Booker Prize for Heat & Dust, by R. P. Jhabvala

Heat and Dust is a forbidden love story between a newly married Englishwoman, Olivia and a Nawab, a minor Indian prince.  Olivia moves to colonial Indian in 1923 with her British civil servant, Douglas.  This is a novel of powerful yet quiet, majestic beauty.  Heat & Dust contrasts the social constraints & lifestyles of British society and those of India in early 20th C.  More importantly, it  confronts the demise of India's culture under British Imperialism.  Oliva's restless & reckless story is told by Douglas' granddaughter from his 2nd marriage who discovers her letters and retraces Oliva's steps through India while keeping a compelling journal of her own.  Douglas' granddaughter learns of the harsh lives in India by her Indian landlord, "Nothing human means anything here. Not a thing." Olivia lears of Douglas attempt to prevent the India religious practise of suttee.  Indian woman who become widowed are placed upon their husband's funeral pyre.  Though barberic, Olivia does questions British  interferance with India's cultural practices. "It's part of their religion isn't it?  I thought one wasn't supposed to meddle with that.  And quiet apart from religion, it is their culture and who are we to interfere with anyone's culture, especially an ancient one like theirs."  Jhabvala's impressive novel reveals a compelling look at Anglo-Indian relationships.  It's also a penetrating look at India's past and present.

Morality Play, Barry Unsworth, a Sin to Miss

Barry Unsworth is Booker Prize winning author & a master of historical fiction.  Morality Play is a play within a play about morality set in the 14th C English countryside. This is a time when rampant religious & judicious corruption reigned. The story begins with Priest Nicholas fleeing to excape discovery of his adultrous liasion by the husband.  Haven fallen from grace, Nicholas becomes an outcast, alone in the difficult & treacherous countryside.  He is destitute and vulnerable. Survival appears bleak when he stumbles upon a troupe of actors.  Nicholas convinces the group of his value as a man of the cloth and with the gift of gab.  The band led by Martin, agree to bring him into their fold despite the his questionable predicament.  As a member of the troupe, Nicholas hears complaints against both Church & Nobles who rule the land.  "The Church works with the Nobles and keep folks tied to the land."  Men were not permitted to leave their townships without permission of their Lords or risk "being taken & branded as fugitives on their foreheads for all to see."  They enter a town where a young boy has just been murdered and a woman condemned to hang for the crime.  A monk brought the woman in for questioning.  Martin devises a new type of play to draw in a paying audience that  will depict the murder.  Plays were only performed from biblical stories at this time.  Hear ye, a large audience hath come forth to their performance bringing the wrath of the Nobel Lord upon them.  This historic novel is worth reading for its historic depiction, its crime mystery, and for the philosophical quandries it raises  "It was the Church that first made God a player, the priest played before the altar."  And, for its clever irony, Nicholas muses, "I was a priest playing a priest, dressed for the part in my own dress."  I hereby order you to read this novel.  When it is performed, I wouldn't tarry to attend.

The Yellow Birds - A Gleaming Anti-war Novel

Kevin Powers served with the U.S. in Irag 2004-2005.  THE YELLOW BIRDS is Power's 1st novel & is a Nat'l Book Award Finalist.  I rank this Iraq war novel alongside the WWI novel ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT & the Vietnam novel THE THINGS THEY CARRIED.  All are powerful & poignant novels that speak of the attrocities of war; both on the battlefield and the homefront for returning vets.  In THE YELLOW BIRDS, John Bartle & Daniel Murphy, enlist in the army as young men.  They meet & befriend each other while in bootcamp, under the command of Sgt. Sterling.  Their friendship between under Sterling's war weary knowledge, emphasize the harsh realities of war.  Power's lyrical tale is not linear in structure which adds an element of intrigue.  Bartle is the narrator of this heartbreaking saga.  He looks back at his life as a naive youth, on the battlefronts, and at his own post war purgatory. "There isn't any making up for killing women or even watching women get killed, or for that matter killing men and shooting them in the back. There was acid seeping down into your soul and then your soul is gone."  THE YELLOW BIRDS is sure to be a classic literary achievement addressing the Hell of war.  We continuously fail to heed the wisdom of our founding father, "If tyranny & oppresion come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." J. Adams