Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga

Posted on April 30, 2013 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 22 April, 2013

I picked this up as my Basque read for the Reading Around the World challenge.

It’s a collection of short stories that seem unconnected. Though the title of the book literally means “The people/things of Obaba,” though in his prologue, Atxaga notes that another possible interpretation would be “stories from Obaba.” Even so, Obaba features only in a few of the stories.

In many ways, I found this to be a very international book. And though my purpose in choosing it was to get something of an insider’s perspective into Basque country, most of the stories deal with being an outsider there – the very first, “Esteban Werfell,” being about the child of a German caught between his father’s culture and the culture that surrounds him. And all of it is bound around with the idea of the outsider infiltrating and replacing the local.

There are some odd connecting themes to the stories, subtle enough that I had missed the ones I’ve found during my initial reading, and I’m sure that there are plenty that I haven’t spotted.

I really enjoyed most of the stories just from an entertainment perspective, but the more I think about the book, the more I feel that I have to think about. Each story is complex, and they inform each other in interesting and surprising ways. I think that I’ll be carrying Obabakoak around with me for a while.

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Posted on February 10, 2013 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 30 January, 2013

Amir grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan, with his father, his servant, and his servant’s son. The two boys grew up without mothers, and they were raised nearly as close as brothers. But soon after the Russians invaded, an event changed both of their lives forever.

The descriptions were wonderful and I feel that I learned quite a bit about Afghani history and culture. In particular, I quite enjoyed the comparisons between the Afghanistan prior to the Russian invasion and the Afghanistan many years later, once it had fallen under the control of the Taliban.

The book is very obviously a fictional account – though it’s written as if it were a memoir, there are several instances of far too perfect resonance such as the mirroring between the events of Amir’s childhood and his return to Afghanistan as an adult. This would ordinarily be fine, but it felt far too clunky in The Kite Runner, perhaps because the author felt the need to keep reminding his readers about it – “look, look! He has a split lip! Just like Hassan!”

There were quite a few issues in the novel with the treatment of women. Amir acknowledges several times that he “won the genetic lottery” as far as gender is concerned, but he never seems to actually do anything to mitigate this. In fact, again and again, he just seems to make things worse, as when he speaks to Soraya without her father present, knowing and acknowledging that she would be the one to suffer from the gossip that would result.

The descriptions of Hassan and his father, Ali, were disturbing. I realize that they are supposed to be martyrs and that their suffering is supposed to be all the more poignant because of their exaggerated innocence, but the fact that they are also members of the servant class makes this problematic. They are Perfect Servants, knowing exactly what their masters want at all times (even to the point of what appears to be mind reading), and are utterly self-sacrificial (literally, in Hassan’s case) in serving their masters. And this is presented as a mutual relationship, in which both Hassan and Amir are at their happiest when the former is serving the latter.

I also had some issues with Amir’s absolution. I don’t want to give too much away, but basically he has to perform a task in order to “make right” with Hassan. Thing is, he never really performs that task. He takes a beating, realises that he feels wonderfully sin-free, and then the task performs itself. It’s a very odd, impotent sort of cleansing.

The last issue I had with the book is possibly the greatest one. Amir essentially gets custody of a child who has been through some pretty horrific experiences, including sexual abuse that has lasted for at least a month. His first reaction to this is to keep touching the child (despite the child’s obvious reticence) until the child finally starts submitting. After some more stuff happens, he just kinda lives with the child and waits out the “issues” until, in a big redemptive moment, the kid may or may not begin to smile again. Yay, right? Except that at no point does he mention getting professional help for this child. I’m sure that there are refugee support groups or at least therapists who specialise in sexual abuse who may be able to help. But no, it’s just something that the child is expected to get over on his own. It left me with a really bad taste in my mouth for Amir and his wife, as they are this child’s sole lifeline and they seem so utterly oblivious to his needs.

