A Sense of the World, bio of pioneering explorer James Holman; Sightless & Fearless

A SENSE of the WORLD is the remarkable life & travels of James Holman.  Holman (b. Britain 1786) is the 1st blind person to span the globe to every inhabited continent.  His life appears incredulous,  sightless, intermittently crippled, he traversed the seas & foreign lands independantly.  Jason Roberts (b. Amer.) is the author of A SENSE of the WORLD, which earned a Nat'l Book Award nom.  By any account, his travels & struggles should lend themselves to a riveting tale of adventure & discovery.  Alas, I was anchored down by the minutia attached to his feckless plans & wrangled means for maneuvering himself.  His impressive exploits were downplayed.  Ensued blindness was stigmatized.  The vast blind population survived as mendicants. "He was expected to do nothing but sit quietly for the remainder of his life."  Taking to the seas appeared far more appealing the young impoverished seaman rendered restless with few options.  He seemed more resourceful than courageous; an opportunist willing to travel alone relying on assistance from strangers.  I was put off by Roberts' assumptions of how blind people are perceived.  "The notion is that they spend their lives in that uncertain, unsettling state."  Roberts contends his book "documents not just a profoundly inspiring figure, but one of history's most richly lived lives."  I enjoyed the historical context during the time of Holman's travels.  The skirmishes at sea that continued to plaque Americans after the Amer. Revolution.  The British continued to abduct sailors from American vessels.  His Majesty did not acknowledge his subjects the right to revoke their British citizenship.  The barbaric medical treatments of the day were also eye opening; lancings to the eyes, leeching, scolding of skin & blood letting.  Holman relied on observations from others to record his encounters he had published with some success from 1819-1832.  I recommend skimming over A SENSE of the WORLD & glancing at Holman's own writings.      

COLOMBIAN author Juan Vasquez's "The Sound of Things Falling" Resonates

The seductive & eloquent novel by Vasquez (b. Columbia 1973) is set in Bogota during the bloody drug cartel years of the 1980's.  Drug lord Pablo Escobar reigned terror on the streets of Bogota.  People lived in daily fear of  indiscriminate shootings.  Escobar became incredibly wealthy & notorious from drug smuggling & murder.  Each generation has its defining historic events.  Vasquez somnolent prose lends a dreamlike quality to the cataclysmic, life altering events during the Medellin cartel.  The novel is devotes itself to the damaging exercise of remembering.  Antonio, a young Univ. professor befriends the elderly Ricardo & their lives intertwine briefly.  Ricardo is released after serving a long jail term for flying cocaine into the U.S.  Ricardo is killed in a drive by shooting alongside Antonio who is left physically & emotionally scarred.  Ricardo was eagerly awaintg the arrival of his estranged American wife after their lengthy separation, hopeful of a reconciliation.  Antonio obtains the cassette belonged to Ricardo containing the recording of the black box from the doomed flight with Ricardo's wife on board. The book's title refers to "the sounds of live being extinguished, the sound of things falling from on high."  Recorded messages from those trapped in the Twin Towers to their loved ones are tragic & deeply personally deserving of our acknowledgement & respect.  Vasquez quotes an  Aurelio Artoro poem written in 1929, "Unblinking, I watched it collapse and fall like a rose petal under a hoof.  Walls fell over the beloved voices... toppling like a city collapsing in screams."  This unflinching & poignant novel cautions: "There is no more destructive mania than the speculation over roads not taken." Take time to read Vasquez's award winning novel "The Sound of Things Falling."  It resonates deeply with sorrow, wisdom & beauty.

P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberly- Pitiful Plagarism

P.D. James is a British author famous for her mystery & crime solving novels.  James has received numerous Silver Dagger Awards for her mysteries.  She is an Offficer of the Order of the British Empire and Life Peer in the House of Lords since 1991.  As an American, I've surmised these honors give entitlement to plagiarize & diminish the great works of a truly great British author, Jane Austen.  I am unabashedly a Austen fan and perhaps this makes me disdainful of the improvised future between Mr. & Mrs. Darcy which is mired in a murky, melodramatic murder mystery.  Of course, the culprit appears to be Mr. Wickham who married Elizabeth's sister Lydia but remains barred from Pemberly.  Lydia turns up on a stormy night at Pemberly in hysteria.  Lydia maniacally insists Darcy & the Colonel  search the grounds of the estate for her husband whom she fears has been killed.  Wickham is discovered kneeling over the bloody body of his companion Denny, blaming himself for his friend's death.  A trial ensues with Wickham as the defendant.   The outcome for Wickham looks as bleak as the dark, wintery countryside.   Alas, there are plenty of warming fires along with a burning love between Elizabeth & her husband Fitzwilliam Darcy;his having married beneath his social class.  Therein lies the strength of the novel, social stratas, decorum and the daily "Downton Abbey" lifestyle for both the aristocracy & the servants.  The legal conventions of the time are also of interest. But, DEATH COMES to PEMBERLY is a flagrant rip-off of Austen's beloved characters in a who done it which does nothing for me.

