organ at the chapel of a local insane asylum. Thanks to this diversity of activities, Ludwig interacts with a wide cross-section of the German population of his town and the surrounding villages and we are allowed to witness those interactions. We see, for example, businessmen -- some trying to stick to the old principles and going bankrupt, others speculating on stocks, exploiting the system and becoming rich in morally ambiguous ways. We see war veterans -- some highly critical of the old ways that led them to a failed war, others longing for the old days of military discipline and turning into inflexible nationalists hailing the virtues of their rising leader, Adolf Hitler. We also meet Isabelle, a patient at the insane asylum. Ludwig's long conversations with her give Remarque an opportunity to embark on long philosophical debates about ilfe, universe and everything -- these long dialogues are probably the least enticing part of the book. But they are usually followed by much more concrete and interesting conversations with the head doctor and the priest working at the asylum.

Overall, despite the lack of a prominent plot, the book is captivating. It is driven by the small events and daily interactions of the protagonists, who strive for normality in a country that is falling apart all around them.

"A Bend In The River"

The story of this book takes place in an anonymous African country, in a town at the bend of a great river. It begins with the withdrawal of the European colonial powers. At that moment, the Indian immigrants, who both under the Arab and the European rule managed to lead neutral and sometimes prosperous lives, found themselves without protection, subject to the new unpredictable politics of newly forming countries. The story, although told through the eyes of Salim, a young Indian man, is not about the Indian community in Africa but about the traumatic social and political transformations that started to take place in many African countries after the withdrawal of the colonial powers. The Indian origin of the protagonist, however, allows him to make comments and observations that would have sounded perhaps racist or biased if they came from a European or an African.

Several secondary characters play an important role in the book. There is an experienced Indian trader Nazruddin, who is successful in Africa for as long as possible but finds himself somewhat lost and uncomfortable after he is compelled to leave for Canada and England. There is Indar, a young Indian man from a prosperous Indian family, the same age as Salim, who is sent to England to receive his university education. He eventually returns to Africa as part of a Western-sponsored organization trying for a few years to contribute to the development of the newly formed states. There is Raymond, once the "president's white man," slowly falling out of favor. His young wife Yvette, freshly arrived from Belgium, is growing restless and desperate as she realizes that her husband and her adopted country are not as full of glamour as she had though. Finally there is Ferdinand, a young African man of mixed tribal origin, who ends up rising to the post of a Commissioner of his home town. While Salim leads a relatively quiet kind of life letting us have a very in depth view of one particular aspect of the situation, the remaining characters make the picture much more complete by supplying several very diverse viewpoints and experiences.

In the end we are left with the feeling that Africa (and the rest of the world for that matter) stands at a very precarious situation. As the book ends, the country appears to be on the verge of collapse and its future, as well as that of any of the major characters, is uncertain.

"The Visit: a Tragi-Comedy"

A once prosperous town of Guellen, located somewhere in Europe, has been turned into poverty and its citizens are struggling to get by. The opening scene of this play shows us a decrepit train station decorated for a special occasion: the town is expecting the return of Claire Zachanassian -- a millionaire who had left the town of Guellen decades earlier with hardly a penny in her pocket. The mayor and the townspeople hope that Claire is returning to give them money to renovate the town's factory and to bring the town back into prosperity. This is clearly the only motivation for the special welcome as it soon becomes clear that nobody really remembers her or has thought of her during her absence.

Claire turns out to be an eccentric old lady with a commanding disposition, several artificial body parts and a bizarre entourage -- a fascinating character to see on stage. She agrees to help the town with an enormous amount of one million pounds on one condition... As the first act nears its end, we find out that Claire left the town decades earlier wronged by her first sweetheart, Ill, currently a happily married shop keeper. She will help the town if somebody kills Ill. The mayor and the townspeople unanimously refuse the offer. But how long will their resolve last?

The following two acts are a fascinating portrayal of the internal struggle of the people of Guellen as they live their desperate lives and consider what it would take to improve their condition. Durrenmatt shows the changing emotions of Ill's family, friends and acquaintances with surprising insight and in frightening detail. It is a fascinating play -- probably the best thing by Durrenmatt I have read.

Incidentally, this play served as a basis for a film by Djibril Diop Mambety "Hyenas." The film is set in Africa but despite a drastically different setting, the core of the story remained largely unchanged.

"Death And The King's Horseman"

This is another short play by the Nobel prize winning Nigerian author Wole Soyinka. Although delivered in a witty and apparently light way, it addresses a very important issue of conflicting value systems in the colonial Africa. In this true story a British District Officer in an ancient Yoruba city in Nigeria intervenes in the local affairs believing that he is saving a life but instead he ruins several.