Despite all the issues, I did really enjoy the book until Amir leaves the hospital after his “redemption.” At this point, his total inadequacy in caring properly for the child just made me angry.

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Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Posted on January 30, 2013 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 23 January, 2013

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

Angela’s Ashes is a memoir of Francis McCourt’s childhood, first as a young child to Irish parents in America, and then growing into adulthood in Limerick, Ireland. It’s a childhood of extreme poverty, and all of consequences of that.

It’s a brutal book, and it never lets up. Several reviewers have called the book a “laundry list of the terrible things that happen to the McCourt family,” and in many ways that’s pretty accurate. The happiest moments of the novel, when little Frankie forms a connection with two separate girls, end with those girls dying. Yeah, that’s the kind of book this is.

I quite liked the writing style. I know that there are many who found it irritating, but the short sentences gave it that breathlessness that children get when telling a story. For me, this served to reflect the narrator’s youth during the events of the book, and it heightened its impact.

In some ways, given how relentlessly depressing the book is, I kept expecting it to get worse. Every time Frankie was alone with a priest, I thought “oh no, this is where it happens…” But, thankfully, it never does.

One thing that impressed upon me as I was reading was Frankie’s vulnerability and passivity. Even as an adult, when he’s finally making decisions for himself and leaving Ireland, he has very little say in what happens to him. Though bound for New York, the boat captain simply decides to go to Albany instead and he is forced to come along. When they make a stop and a woman decides to have sex with him, he can do little other than lie down and accept her advances. He may enjoy it and be glad it happened, but it’s still something that happens to him.

It was a frustrating read, of course, as so many of the problems stem from the father’s alcoholism, the mother’s complacency, and the lack of knowledge of both. But all the characters – even the father who takes his dole money to the pub while his children starve at home – are treated with such compassion that it’s hard to feel anything other than pity for the whole family.

It’s a wonderful book full of interesting characters and funny moments and sadness… It would have been so easy for McCourt to write with anger, to lay blame with the various individual choices, institutions, and the sexism that cause nearly all of the suffering he describes. But instead, he merely relays his experiences and we are left to draw our own complicated conclusions.

I highly recommend reading Angela’s Ashes. Just remember to keep tissues handy.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Posted on January 5, 2013 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 22 December, 2012

Jacob Portman is wealthy, has no friends, and has the most interesting grandfather. Grandpa Portman had escaped from the Nazis in Poland, made it to an orphanage on a tiny Welsh island, joined the war efforts in World War II, performed in a circus, and travelled the world. Growing up, Jacob loved to hear his grandfather’s stories, particularly about the peculiar children in the orphanage. That is, until he decided that none of it was real.

Miss Peregrine is a delightful story about grief after the death of a loved one, and the conflicting emotions of trying to find out who, exactly, the person you so loved for so many years really was (and of the risk of finding out things that you may wish you had never known). It’s also about magic, friendship, responsibility, and the downsides of immortality.

The book was apparently inspired by looking at old photographs collected by the author and acquaintances. The special gimmick of the novel is that these photographs are integrated throughout the text. It adds something to the story, I think – helping to create an atmosphere. That isn’t to say that the text requires the images. The quality of the writing is very good, and could easily stand alone without the use of a gimmick.

Without giving too much away, I will say that the ending very much feels like it ought to be the middle. I think it’s great that we were given so much time to get to know Jacob before the action started, but it does mean that the book ends with something of a cliff hanger. The good news is that there’s apparently going to be a sequel released sometime in 2013, so we shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out what happens!

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Series: Harry Potty by J.K. Rowling

Posted on December 12, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

I’d read The Prisoner of Azkaban before, but without having it situated in the larger narrative, it just didn’t resonate. So, instead, I focused on the plot issues and dismissed the series.

