Sunday Salon: the Goodbye, February Post

The end of February seriously snuck up on me. (I feel I say that about every month, though! lol) This month started out with a really bad fibro flare-up, and I didn’t blog or read for two weeks. Crazy! Since then, I’ve definitely had ‘dry spells’ in regard to my reading, but I’ve still managed to get through quite a few books. :) This week, not counting the books I’m doing co-reviews with other bloggers or that I know need their own post, I’ve got six books to talk about. So let’s get going! (Oh, and I suddenly realised that I love footnotes, so maybe I should include them in blog posts too. So whenever you see an asterisk, click on it for a footnote, then use your browser’s back button to return to your place. If this seems affected or silly, just let me know, and I’ll stop.)

The Road to Home by Vanessa del Fabbro was my second Christy Awards Challenge read, and I chose it because it was set in South Africa. del Fabbro is very talented at bringing her nation to life: I felt like I was in the streets of Jo’burg right along with the characters (see? I even call it by slang now). But, this story felt a bit forced to me…it deals with the Big Issues of race and AIDS and most of the characters felt more like cardboard cut-outs than real people. (And honestly, the way most of the black characters were portrayed made me cringe a little…although to be fair, most of the white characters definitely don’t come off as angels.) It was pretty easy to see how the book would end up after just the first few chapters, and while that’s not always a problem for me as a reader, in this case the plot seemed a bit too formulaic. I loved both of the South African novels I read last year*, so perhaps those authors gave me unrealistically high expectations for all of their compatriots. I’d recommend this to those who like feel-good fiction set in a more exotic locale.

I finally finished listening to A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipul. I’ve always wanted to try out Naipul, and this novel about Indians in East Africa sounded right up my alley (I enjoyed Vassanji’s East African set novel The Book of Secrets last year). The first half was quite interesting, and I enjoyed it despite the main character annoying me (I think that annoyance was deliberate on the author’s part). But then, things just started to drag, and soon it felt like torture to open up the file. However, I’m not sure how much of this was Naipul’s writing and how much of it was the voice of the audiobook narrator…he had this smarmy accent that didn’t bother me too much at first (since it matched how the main character acts) but eventually began to feel like nails on a chalkboard. I ended up finishing it, and I wouldn’t be too averse to giving Naipul another shot in the future, but I can’t say I’m out recommending this to all of my friends! Usually, I think audiobooks really enhance my reading experience, but in this case I probably should have switched to a hard copy. But while Naipul is very talented at bringing scenes to life, I have to wonder how much of the book’s almost smarmy snobbishness and uber-conservative viewpoint is due to the author rather than the main character (who narrates the book in first person). I definitely want to read at least one more Naipul book (and I’d love for anyone who’s better acquainted with him to recommend one for me), but I doubt we’ll ever be bosom buddies.

Honestly, Sisters in War by Christina Asquith (which I picked up for the Women Unbound Challenge) was an incredibly difficult reading experience for me. Not because of Asquith’s writing style, which is smooth and journalistic. But because the subject matter, this is a nonfiction look at women’s rights in Iraq from the beginning of the US invasion through 2005, was so upsetting. I often found myself so enraged I forgot to breathe. Women getting murdered for promoting women’s rights. Women being groped for walking down streets alone, unveiled. Women being kidnapped, gang raped, and killed for working for the Americans. Women getting trafficked into sexual slavery because in their desperation to escape their current lives they believe charming people. The book is pretty much unrelentingly negative, not because of how Asquith has slanted it so much as simply reporting the events that took place related to women’s rights paints a depressing picture. And honestly, when I closed the final pages, I felt hopeless and empty. I’ve always known that war is a horrible, horrible thing for women (should we talk about how refugee and IDP camps are also called ‘rape camps’?*), but seeing how the optimism of the early days of the Iraq war turns into disappointment and terror was just so awful. That being said, I learned a lot from this book, and I especially liked how Asquith regularly takes the time to look at Muslim feminists, and their reasoning (which is rooted in the Qur’an). Those reminders are so important in a book like this, which of necessity often focuses on how the conservative religious elements of Iraqi society set out to attack anyone promoting women. Meh. I’ve already deleted a ton of sentences from this paragraph, just because these are delicate issues. But I will say that, any society that systematically dehumanises women is wrong. I don’t care about bloody cultural relativism, and how we “need to respect traditions.” Let’s call a spade a spade. In post-invasion Iraq, the women Asquith profiles all end up in mortal danger because of their gender. And that’s just fucked up.*

Ahem. Let’s move on, shall we? An Ocean of Air by Gabrielle Walker is my first Science Book Challenge read of the year.* I read Walker’s Snowball Earth book a couple years ago and really enjoyed it, so I picked this up because of her, rather than any long-seated interest in air. ;) And I definitely wasn’t disappointed! The book is more like a collection of essays, all united around the ‘air’ theme, since each chapter is standalone and doesn’t really reference the others. Many of them include some history of science, which I find fascinating, with Walker tracing the discovery of air pressure and oxygen, for example. Of course, there’s a lot of modern science included as well, and I learned a lot of fascinating stuff! The chapter on trade winds is sure to come in handy whenever I’m reading some nautical fiction, and I expect to wow people in years to come by being able to tell them what the Northern Lights really are. As you might be able to guess, I really enjoyed this book-Walker’s a master of making the process behind scientific discoveries come alive (and she really humanises science, without taking away from its academic aspects), and I found most of the chapters absolutely fascinating. The two exceptions, for me, were in the middle when Walker looks at carbon dioxide and global warming, followed by a chapter on CFCs and the hole in the ozone. These were still well-written, and I definitely enjoyed the profiles of various scientists involved, but I felt like it wasn’t as ‘fresh’ as the other stuff. Still good, just not fascinating! All in all, I’d highly recommend this book, both to general fans of pop science books, and to those more wary of nonfiction, since this is very readable. Honestly, I was sad when I turned the last page, because I could have done with many more chapters of Walker’s wonderful style! I can only hope that she publishes a new book soon.*

