A Review: Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami

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A Review:

Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?

By Anita Rau Badami

12.10.2011

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Anita Rau Badami

Format: Hardcover, 432 pages

Publisher: Knopf Canada

ISBN: 978-0676976045

Pub Date: September 5, 2006

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What began as a somewhat hopeful book, quickly and devastatingly spiralled into a travesty. I was left with the shock of death and loss for all characters and after reading the novel I was angry at its historical injustices.

At the same time, I regretted investing emotional attachments to characters that were deeply flawed. My sense of the novel’s downfall lay at the heart of its characters’ weakness to pride.

Harjot Singh is listless and “disappears” long before he actually decides to leave his family, his pride wounded because he was unable to freely land ashore once he arrived to Vancouver by ship on the Komagata Maru.

His daughter, Sharanjeet (Bibi-ji) Kaur, privately resents her station in life and her duties, unhappy to be obedient to her mother or selfless to her sister, Kanwar. This attitude is not entirely due to her spoiled upbringing, but rather an internal pride, vanity, and materialistic ambition that drives her to first steal her sister’s marriage prospect, Khushwant (Pa-ji) Singh from her sister, and then eventually her niece’s own son, Jasbeer.

Leela (Shastri) Bhat is ostracized by her grandmother, Akka, and her father’s relatives because she is considered a “half-breed,” a daughter of a Punjab, Hari Shastri, and an English woman, Rosa Schweers. Rather than accept her genetic fate and cultural liminality, she loathes her own grey eyes, fair skin, and “White” culture. Instead she prides herself in becoming the wife of a prosperous and prestigious man, Balachandra (Balu) Bhat, who comes from a well known Punjab family and high caste, and submerges herself into adhering to traditional Indian practices. Leela, opposite of Bibi-ji, resents being pulled from her home in India to Vancouver, fearful of becoming, yet again, nameless. Though she suffered racial cruelty from her Indian grandmother, she fails to accept her son’s choice in marriage to an English woman.

These and other characters provide a backdrop to the cruelty and harshness of the warring factions of the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh people, which led to The Partition of India (with its Hindu majority) and Pakistan (with its Muslim majority). Violent acts of brutality by government and militant groups climaxed to the eventual killings of pilgrims at the Golden Temple. This act in itself prompted the assassination of Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi, which then led to vengeful killings of Sikhs throughout India. And a year later, Air India Flight 182 is bombed, killing 329 people on board from Canada over the Atlantic Ocean.

Perhaps it is Badami’s intent to situate her characters at the “wrong time in the wrong place,” but also to propel them forward into devastation and loss due to wrong choices, which stem from deeply rooted pride and discord.

The book is without resolution, but is a haunting reminder of the brutality and injustice of war, the interconnectedness between people, their actions, and their consequences, and the cost of life for the sake of land, name, autonomy, and religious freedom, where moderation seems to be the best answer though it is rarely used.

It is a novel of extremes, but then, extremity is at the heart of this book’s subject, while a lesson of temperance is still yet to be learned.

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Zara’s Rating

 

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Book Review: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Book Review:

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

12.10.2011

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Jhumpra Lahiri

Format: Hardcover, 352 pages

Publisher: Knopf Canada

ISBN: 978-0676979343

Pub Date: April 1, 2008

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Lahiri depicts the restraint of her characters perfectly and reveals to us private desires that cause conflict with the traditions and expectations of Indian cultural and societal norms. But, by doing so, she redefines love and the inevitability of the sorrow it sometimes carries. She is a queen of dichotomy. Though her characters have inner strength that persists and drives them further into their stories, their strengths are also what make them the victims of their own helplessness.

From Ruma’s father in his inability to share with his daughter, the acknowledgement of his feelings for another woman after the death of his wife. To Ruma, who is unable to recover from her mother’s death, only to cope by denying herself a successful career and a rich relationship with her husband and son. The restraint in the relationship between “Baba” and Ruma contain within its silences and tension, a depth of love and feeling that can only be understood by grief, denial, and the need to protect those that are loved.

The story of Pranab Chakraborty and Boudi speaks of an unrequited love that evolves within the boundaries of family friendship, compatibility, and all that is lacking in another marriage. It is a tight-lipped, repressed, and torturous story of one who carries the burden of secret love, while the other remains oblivious to his lover’s personal sacrifice and loss.