As Soyinka himself passionately points out, this play is not about a clash of cultures. This play asks the question what makes the European invaders of Africa believe that their morality is superior to that of the natives. Indeed, Olunde, a young Nigerian man educated in Britain helps to make the point by pointing out the bizare nature of European "morality" that allows the atrocities of World War II to occur.

"Eden"

Five people from Earth: an Engineer, a Physicist, a Chemist, a Doctor and the Coordinator, crash land on a little-known planet called Eden. Although they come out unhurt from the accident, the machinery on board of the rocket is damaged to a degree precluding repair in a near future. The five humans thus decide to explore the planet in search of water and in hope of discovering and making contact with the local intelligent life forms.

Everything on the planet is very different from anything they had ever seen before: the plants, a mysterious factory behind an invisibility curtain, the giant gyro-like vehicles used by the locals and, finally, the locals themselves. Numerous observations begin to suggest that very disturbing things are happening on the planet. This picture is eventually confirmed and clarified by a local scientist who makes contact with the astronauts.

In the end, the humans are faced with a dilemma: should they use their superior weapons to interfere with the local affairs for the purpose of stopping the evil they witness, or should they let the events unroll as they would. Far from wanting to spoil the reading for you, I will just mention that questions that they ask themselves in the process are very relevant to the events that we are witnessing here on Earth these days. It is too bad that these questions rarely appear in our public discourse...

What makes this book (written in the 1950's, by the way) particularly interesting, is a detailed vision of scientific and sociological tools that are used to create a truly unique totalitarian regime on Eden. As I mentioned in another review ("We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin), Stanislaw Lem was writing in the communist Poland, his first books being published during the brutal times of Stalin's rule. He could not make any direct comments regarding the social and political reality of those times but the genre of science fiction had offered him the necessary disguise for publishing deeper observations concerning such "dangerous" topics like politics or freedom.

"Death And The Penguin"

Viktor is trying to make a living as a writer in the post-communist Ukraine. He lives alone with Misha, a penguin he adopted when the Kiev zoo ran out of money to feed the animals and had to give some of them away. Viktor's short stories keep getting rejected but one day the editor-in-chief of a major newspaper commissions him to write obituaries for Kiev's living VIPs. "Just in case." The job pays well but it is unsatisfying because none of the VIPs appears eager to die, and Viktor's writings remain unpublished. Until one day he does a favor to a man who turns out to be a member of the local Mafia, and who ends up feeling indebted to Viktor...

The story, written with a lot of humor and wit, takes a number of unexpected turns and continues to excite and amuse till the very end. But it is not the only reason why the book is worth reading. With this narrative as a vehicle, Andrey Kurkov, builds a somewhat exaggerated portrait of the "new" Ukraine, where the old mandatory devotion to the Communist Party is replaced with the new, and equally strong and mandatory, devotion to free enterprise. Public institutions are collapsing, pensioners are starving, and corruption and mafia are ruling the day. The book very observantly captures the little irrational quirks of the old and new ways that pervade not only Ukraine but most of Eastern and Central Europe.

It is not really a great piece of prose but definitely an enjoyable read.

"We"

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin was written in 1920 and 1921 in Soviet Union. Modern critics frequently compare it to Brave New World and to Orwell's 1984. Indeed the similarities are striking: all these books talk about futuristic totalitarian societies where law and order are taken to an extreme with the help of massive propaganda and ubiquitous surveillance technology. While We is much less sophisticated than 1984, and its dialogues leave plenty of room for improvement, I found it much more unpredictable--and consequently more interesting--than Brave New World. Indeed, the narrative takes several interesting turns and the final picture is very different from what we are accustomed to.

While the choice of science fiction as the genre for a novel criticizing the young Stalinist Soviet Union may be surprising, it is worth keeping in mind that SF's reputation for being detached from reality gave Zamyatin a hope of slipping the book past the censors and seeing it published. He did not succeed, however, and the book was first published in English in 1924 and in Russian not until 1952. And even then it was not in Soviet Union but in New York. Other Eastern European authors had more luck. Most notably, Stanislaw Lem enjoyed quite a lot of freedom in communist Poland by branding himself as a science fiction writer.

As far as writing is concerned, the unreasonable abundance of ellipses in sentences breaks the rhythm of the narrative and fails to provoke thought. It is especially disturbing in dialogues because it makes them look more like disorganized thoughts rather than spontaneous speech. This said, a very good translation by Mirra Ginsburg makes it a smooth and enjoyable read.