In this magnificent novel of family relationships, which is also a love story and a story of betrayal on several levels, author Jhumpa Lahiri introduces four generations of one family whose history begins in their home in Tollygunge, outside of Calcutta, and then moves off in many different directions. Traveling back and forth in time, with points of view shifting among several different but interrelated characters, the novel creates an impressionistic picture of events which begin in 1967 with a political uprising, the family effects of which continue into the present. Two brothers, only fifteen months apart in age, become linchpins of the novel. Subhash, the older, more cautious brother, is far more apt to watch any action, even as a child, than his brother Udayan, the more adventuresome brother, who is always participating in the action and testing limits. As the novel expands over four generations, it revolves around the idea that “you can’t go home again,” physically or emotionally, at the same time that it also considers the ideas that we are who we are. Accepting the latter, however, is not good enough, unless we are also prepared to accept the consequences to others of our decisions to “be ourselves.” In this novel the interactions, responsibilities, and consequences are particularly fraught as the novel moves through nearly fifty years of personal and social change within one family through several generations.
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Though he has been celebrated by Roberto Bolano and many other Latin American authors, Guatemalan author Rodrigo Rey Rosa, has been a well-kept secret to most English-speaking readers. Of his almost two dozen works published to acclaim in Latin America, only four have been published in English, and three of those are translations into English by famed American expatriate author Paul Bowles, who was Rey Rosa’s literary mentor. Living in Morocco while he translated several of Paul Bowles’s novels into Spanish, Rey Rosa came to know the country well, finding life on the African shore of the Mediterranean markedly different from that of the European shore represented by France and Spain, both of which had claimed Morocco as a protectorate until after the mid-1950s. Rey Rosa reflects upon these changes as he presents three interrelated scenarios, in which three separate characters express their own points of view and live independent lives which sometimes overlap with other lives within the book. Rey Rosa composes these separate scenarios so carefully that each could stand alone as a short story or novella, and they are often so poetic and filled with lyrical details that critics have described them as “prose poems.” Elegantly written, The African Shore conveys much information about cultures, past and present, along with the people who straddle the worlds of Europe and Africa. The animism of the rural farmers, which infuses their lives with magical explanations; the Muslim culture, which provides comfort and identity to large numbers of people from all levels of society; and the criminality which seems to be filling a vacuum in the wake of the country’s independence from Spain and France, all play a role in the imagery and symbolism which connects the many facets of this marvelous work.
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Belgian author Georges Simenon (1903 – 1989), a prolific author, published two hundred novels and over one hundred fifty novellas during his long career, most of them involving mysteries of some sort. Though he is the author of the Inspector Maigret series, hugely successful in the film versions and TV series in addition to the novels, he was particularly proud of his much more serious novels, his “roman durs,” psychological novels in which he reveals his interest in how ordinary people deal with the many shocks and betrayals of their personal lives. Act of Passion, published in 1947, is one of these romans durs, a novel about which critic Roger Ebert has asked, “Why is there no sense at the end [of the novel] that justice has been done, or any faith that it can be done?…There are questions for which there are no answers. Act of Passion is essentially a question posing as an answer.” Ebert is not being coy. The main character here, a physician named Charles Alavoine, admits from the outset that he is guilty of premeditated murder, but he has had a good relationship with this magistrate, who investigated his story and interviewed the crime’s witnesses over the course of six weeks, and he feels that this magistrate, who is assigned only to investigate the case and not to try it, will understand him if he can only know about his life. If he can understand him, then Alavoine believes he will understand why he committed murder. A NYReviewClassic from 1947.
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Posted in 8-2013 Reviews, Biography, Book Club Suggestions, England, Historical, Humor, Satire, Absurdity, Jamaica, Literary on Oct 3rd, 2013
A professional dancer from the age of eleven, Noel Coward (1899 – 1973) spent the rest of his life in “show business” as a playwright (of thirty-nine plays), composer (of over three hundred songs and sixteen musicals and operettas), film maker (of fifteen adaptations of his plays), and actor-director-producer connected with two dozen additional productions. Now, however, it is 1971, as this novel about his life opens, and he is seventy-two and dealing with an endless series of heart and lung problems, no doubt exacerbated, if not caused, by his persistent smoking. As the narrative evolves, impressionistically, Coward’s mind is seen wandering, and he frequently dozes off. He dreams of the Jazz Age and Gertrude Lawrence, and he sometimes relaxes by reading one of several children’s books by E. Nesbit which he loved as a child and still enjoys reading. He drinks too much, eats too little, refuses to see many people, and becomes annoyed if his life partner Graham Payn is not at his immediate beck and call. Often Payn is with Cole Lesley, “Coley” (formerly known as Leonard Cole), who began his association with Coward as a British valet, then became his secretary, manager, and occasional cook. At a time in which rap music is popular and raves are ubiquitous, the witty and clever lyrics for which Noel Coward was so famous, and which depend so much on word play and the rhythm of educated (British) speech, may be completely unfamiliar to readers of this book. Indeed, Noel Coward himself, once a household name, may also be an unfamiliar name to many readers of this book. Fame is fleeting, and never more obviously so than with an author/writer/composer/screenwriter like Noel Coward, who was also brilliant, articulate, and gifted beyond measure.
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IMPAC Dublin Award winner Kevin Barry shows his complete mastery of the short story form here, presenting startling, eye-opening stories of love and loss, hope and despair, and acceptance and resistance. Many of the characters reflect an almost religious belief that misery, for whatever reason, need be only temporary if one has the strength and will to search within. As they confront their challenges, Barry draws in the reader, inspiring hope that these individuals will prevail, either alone or with the help of friends. The characters spring from the page, face a demon or two, and then retire to small lives lived between the cracks of a larger society which does not notice them. The “unremarkable” people whose stories are told here often overcome challenges of universal significance, giving a resonance and a sense of thematic unity which is often lacking in other collections. This is not to say that these are “easy” or “comfortable” stories for the reader. Most of the characters are at least a little bit “off-kilter,” their problems at least a little bit beyond those of most readers, and their lives at least a little bit more bizarre than most of us who are reading about them. Unfortunately, some of these characters are too weak to see hope; some do not have the energy or desire to change; and some are so dependent on others for their emotional stability that they are not equipped to face the present, much less the future. Barry shows them all as they face turning points in their lives, for better or worse.
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