With my completion of Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang* , I’m only two books away from completing the China Challenge! I’ve heard a lot of good things about Chang, and I must say that her writing style lives up to all I’ve heard. It’s exquisite! I was surprised on opening the book to see that it’s a collection of stories instead of a novel. With one exception, though, the stories are all at least 60 pages long, so really it felt more like a few novellas than a more standard short story collection. Which is my way of hinting that, if you don’t like short stories, you shouldn’t write this book off! Now, as much I loved Chang’s writing, and her ability to bring upper-class Shanghai and Hong Kong of a bygone day to life, I will warn you that she makes Edith Wharton look optimistic. Chang seems to delight in ruining her character’s lives Greek tragedy style, but she does it so beautifully I can’t hold it against her. My favourite story was the title one, in which a young woman and man play a game of love, in both Shanghai and Hong Kong. I really cared about the main character and her fate, and I loved watching the machinations unfold. I’m not sure how she does it, but from the first page of the book, Chang brought me with her into her China, and I can’t wait to return via her other books. Honestly, she’s the first Chinese fiction author I can see myself falling in love with.

Finally, I finished The Hidden Forest by Jon Luoma for the International Year of Biodiversity Challenge (Biomes category). It’s subtitled ‘a biography of an ecosystem,’ and it surely lived up to that. I learned so much about a patch of old growth forest in the Pacific Northwest, from the trees to the soil to the canopy…every layer was covered. I have been called a tree hugger my whole life (and proudly embrace that title), so obviously I found a book about forests really interesting. But I think even people who don’t have my inborn fascination would enjoy it; Luoma is a good writer, and his writing has a definite journalistic feel to it that I think works well in pop science books. That being said, the book takes a little bit to get going…the first couple of chapters aren’t nearly as interesting as the rest of the book (the concluding chapter is kind of weak too, but since I find conclusions the hardest thing about writing, I can’t hold that against it!). I just flipped through the book, to see what my problem was with those chapters, and I realised that ones I liked the least were the ones discussing the timber industry. I don’t think this is Luoma’s fault at all, and he does a good job laying out the politics. However, I get so upset even thinking about loggers*, that I think I emotionally shut down during those bits, which is why I found them less engaging. If you’re not as big a tree hugger as me, you’ll probably enjoy the book from the very beginning! Anyway, this was not only a great read in general, it was also perfect for the Biodiversity challenge, since much of the book traces scientists’ awareness that natural forests were incredibly more complex than they had realised at first, and there’s much talk of the importance of a big variety of species (of everything from truffles to mites to trees). Luoma also looks at problematic biases in the scientific community itself, from physicists and chemists looking down on biology as a ‘soft science’ to a lack of funding for observational studies (which aren’t seen as ‘real science’ since there’s no hypothesis at first) to the relative short-term focus of a lot of researchers (which is the opposite of what ecology needs). I found this frank discussion of the shortfalls of academia refreshing, but I don’t want to imply that Luoma is anti-scientists at all. His profiles of individuals who blazed trails in ecology and forest studies are inspiring! All in all, a wonderful book that I’d recommend to anyone at all curious about the natural world.

How has your reading month gone? Was February unusual at all, or was it pretty much same old, same old?

-*-
Footnote One: A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (whose second book comes out in just a couple months!) and A Time of Angels by Patricia Schonstein.

Footnote Two: IDP means ‘internally displaced person,’ or a refugee who hasn’t crossed a national border. For more info on rape and refugees, read this article or this one or watch this video. Girls and women are regularly raped while carrying out everyday tasks such as collecting firewood or water. Or corrupt camp administrators trade life essentials like food for ‘sexual favours’ (I hate that euphemism). Or UN peacekeeping troops themselves rape the women they’re supposed to be protecting, as this article outlines. I’ll stop now; I’m sure you get the picture.

Footnote Three: Now you see why I don’t dare devote a whole post to reviewing Sisters in War, though…there would be so much rage and profanity, y’all might not recognise me.

Footnote Four: Which means I’ve fallen behind my ‘one science book a month’ goal. Eek! That’s a good excuse to double up in March though. :D

Footnote Five: In addition to this and Snowball Earth, she has published a primer on global warming (The Hot Topic), but I doubt I’ll read that since I already feel sufficiently primed on the topic.

Footnote Six: I’ve also seen her name spelled Ai-ling Chang or Aileen Zhang…so I wasn’t sure which spelling to go with.

Footnote Seven: My dad occasionally watches that show about Pacific Northwest loggers, and if I don’t leave the room right away, I start sobbing when I see one of those gorgeous huge trees cut down. And I root for the tree, hoping it’ll take the loggers out with it. Which I know is irrational, since it’s the evil corporations that are the problem more than the employees who are just making a living. But I can’t help it. (I feel similarly about those deep sea fishing shows…I’m always rooting for Mother Nature to strike back hard.) So now you see the extent of my tree hugger insanity…I would totally have chained myself to a tree without a second thought if the occasion ever arose.