I’m very glad that I decided to give it a second chance. The series does have a lot of issues, especially in the early books (it does seem that Rowling came into her own as the series progressed – or perhaps her publishers finally saw her as worth the expense and gave her a better editor), but all of that is overshadowed by the interesting worldbuilding and great characters.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed about the series is how it seems to “grow up” through the volumes. Books one and two are very innocent, focusing on the wonder of the magical world and on the friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione. By book three, the world starts to become more dangerous, and the reader is introduced to more complex relationships (Hermione acting rude, but it having to do with a personal issue and nothing directly relating to Harry).

By book four, puberty sets in, and the friendship starts to morph as the characters become more gendered. From there, the plots and the relationships between the characters become more complex, the baddies more scary, and the books themselves become longer.

This was masterfully done, so that a child starting to read at the appropriate age and spacing the books out can really feel like they are growing up along with the characters.

Teachable Moments

I liked that the series provides so many “teachable moments.” Topics are raised, but answers aren’t necessarily forced or spelled out, so it gives parents and children reading the series together a great opportunity to discuss the issues together. For example, Barty Crouch is so obsessed with catching baddies that he starts to become a baddie himself, which could very easily lead to a discussion on how the pursuit of justice can be taken too far.

I also enjoyed the fact that success in the series so often depends on hard work, rather than on natural talent. For a series specifically about a magical birth right, this was especially interesting. Throughout the books, Harry struggles with fame and the perception that he is naturally powerful and can accomplish anything, but the reality is that he still needs to work quite hard at learning magic, and he must accept help from others who know more than he does or are more talented in certain areas.

Hermione

Hermione is a fantastic character, and a great female role model. She’s part of Team Harry, of course, but throughout the series, we keep getting hints about a life lived entirely outside of HarryWorld. She has friendships among the other girls that Harry has no access to (and frequently has no knowledge of), her relationship with Viktor is played out off-scene, she has interests and passions that do not intersect with Harry’s, etc. She doesn’t just fawn over Harry in the way that Ron does, but rather has a private life of her own that even the reader – who has access only to Harry’s perspective – sees only in glimpses.

As a girl, she’s the perfect mix of smart, capable, nerdy, not overly concerned with her appearance, yet she is still feminine. She has friendships with girls on a “girl level” that Harry can’t understand, she has a relationship, she has crushes (but is not crushed by them), she pretties herself up when she chooses to… She has a solid identity, of which her gender is a part but that is not defined by her gender.

All in all, I found her to be one of the most well-rounded and deep characters that I’ve seen.

The Movies

Not a fan. The actors are great and very well chosen for their roles, but the press of covering too much material in too little time means that they barely have the time to read their lines before a scene change, and haven’t the opportunity to explore their characters. This made them all feel terribly rushed.

There were also artefacts of the books cropping up in weird places – for example, in The Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore asks Harry to accompany him when destroying a horcrux (as opposed to Harry begging to go in the book), yet later, Dumbledore tells Harry that he “promised” to take him along.

I don’t automatically poo-pooh silver screen adaptations, but in a case like this – when the books are so popular and well-loved, I don’t think that it’s possible to make a good movie from them. There’s just too much pressure to remain faithful to the books, which prevents the directors and characters from having any input of their own into the work, making it little more than a pale re-enactment.

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Looking For Alaska by John Green

Posted on November 15, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 10 November, 2012

I watch the Vlogbrothers on YouTube, so I’d heard a lot about Looking For Alaska, but still knew very few details. All I knew going in was that it would be about a nerdy boy falling in love with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl named Alaska.That’s it. And while my general stance is along the lines of “it’s the journey, not the end, that counts,” I actually feel that not knowing is important with this novel. Not knowing let it whack me. I generally like to think of myself as a nice person, and I want you to be whacked too.

So here’s my attempt at a totally spoiler-free review:

Miles Halter is friendless and bored, so he goes in search of the Great Perhaps in the form of a boarding school. There, his life is changed when he starts making friends, takes up smoking, and meets Alaska.