Amit and Megan share the reality of a marriage that has reached its low season dented by babies and the monotony of routine. People from their pasts can resurrect old feelings, yet reassure us as readers that passion can still spring up from the loyalty and trust found in married love.

Sudha and Rahul speak of weakened family ties because of the powerful stronghold of addiction and the loss of relationship and trust that occurs when someone is strangled by the compulsion of vices and old stereotypes.

In the story of Sang, Paul, Farsouk, and Deidre, there is truth in the tangles of love, desire, and manipulation. It reflects the compulsions we sometimes have against our better judgement and the inability to see clearly when we feel we are in love.

Hema and Kaushik share with us two opposing lives, which are drawn to each other by family ties and later by circumstance or fate. The drama of their passion and love, though restrained by the reality of other entanglements, seem inevitable and doomed to suffer a sad demise.

Overall, I found the book, Unaccustomed Earth to be filled with good stories, though desolate and bleak. I was inspired by love, but sometimes disappointed by the failings of the characters and their outcome.

Still, after reading the book, I yearned for the stories to continue; for the characters to continue on in their vignettes, if not to provide a glimpse to a more resilient hope of something better for the characters themselves, but also an affirmation that love and lovers actually do “conquer all.”

Compared to Lahiri’s other works, this collection is darker and more sombre in its tone. Your heart will break in reading it, but insist in some way that it must be so.

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Zara’s Rating

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Book Review: Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens

Book Review:

Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens

12.10.2011

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Non-Fiction

Author: Christopher Hitchens

Format: Hardcover, 816 pages

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, Signal Books (imprint)

ISBN: 978-0771041419

Pub Date: September 6, 2011

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Well, I’m avid reader, but I tend to lean towards Canadian literary fiction and poetry. But, not this weekend. I figure, I might as well dabble into something different – broaden my genre-of-choice and maybe even a little bit of my vocabulary.

If I get passed the laundry, the long line-ups at the mall, and the incessant questions asked by my two hyper-active and overly inquisitive youngsters—then, yes, I’m going to attempt to read Arguably: Essays By Christopher Hitchens.

Aside from Hitchens’ piercing gaze on the design of the front cover, the book is a collection of diverse topics, intelligent snippets, and witty allegations exposing injustice and hypocrisy (to a name a few) within the political and cultural context. And he’s funny, too. And I don’t mean you’ll slightly chuckle at his ferocious dialogue, but actually snort. Which I’ve already done – twice.

It’s also a timely read, in lieu of Human Rights Day on December 10, and just in time before the battles begin beneath the Christmas tree and mistletoe.

And you don’t have to read the book in one sitting, nor do you have to read it consecutively from the beginning to the end. It’s a book of essays without the restriction of plot or the ploy of pretty poetry. You can dabble and take what you like. If you like original ideas and innovative thinking, and a direct, smart mouth—a fiercely intelligent and unforgiving one—then you’ll appreciate this sturdy book. You may not even agree with Mr. Hitchens, but don’t let it show because when it comes to an argument, he’ll sense your fear, ignorance, or illiteracy—and he’ll eat you alive—and make you laugh about it. He’s that smart. There are no superficial nuances in his arguments. He’s got a point (quite a few actually) and he’ll stick it to you with the blade of his sharp tongue.

Since I’m a fiction worshipper, it’s not my usual cup of tea. But, as ideas go, I’m willing to drink as much of it as I can—while it’s hot and while the second load of my laundry goes.

If all else fails, you and I can have a stare down with Mr. Hitchens just by looking at the front cover of his book.

To my dear, Mr. Hitchens, might I never fall into an argument with you—because arguably—you’ve already won.

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Zara’s Rating

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The Interpreter of Maladies: A Collection of Short Stories that Cross Boundaries & Runs Deep

Book Review:

The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

12.10.2011

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Jhumpra Lahiri

Format: Hardcover, 208 pages

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

ISBN: 978-0618101368

Pub Date: April 24, 2000

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The Interpreter of Maladies is not only a collection of nine short stories, but I think, a name well suited to the author, Jhumpa Lahiri. Her writing is direct and easy, yet expertly and artistically controlled. She gives you just enough detail in the right places so that her subtle hints help bridge the landscape of her characters and their stories.

