The Game of the Gods, by Paolo Maurensig, just released, focuses primarily on the people who play chess, their feelings about playing, and what the game means to them, not on the specifics of the game itself. As the story of a former, almost forgotten chess champion from India develops, it weaves such a spell about chess and those who play it that even those, like me, who are not chess fanatics, can become totally absorbed in the story of Sultan Khan. His early life as a low-caste Indian, his experiences as he masters the game and begins to play on the international level, and the effects of the game on his personal life make him seem so “human” that the author is also able to elevate the narrative beyond the personal to include the history of the game, its mysteries, and the philosophies which give it religious status for many players. Its likable characters of varying cultures and different outlooks add breadth to the characterizations, themes, and visions of life. Though the novel would have benefited from a tighter plot with fewer locations, few novels these days have as much élan as this one does. I recommend it highly to those looking for some fresh insights into new worlds at a time in which many are desperately searching for a change of pace.
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Young main character Willis Wu spends the most important parts of his life at the Golden Palace, a Chinese restaurant/film studio in an unnamed time period in an unnamed English-speaking city. As Willis, whose parents were immigrants, lives his life there and in the broader enclave of Chinatown, his creator, author Charles Yu, explores Willis’s reality, quickly constructing level upon level of different “realities” and creating an experimental novel, often satiric, which includes the reader from the opening pages. Willis, an actor in a film being made in off-hours at the Golden Palace, is realistic in evaluating his chances at improving his role from that of Background Oriental Male to his ideal role, that of Kung Fu Guy, the hero. As Willis plays his part, hoping to make “progress,” the role of US immigration policy on his life and the lives of his family and friends becomes clearer. A unique novel dealing with the subject of immigration with irony, humor, and a sense of understanding for the victims and the lives they sometimes choose to live.
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This superb historical novel focuses on the power of words to change lives. In 1923, Curon, situated near the head of the Adige River, about ten kilometers from the meeting point of Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, is part of an autonomous Italian province in the northern mountains. The hardworking farmers and herders of Curon do not speak Italian, however – they have always been German speakers. When Mussolini becomes prime minister, Italian suddenly becomes the required language for the entire area, and the requirement is rigidly enforced. The fascists have occupied the schools, town halls, post offices and courts throughout the area, and “nothing is ours anymore.” Most importantly, the Italians under Mussolini now plan “to get the [Curon] dam project going again,” taking advantage of the river’s current to produce energy. The dam, as planned, will drown their farms, churches, workshops, and pastures, but it will allow the fascists to turn Bolzano and Merano, the two largest cities in the province, farther along the river, into industrial centers. The building of the dam takes over a year, and affects the entire community. “Slowly, inexorably, [the water] rose halfway up the bell tower, which from then on looked out over the rippled surface of the water like the torso of a castaway.” Author Marco Balzano has created a gem of a novel which deals with essential themes related to power, compromise, and choices and the ways people address the future – with words or with actions, or both.
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Author Irmgard Keun firmly established her reputation in Germany in 1932, with the publication of the hugely popular pre-Nazi era novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, a celebration of youth and the fast life lived to its fullest. Almost a generation and a world war later, Keun published Ferdinand, The Man with the Kind Heart depicting the aftermath of the war and the separation of Germany into two nations, East and West. “Ordinary” citizens of this time and place do not know what to expect in the future, what goals make sense in this destroyed society, and how to live a real life. These are some of the very real goals of main character Ferdinand Timpe. A former POW and fiancé of a girl who is almost a stranger to him, Ferdinand himself is not intrinsically very interesting, but author Irmgard Keun is such a high-powered, energetic writer, so wild in creating scenarios filled with irony, humor, and constant surprises, that once a reader starts exploring her novel, it becomes all-encompassing. Her tornado of images and actions never lets up, bringing even Ferdinand to reluctant life.
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In a remote, almost unpopulated area adjacent to Argentina’s pampas, China Iron, the main character and speaker in this small epic, grew up believing that she was “born an orphan,” never having known her mother. Brought up as a virtual slave by a woman known as Las Negra, she was then married off to Martín Fierro, a gaucho-singer who won her in a card game and by whom she had two sons before reaching the age of fourteen. Now, in 1872, her husband has been conscripted by the army, along with all the other young men of the outpost, and China has decided to take off, not in search of her sometimes violent husband, but in search of a life. Leaving her babies with an elderly couple, she joins with Liz, a red-haired Scottish woman whose husband Oscar was conscripted before he could take possession of land he had planned to purchase and develop. Liz, with an oxcart, supplies, and clothing from her previous life abroad, is about to set off across the pampas in her cart to find and rescue Oscar, and she is happy to have some company. The trip becomes a mini-epic (with a twist) based on the Martín Fierro work from 1872, as China, Liz, and the cowherd Rosario head for new worlds beyond the pampas. Brilliant descriptions, lively characters, and a picture of Argentina in the 1800s that few will forget. On the Favorites List.
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