Setting this novel in Cairo in the early to middle part of the twentieth century, Naguib Mahfouz creates a variety of characters who depict the many manifestations of love. Simple in approach, uncomplicated in its depictions of personalities, and firmly rooted in the social structure that Mahfouz himself knew and grew up in, the author provides insights into the love between parent and child, the passionate and totally committed love between a man and woman, thwarted love and the obsession it breeds, the love between friends, and the love of home, neighborhood, and country. Here he recreates the lives of neighborhood people of the middle and upper class, some of them wealthy and some of them much poorer (especially the widows), with all of them firmly entrenched in their own social classes in which few have visions of a future which extends beyond the neighborhood and social milieu they already know. Mahfouz shows that love pays little attention either to social class or to the traditions which govern marriage and courtship. As the novel unfolds, the course of true love is a rocky, even dangerous, proposition filled with universal predicaments similar to those of modern novels set in different places and times.
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Setting his latest novel on the Oronsay, a passenger ship going between Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and London in 1954, Michael Ondaatje writes his most accessible, and, in many ways, most enjoyable novel ever. Having grown up in Ceylon, from which he himself was sent to England to be educated as a boy, the author certainly understands what it feels like to be a child on a ship for three weeks, like his main character here, but author Ondaatje says that all the characters in the book are fictional, including the main character. The novel has such a ring of truth and Ondaatje’s depiction of the characters is so true to the perceptions of an eleven-year-old traveling on his own, however, that it is difficult to remember that the boy in the book is imagined and not real. Since the boy grows up and becomes an author like Ondaatje, his adult conclusions as he looks back on the importance of these events and what they have meant in the grand scheme of his life become even more vivid.
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Utu, winner of multiple prizes and set in New Zealand, is dark and full of violence, and depends on the internal conflicts within a country for their dramatic impact and plot. Longstanding resentments between an upper ruling class, and the dispossessed original residents of the country, the Maori, who were conquered during the colonial period, dominate the plot which involves many characters, both white and Maori. The plot becomes so complex that at several points in the novel, the author actually backs up and has a character go over the details so far, to remind himself and the reader about what is happening. Though the novel may be considered by some to be powerful and dramatic, it gains its power largely through its shock value, through the over-the-top reactions of presumably civilized people, well connected to the Auckland mainstream, who are intent on gaining what they want when they want it. While some may consider main character Paul Osborne to be an “anti-hero” (and his actions to represent mainstream “noir”), my own feeling is that there is a difference between the “unsentimental depiction of violence,” one of the main characteristics of noir, and violence for its own sake, which is what I saw here.
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Matt King, who is a descendant of a Hawaiian princess and the haole who married her and inherited her land, could “sit back and watch as the past unfurls millions into [his] lap,” but he prefers to live on his own salary as a lawyer. The primary beneficiary of the family land trust, Matt is now trying to decide what to do with the land on behalf of his cousins and family, since the trust is in debt and the demand for prime land in Hawaii is enormous. His wife lies dying after a boating accident, and his daughters are out of control. The author’s insights into Matt’s conflicts and his self-examination during his long vigil over a wife on life support, along with his daughters’ understandable tumult, provide some emotional resonance, even as moments of dark humor provide some respite from the tension. The subplots are well developed, and the conclusion is satisfying, if thin. Just released as a big film starring George Clooney.
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Described by Milan’s daily newspaper Corriere della Serra as “the only true first-rate writer that the new millennium has given us for now,” Erri De Luca writes a story of Naples, and its “persons.” The author has made it clear that you “don’t call them people, they’re persons, each and every one. If you call them people you lose sight of the person. Here he recreates Neapolitan life, filled with well-developed characters who live through three different time periods – 1943, as Naples has its popular uprising against their German occupiers; the early 1950s, when the unnamed narrator, a young orphan of about seven, is growing up; and the early 1960s, when the young man is now finishing school and about to set out on his own. The novel moves back and forth in time, as the author writes an often lyrical novel full of noble sentiments and wise observations, at the same time that it is packed with details about life and behavior. Intense in its imagery and emotion, this novel credits the reader by believing that s/he is capable understanding on a level beyond that of plot, and that the longings of the main character and his search to belong are universal and not limited to this one character in this one set of circumstances and times.
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