“As soon as there’s a bomb, an earthquake…or a riot, I call the travel agent,” Tahir Shah says, explaining his thirst for adventure. In this account he searches for King Solomon’s legendary gold mines, armed with books and research he acquired in preparation for his trip and a “treasure map” he purchased in Jerusalem. King Solomon had built a lavishly appointed temple there three thousand years ago, using gold which the Queen of Sheba had brought from Ophir. No one knows from what direction she came or where the legendary Ophir actually was, however, with different researchers claiming that it was in Zimbabwe, South Africa, or even Haiti or Peru. Tahir Shah is determined to find out.
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In prose which is dense, dramatic, and saturated with images of violence of all kinds, Vargas Llosa reconstructs the final, tumultuous years of Rafael Trujillo’s despotism in the Dominican Republic.
Using three points of view to give breadth to the portrait of the country in 1961, the author cycles the chapters through three distinct viewpoints: that of Urania Cabral, a contemporary 49-year-old woman who has returned to the Dominican Republic for the first time in 35 years, and who shares her reminiscences of her life there in 1961, when her father was President of the Senate; that of Trujillo himself as he reflects on his declining health, his 31 years in power, and his relationships with subordinates, the church, and the U.S.; and that of four conspirators waiting to ambush and assassinate “The Goat,” as they individually recall the events which have driven them to take this final step.
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Zsuzsa Bank, in her debut novel, accomplishes a remarkable feat. She writes a novel with virtually no plot at all, yet she makes us care about her characters and their lives. It is 1956 in Hungary, a time of enormous social upheaval. Living conditions are poor, workers are discontented, journalists are upset at their restrictions, and the governing Communist party is doing nothing to ameliorate the situation. When a rebellion, involving many students and young people breaks out and fighting begins, better-armed Soviet troops enter and start shooting. Over 250,000 people leave everything behind to seek new lives in other countries as refugees. One who leaves without any warning or goodbye is Katalin Velencei, wife of Kalman Velencei, and mother of young Kata, about eight, and Isti, about six, all of whom, abandoned, remain behind. The stories of their lives, so rooted in the mundane, take on particular poignancy as they come to represent the lives of legions of other ordinary people who, through the accident of war or rebellion, find their lives uprooted, their families torn, their homes vanishing, and all sense of “normalcy” evaporated. Ultimately, Bank’s recreation of the reality of two young children (and by extension the Hungarian people) achieves a universal significance which, for many readers, may transcend plot.
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With Friendly Fire, A. B. Yehoshua, one of Israel’s most honored contemporary novelists, creates a magnificent novel filled with real, flawed characters who come alive from the first page. The alternating narratives of Daniela Ya’ari, who is visiting her brother-in-law in Tanzania, and her husband Amotz Ya’ari, who remains behind in Tel Aviv, reveal their relationships to each other, their family, their culture, and ultimately their country. Daniela has been protected by Ya’ari (as he is usually identified) for her entire marriage, but she has traveled to Tanzania alone this time. Her older sister Shuli died two years before, while Shuli and her husband Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) were living in Tanzania, and Daniela, who has never really grieved, wants to come to terms with her death. Friendly Fire goes beyond Israeli and Jewish issues to touch on universal issues affecting all of humanity. Intensely realized, thoughtful, and stunning in its unique imagery and symbolism, this unusual novel deals with seemingly everyday issues, offering new insights into the human condition–life, love, and death–while fire serves throughout as a universal symbol of man’s humanity and his evolutionary differences from the rest of the animal world.
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Full of the colors, scents, and sounds of exotic Burma and Malaya in the 1860’s, this novel comes to life within the Glass Palace of the royal family and in the streets of Mandalay, which are sometimes the only “home” of its ordinary citizens, in the final days before Britain’s voracious, imperialist juggernaut shoots its way up the Irrawaddy River. Giving life to the Burmese point of view, Rajkumar and Dolly, orphaned children working as servants when the novel begins, eventually become the founders of a family whose members, in succeeding generations, reflect the economic and the political realities in Burma, Malaya, and India over the 150 years from the British raj to the present day.
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