Yes, her stories entail the immigrant experience, but they also tell a universal story; the story of ordinary living that compels you to appreciate and consider the implications they have.

There is the story of the couple that has grown apart only to reveal the vulnerable parts of themselves to each other in the dark.

The bond between a father figure and a girl who are left only to be separated by borders and the reunion of a missing wife and seven children.

Desire for an American tourist turns dark after a compulsion to confess indiscretion to a tour guide.

There is the stigma and scapegoat of a street woman for the woes that transpire in an old apartment building.

The Love and tolerance of an American mistress toward her Bengali lover only to be thwarted by the inevitability of her relationship’s failure.

The underrated connection between an Indian babysitter and a neglected American boy.

The culmination of a secretly unhappy marriage because of an overly flamboyant wife compelled to ignore her husband’s wishes.

And the story of the isolation and desolation a woman feels in being neglected and misunderstood because of epilepsy.

Lahiri is a master storyteller who doesn’t hide behind obtuse language to prove she is a good writer. She tells you just enough so that you can understand her characters’ positions and experiences, as if they are your own. And she makes the plot interesting enough, that once you come away from the story, you linger, often wishing there was more.

She is a wonderful ambassador of India and America and what it means to be on the peripheral. I am glad to say that Jhumpa Lahiri is my new heroine as a masterful writer, an intelligent artist, and a person with the heart of a poet.

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Zara’s Rating

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The Namesake: A Rose Is Not Simply a Rose

By Zara Alexis D. Garcia-Alvarez

Category: Fiction

Author: Jhumpra Lahiri

Format: Hardcover, 304 pages

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

ISBN: 978-0395927212

Pub Date: August 4, 2009

The narrative is so clear and written with such ease that I easily became engrossed in the story of the Ganguli family as it spanned throughout years, each page, a catalyst to further reading and emotional investment.

The flow of the language is natural and rich in the truth it reveals about the immigrant experience, and though specifically about coming from India and making a life in America, Lahiri writes with authentic detail and wisdom about immigration as it crosses borders, both truthfully and universally.

And though the main character, Gogol “Nikhil” Ganguli is at the centre of the narrative, the specific perspectives and sufferings of the family who surrounds him found in his father, Ashoke, his mother, Ashima, and his sister, Sonali, all speak a truth about the different trials and responses to transition to and from abroad.

Lahiri speaks to the meaning of being ethnic, marginal, liminal, and the complexity of defining yourself and home. There is a tension and dichotomy between the previous country and the new, and the expectations one not only has of himself, but the expectations of those around him, and how these definitions stretch and become malleable and blurred, with an outcome of becoming something new entirely.

The gut of the book is about the naming of things and people; how one identifies himself, namely, Gogol. How, why, and what he was named is a central theme in the novel.

It’s a story about coming into one’s own understanding of his relationship to his culture (old and new), his family, his home, himself, and what he chooses to accept and reconcile in a name.

Surprisingly, the film is as beautiful and rich as the novel it is based on.

Book Review: The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim

Book Review:

The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim

12.10.2011

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Eugenia Kim

Format: Hardcover, 400 pages

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.

ISBN: 978-0805089127

Pub Date: August 4, 2009

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The narrative is delicate and sensitive as the mannerisms and language of traditional, Korean propriety. And though the daughter of the calligrapher is born unnamed, her strength of character and unwavering discipline and grace evolves as naturally, artistically, and as raw as the process of calligraphy itself. It goes without saying that the art of Korean calligraphy is one engraved with history, tradition, years of committed training, depth of feeling, artistic pride, and fluidity.

Yes, the novel is about the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early twentieth century, but it is more so about the resilience of Korean propriety, patriotism, duty, cultural tradition and history, faith, and the strong love between family, specifically, mother and daughter as shown in the characters of Najin and her Umma-nim.

There are competing values in the book: tradition vs. modernism; Korea vs. Japan; propriety of women vs. men; aristocracy vs. the underprivileged; Christianity vs. Confucianism; domestication vs. pursuit of higher education; and the list goes on.