Korean author Change-rae Lee, On Such A Full Sea

On SUCH a FULL SEA is a vast pool of story telling.  This is not necessarily praise for Korean author Change-rae Lee who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  The genre of FULL SEA is futuristic apocalyptic sic-fi combined with a haunting love story, a strong, independent heroine and a plethora of sinister people & plot twists.  The story is set in the not too distant future in a strange new world with hierarchies as in Orwell's ANIMAL FARM & oppressive mandates similar to Huxley's 1984.  The closet comparison is McCarthy's The ROAD where self-preservation is a daily peril with the terrifying unknown around every bend.  Change-rae Lee uses an unidentified narrator from her community "B-Morph" to tell the tale of young Fan who abandons the safety of "B-Morph" where she is sheltered from the apocalyptic chaos outside their borders.  There is an omnipresent fear of being ostracized and forced out to survive (highly unlikely) on her own.  Fan chooses to leave the mind-numbing life in "B-Morph" to find her lover Reg (& father of her unborn child.)  Reg simply vanished after having been called to meet with the Charters (the privileged class.)  We follow Fan's unpredictable & disturbing odyssey as she searches for Reg & an older brother.  Lee's writers gifts casts a fetching tale that lures the reader into caring for our heroine.  However, once caught in Lee's net, I felt I was  gasping for air.  On Such a Full Sea has a mesmerizing power but its appeal lies for those who find a dystopia exciting rather than disturbing.  

British author Julian Barnes' "Levels of Life" Gradations of Grief

British author Julian Barnes, is an acclaimed writer, (Sense of an Ending '11 - Man Booker Prize.)  He has also been shortlisted for this award for 3 of his other works.  Both "Levels of Life" & "Sense of an Ending" are explorations of love & grief and the mysterious, ephemeral memories that remain.  Barnes remarkable gifts as a writer are paramount in this memoir which is a triptych of historical fiction, lyrical fiction & personal lamentations on grieving since the death of his wife.  The historical fiction gives depth to the scientific inventions of airborne vessels & photography.  "Advances which allowed us to look at ourselves, better, with increasing truth."  Barnes also quotes Maj. Gen. Anders, on his Apollo 8 mission to the moon in 1968 "…we'd come 240,000 miles to see the Moon and it was the Earth that was really worth looking at."  The eloquent fiction mid-section of the triptych discusses the romantic liaison artists in the late 19thC between the bohemian actress Sarah Bernhardt  & British balloonist Burnaby as a paradigm for quantifying love.  "Together, in that 1st exaltation, that 1st roaring sense of uplift, they are greater than their 2 separate selves."  The poignant bookend to "The Sin of Height" is "The Loss of Depth."  It is here that Barnes, assembles his candid & poignant thoughts on love, grief, memory and meaning to life.  Barnes recalls his wife saying shortly before her death, "It's just the Universe doing its stuff."  He asks himself "what extent am I missing her, or missing the life we had together, or missing what it was in her that made me more myself, or missing simple companionship or (not so simple) love, or all or any overlapping bits of each?"  LEVELS of LIFE is a searing biopsy of the heart that focuses a lens into humanity.

Swiss Novelist, Dicker's "The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair" Truly a Major Event

Joel Dicker (b. Switzerland '85) has created a sensational, award winning novel with his 1st book.   The title is a mouthful & this clever novel is so full of surprising twists, pithy platitudes and poignancies it  seems incredulous such a young writer, in his 1st book, could have accomplished this amazing work.   Dicker won the Prix Coucourt des Lyceens voted on by French h.s. students from 2 French literary award lists.  The novel contains an illicit love affair between a 15 yr. old, Nola, & a writer 20 years her senior, Harry.  Marcus is the protagonist of this complex & compelling read that is equal parts a thriller, mystery, friendship, love, & coming-of-age story.  We meet Marcus as an egomaniacal  h.s. student, wanna-be writer.  He is a master manipulator who has fooled everyone to be dubbed "Marcus the Magnificent." Despite receiving acceptances to Harvard/Yale Marcus decides to attend Burrows Univ. in order to flourish at the top of his class.  It is at Burrows where he meets his mentor & friend, celebrated author, Prof. Harry Quebert.  Harry takes Marcus under his wing, teaches him how to box,  write & what are life's important lessons.  "The most important thing {in life} is knowing how to fall."  After college, Marcus' 1st novel is met with critical & financial success.  Following his success, he suffers writer's block.  When he learns Harry is arrested for the murder of Nola, Marcus rushes to be in Harry's corner & prove his innocence.  Nola's body is uncovered on Harry's property 30 yrs. after her disappearance.  The roller coaster investigation, quirky town's characters & convoluted relationships makes for a page turning novel (all 650 pages.)  Harry told Marcus that the mark of "A good book, is a book you are sorry has ended."  Finishing this book is a buzz kill.  I hope Dicker never suffer from writer's block.    

Summer Reading Had Me A Blast, I'll Tell You More...

Away from my beloved Big Apple, I found plenty of good summer reading.  "One is never bored with a book for company."  I hate trite platitudes, how about you?  Nevertheless, here are 10 recommendations to enjoy (in alphabetical order by author):

1.  Americanah by C. N. Adichie
     A insightful & entertaining perspective of black culture in the U.S. by a black, Nigerian woman.
2.  The Uncommon Reader by A. Bennett
     A delightful novella about the joys of reading from the Queen of England herself.
3.  Suspicion Nation by Lisa Bloom Non-F
     An intelligent dissection of the Trayvon Martin trial/verdict and pertinent social commentary.
4.  The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker
     A clever who done it unravelled by a young writer who seeks to prove his mentor's innocence.
5.  The Life of an Unknown Man
     An amazing life history of Russia's turbulent 20th C told by an unassuming elderly man.
6.  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
     Five days in war torn Checnya that bind several live together under attack from Russia.
7.  Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oysyemi
     A lyrical twist on the Snow White fairy tale which sheds new light on racism within a family.
8.  The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur
     Powerful & stirring poetry by the late rapper.
9.  The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsioni
      A lovable, socially inept adult with Asperger's awkward search for companionship.
10. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
       Life settling the west at the end of the 19thC told by a direct descendent who has his own issues.