I dislike the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, and I found Alaska to be generally an unpleasant person. Miles and the Colonel also made a lot of very insensitive mistakes that hurt the people around them. But it captured so well my experience of being that age – the total lack of social graces, the exhibition of self-destruction, the “I’m crazier than you are” pissing contests… Have I ever mentioned how embarrassed I am of my teenage years?

But despite the unlikeable characters, Green really did capture the experience of being a teen, and he used that backdrop to explore some pretty interesting stuff (which I won’t discuss any further because… well… see above). And while I certainly wouldn’t want any of these kids in my real life, it was a riot to read about their adventures and mishaps, and their little witticisms.

Nothing I have said about Looking For Alaska has been a flaw. The ending – the epiphany, if you can call it that – was a little weak, but that’s really it. That’s the only flaw. I loved reading this book so much that I had trouble putting it down, even when my services as a parent were required. I couldn’t recommend it enough!

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Harry Potter #7: The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Posted on July 30, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 28 March, 2012

The final book in the Harry Potter series is markedly different from the other six. Rather than return to Hogwarts for their final year, Harry, Ron, and Hermione drop out of school to focus on finding the Horcruxes and destroying Lord Voldemort.

The book is fairly evenly divided into two parts. In the first, the friends have their mettle tested. They are given ample reason to doubt Dumbledore and find themselves without any real way forward on the path that he’s set them on. On the other hand, they find out about the Deathly Hallows, which could be used to make them stronger than Lord Voldemort.

In the second part, the battle between Dumbledore’s Army and Voldemort’s forces wages over Hogwarts.

The Deathly Hallows is the culmination of the message of love and friendship that has been so central to the series. Harry must put his faith in Dumbledore despite the evidence, and he must be willing to die for his friends just as his mother once died for him. As Dumbledore says, “If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love” – and only this power can conquer him.

It’s a lovely, if occasionally problematic, message.

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Redwall #9: Redwall by Brian Jacques

Posted on July 20, 2012 by MrPopularSentiment

Read: 4 June, 2012

I have tons of YA reading suggestions for girls, but my knowledge of “boy books” is fairly limited. Since fate put me in charge of a boy’s intellectual development and entertainment instead of a girl’s, I’ve had to do a bit of remedial work. So that’s the context of my reading of Redwall – it’s been recommended to me as a good book for boys, so I’m giving it a taste and seeing if it’s something the Little Dude might enjoy when he starts appreciating books for something other than flavour.

The book is for a slightly younger audience than I had thought, though this isn’t a bad thing. It fills the gap quite neatly between the more kid-friendly adventure books and the more ambiguous and complex books for older teens.

The story follows Matthias, a young mouse and ward of Redwall Abbey. He is immature and clumsy, and he isn’t very sure of his worth until the abbey is attached by Cluny the Scourge. This creates the need for a saving hero, and Matthias is able to step in and become a sort of reincarnation of Martin the Warrior – a legendary heroic figure.

While all of the abbey’s inhabitants are always very kind to Matthias, I couldn’t help but feel that there was room for him to grow until external pressures created one. Had Cluny never come to the abbey, Matthias would never have been granted consideration as anything other than a clumsy little mouse. I can definitely understand how this would appeal to children, especially since I remember feeling the same stifling. So seeing Matthias be granted the opportunity to step up and be a hero is a great vicarious fulfilment of a common childhood fantasy.

Which is all well and good, but it reinforces the message that a child cannot earn respect on his own and that adults will not give it. Rather, all parties must simply wait until the right opportunity is created for them. That just made me kinda sad.

That being said, I did enjoy the story. There’s a lot of action and adventure, and characters like Constance do show that men and women can be friends and share mutual respect, and that women can be powerful even while maintaining their femininity. This wasn’t written for girls (made all the more obvious by the fact that there are no female characters that a young reader might identify with), but it did have some worthwhile lessons for the various possible relationships that men might have with women beyond the romantic. I do wish that Cornflower was a little more assertive, although I did appreciate that she was seen as an essential contributor to the war effort – albeit in a very traditionally feminine way.

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