What I enjoyed most about the book was the window it provided in disclosing traditional Korean propriety and the secret world of the Korean aristocracy as shown by the Emperor and its Korean royalty. Where westernized values often look down on subservience, conservative cultural practices, and even domestication, and self-discipline (viewed as a form of rigidity) –I, myself coming from an Asian background, understand their appeal and significance.

The traditional propriety found in Korean practice comes from an intentional honour and decorum, which I, from reading this novel, have come to truly appreciate. Others may scoff and march in bands of protest about the cries of “independence,” “liberation,” and “modernism,” but I find, as a native born into western culture, but raised in an Asian, ethnic cultural paradigm, I feel comfortable with the instinctual pull of sentimental tradition and its quiet, subdued, and subservient qualities.

The rich power found in self-control and discipline as propriety is something, I feel, the west actually lacks. What people with strong western beliefs can naturally condemn in the novel is actually what I become nostalgic for in reading it.

It’s an elegant, lyrical novel with characters who are well versed and practiced at concealing what is a deeply rooted passion for country, culture, history, tradition, and family.

A beautiful read. (And an equally beautiful cover design.)

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Zara’s Rating

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Book Review: Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

Book Review:

Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

12.10.2011

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Elizabeth Hay

Format: Hardcover, 376 pages

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

ISBN: 978-0771038112

Pub Date: September 18, 2007

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The first half of the book sets down the foundation of its flawed characters who slowly woo you into the landscape of the North. The North in its isolation, yet the closeness and intimacy of the township, and the realism and authenticity of the characters’ unique, yet easily recognizable personalities. They are rich and substantial, lacking stereotype. And their relationships with one another reveal their longing, their failings, and their complexities—especially in the form of love.

The latter half of the novel becomes an expedition into the Barrens of Yellowknife, a lovely, yet detailed and intelligent view of a land rarely visited or seen by man. It weaves Canada’s historical pioneering heroes into the landscape while documenting the beauty of the northern wilderness. At the same time, the characters themselves experience the glory of its vastness, abundance, and beauty, while resisting and eventually overcoming its treachery and harshness.

It is a story about journeying, crossing boundaries, and surviving. Not only in the extreme climates of the northern wilderness, but also of the extreme climate that can be found in unexpected relationships.

The characters who you come to care for are intelligent, witty, passionate, humble, and resilient.

It’s very easy to see why this beautifully written novel won the Giller Prize in 2007.

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Zara’s Rating

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Book Review: The Birth House by Ami McKay

Book Review:

The Birth House by Ami McKay

12.10.2011

By Zara Alexis D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

 

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Category: Fiction

Author: Ami McKay

Format: Hardcover, 400 pages

Publisher: Knopf Canada

ISBN: 978-0676977721

Pub Date: February 16, 2006

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The story is not so much a story about birthing as it is one of the evolution of becoming re-born. There is character development—and then there are characters that already have everything they need to engage you with ease, curiosity, nostalgia, and a little spunk.

This book is about a number of struggles. A tension between choosing and ultimately accepting the dichotomies of our lives: what it means to be a woman embedded in the rural roots of the Bay of Fundy, Maritimes and what it could mean to be a woman witnessing the narrow streets filled with heavy brick buildings of a modernizing city called Boston; to the struggle of keeping the sentimentality, spirituality, and instinctive old wisdom of traditional midwifery versus the collision it faces with the sterility of new and upcoming science, technology, and modern medicine.

This is a story about women, for women—the empowerment needed to realize autonomy over choices, especially if those choices have to do with a woman’s body—her fertility, her pregnancy, her labour, her sex life, and the secrets of her desires.

It’s also about community, home, and the special relationship women can and do have with one another, exclusive of their partners, or the male-dominated assumptions that can be imposed upon them, and the circumstances of a changing world.

In the face of fierce opposition, women in this novel bond, grow, and struggle together as fiercely as labour itself, to not reclaim themselves—but to proclaim themselves according to an identity that is acceptable to each of them on a personal level.

It’s a tribute to the female struggle and the glorious gift we have been given as women: the tolerance and endurance to suffer pain and tragedy in order to make a life, carry it, save it, and also potentially live it: generation by generation; one moon; one prayer; one stitch, and one choice at a time.

A fierce and lovely novel about womanhood, motherhood, companionship, and birthing.

