This third book of an unforgettable trilogy continues the story of Sir Edward Feathers, a “Raj-orphan” born in Malaya, unloved by his parents. Sent alone at age six to be schooled in England, he eventually began his adult career – and lived up to the adage, “Failed in London, Tried Hong Kong,” hence, his nickname, FILTH. In Hong Kong, he married Betty MacDonald, also a Raj orphan, and led an unexciting, though professionally distinguished, life as a judge representing the Crown and the Empire. The second novel, is Betty’s story, a story of her marriage to Filth, a man she respects but has never really loved, and the freedom she enjoys to pursue her own interests. Both novels are filled with hilarious moments, lively dialogue which clearly establishes the characters and their attitudes towards others, and memorable scenes in which they separately display their feelings about their lives in Hong Kong as representatives of the last days of the Empire. Last Friends, the third novel, is ostensibly the story of Sir Terence Veneering, a man of mysterious origins and the lifelong rival of Filth, rumored to have been Betty’s lover in Hong Kong. As the culmination of the trilogy, this novel reveals almost as much about Filth and Betty and their relationship with each other as it does about Veneering and their separate relationships with him. Gardam recreates a vibrant and rich background, filled with details presented through unique images and observations. Her control of her material and her insights into people and places infuse all of her novels, and with this trilogy, they hit their peak.
Read Full Post »
Having read The Age of Orphans, the first novel in Laleh Khadivi’s trilogy, published in 2009, I vividly remember the author’s haunting style and musical, even psalm-like cadences, along with the power and passion with which she creates that novel’s memorable main character, seven-year-old Reza Khourdi, who grows up under the Shah. This book, though similar in the best aspects of its style, is truly different, and in its differences, it hits heights rarely seen in a second novel, especially by such a young novelist. Beginning in the earliest days of the Iranian Revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, The Walking is simultaneously much narrower in focus and much more universal in its themes. The author says almost nothing about the revolutionary events themselves, concentrating instead on the lives and innermost questions, thoughts, and fears, of two Khourdi brothers, ages nineteen and seventeen, who leave Iran secretly after a bloody incident involving their father, Reza from The Age of Orphans. They become part of the Iranian diaspora – young men and families who leave to create new lives in another world while they still have a chance to escape. A novel which stuns with its insights, hitting all the right notes.
Read Full Post »
Qiu Xiaolong, formerly a resident of Shanghai and citizen of the People’s Republic of China, has lived some of the issues which face Inspector Chen Cao, head of the special case squad, Homicide Division in Shanghai, as he tries to solve a murder. Author Qiu, a scholar and lover of literature, was studying at Washington University in St. Louis, home of T. S. Eliot, doing research on Eliot’s life and work, when the dramatic uprising in Tiananmen Square took place in 1989. He was unable to return home. In Inspector Chen, he has created a kind of alterego, a poet who is also a policeman of impeccable honesty, a man who must walk the fine line between doing what the party believes is in the best interests of the country and what he sees as right in broader, less political terms. Death of a Red Heroine, an unusual mystery for a western audience, provides much information about how the political system in China “works,” while also creating situations in which the reader is as stymied as Chen about how to accomplish what he believes are the true goals of the country, as opposed to the personal goals of party officials.
Read Full Post »
The Moresbys are about to get “all the way into life” in ways they have never expected. Having left the United States for an adventure in Morocco, main character Porter Moresby is careful to describe himself as a traveler, not a tourist. “The difference is partly one of time, he [explains]. Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than another, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another.” This is the Moresbys’ first trip across the Atlantic since 1939, since all of Europe and much of Africa has been consumed for ten years with World War II and its aftereffects. In 1949, when they decide to do some traveling, North Africa is one of the few places to which they can obtain boat passage. In this unusual and thoughtful debut novel, Bowles takes crass Americans out of their normal post-war environment, allowing the reader to see them in a more universal context. This is not a love story, by any means, despite Bernardo Bertolucci’s attempt to make it one in his 1990 film adaptation with Debra Winger and John Malkovich. Instead, the two main characters are so limited, both in their relationships with their peers and in relationships with the wider, outside world that neither is fully capable of feeling real emotion for anyone other than self. Their trip is a disaster. One of Modern’s Library’s 100 Best Novels of All Time.
Read Full Post »
In his masterful portrayal of Michelangelo’s four-year effort to fill the 12,000 square foot, vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with new frescoes for Pope Julius II, a commission Michelangelo had tried to avoid, Ross King examines and places in context the known details of Michelangelo’s life, the images he includes in the frescoes, and his relationship with Pope Julius II, called the “terrifying Pope,” a man who is thought, ironically, to have been much like Michelangelo himself in personality. This was a tumultuous and monumental era artistically, one in which Pope Julius II tore down the existing St. Peter’s Basilica and started a completely new cathedral, created new papal apartments and a library, planned an immense tomb for himself, and determined to have the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel frescoed in a way which would confer even greater status upon himself and the church. This vibrant and exciting atmosphere offered Michelangelo and his contemporaries many opportunities for work, but competition was fierce, artists were always at the mercy of their patrons, and they didn’t have much, if any, choice in their subject matter, a fact that author King stresses in the book’s title. Set in 1508 – 1512, this book is an exciting depiction of life for artists more than five hundred years ago.
Read Full Post »