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Zara’s Rating

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Have you ever given birth to a child?

What do you find the most difficult about labour?

In what ways can you empower yourself and others through the birthing process?

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A Thousand Splendid Suns: And More Reasons to Read This Novel

Book Review:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

12.10.2011

By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Format: Hardcover, 384 pages

Publisher: Viking Canada

ISBN: 978-0670064915

Pub Date: May 22, 2007

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I was slowly stunned at the overwhelming tragedy two women, like their beloved Kabul, Afghanistan, had to suffer, sacrifice, and endure at the hand of intimate patriarchal violence from their own husband(s) and/or cultural heritage to the Soviet invasion and the presence of the Taliban.

Their inner lives are a testament to the private wars they must face, from being privately masked in their burqas that they are coerced to wear, to the basic human rights they are so defiantly denied.

But it is also a testament to their own form of empowerment as women, their generous ability for compassion, their fierce and tenacious strength to love, and their own power in self-sacrifice and self-preservation.

These are resilient characters, which, in the very act of fear must summon fearlessness to proclaim and help rebuild not only a new Afghanistan, but themselves.

A tender and heart-wrenching novel from one of my favourite authors.

 

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Zara’s Rating

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Book Review: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Book Review:

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

12.10.2011

By Zara Alexis D. Garcia-Alvarez / @ZaraAlexis

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Category: Fiction

Author: Stephanie Meyer

Format: Hardcover, 544 pages

Publisher: Little & Brown

ISBN: 978-0316160179

Pub Date: October 5, 2005

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Despite its flat, non-literary prose, its vague and immature description of what would normally be considered a fascinating subject about vampires who are repetitively described as “perfect” and “god-like,” as well as the obvious ordinariness of a girl who is neither described as anything more than a klutzy, awkward, falsely humble newcomer to a small town with dependent, obsessive tendencies, and the overbearing cliché of supposed “romantic” dialogue—well, if you can forgive all these things and appreciate what the book can deceptively offer—you may enjoy and understand the easy mania that surrounds the novel (and its movie counterpart).

It is not only the plight of the vampire-human relationship that is obviously restrained by physical, “cultural,” and “species-specific” norms—though the incessant mood-swings and dialogue shifts are quite irritating because they happen so often, perhaps to emphasize the tension created in desiring an illogical and unhealthy relationship (and when I say unhealthy, I mean, downright dangerous)—it’s the dichotomy of supernatural power and ordinariness; the power of legend, fantasy, and fear; and the impassioned, illogical, yet insatiable emotion that seems to attract most readers to the book.

It is a book about our “diabolical” and often repressed hunger and raw instinct found in beauty, desire, passion, lust, power, and tormented love—with the need to deny our very selves in order to enjoy self-preservation—coupled with affection and tenderness. Ideally, that would be a fine balance, if not a fantasy.

What this book allows is the explosion and the exploration of these feelings, which are not readily accepted in “civilized” society and the norms we’re called to be a part of. The romance is extreme in nature, yet ironically, intrinsically human in its basest form. The dark in us. The beauty. The imaginative desire to be more than we are. Even the desperate stupidity.

Would I date and commit myself to something risky and dangerous? Debase myself to become something else in the name of so-called love? Maybe. Perhaps you would, too—or probably already have. We all have by some small degree, chosen by rebellion, a love by nature that would inevitably be unhealthy for us. Possibly even dangerous. (I may be going a little far with that, but you haven’t met my ex-boyfriends.)

By whatever name we choose to call it: vampire, the werewolf, the Cold Ones—the thing we fear, yet desire—its danger, our aphrodisiac—is and can sometimes be our counterpart, our opposite, and our insatiable need to be fulfilled with an answer.

(But then again, if you’re a teenage girl who’s just recently been afflicted with hormones, how would you be able resist a luminous man literally “sparkling” in the sun????)

You’re either Team Edward or Team Jacob. Either way, someone’s salivating or bleeding. Take your pick. Blood lust for romance (or Robert Pattinson’s good looks) is out there. Under the rainy sky of Forks, Washington and the whole bewildered universe that is pre-teen.

Okay, I’ll admit it.

Pre-teen and cool moms.

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Zara’s Rating

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What do you find most fascinating about vampires?

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