The Storm of Echoes

Christelle Dabos

Book 4 of The Mirror Visitor Quartet

Ophelia and Thorn working together again and the timeline is tightening. The Other is destroying the world, GOD is now MIA and the Horn of Plenty seems to be the key to the whole thing. Well, Ophelia is the key to the whole thing, but she is seeking the Horn of Plenty since she doesn't know why she is the key to the whole thing. The action doesn't stop in this final story, which is probably good since wrapping up all the good-crazy of the past three books leads to some necessary weird-crazy here that is not as engaging. But overall, everything is (mostly) tied together.

3 stars (out of 4)

The Memory of Babel

Christelle Dabos

Book 3 of The Mirror Visitor Quartet

Ophelia and Thorn, having been accused of murder on the Pole and having GOD as an antagonist, need a new approach. Ophelia goes home to Anima and Thorn is MIA. So Ophelia follows her own clues to the ark Babel, where she works her way up as an intern of sorts in the main library. She is seeking information about GOD and what really happened with the family spirits after the rupture. Babel is the place to be since it is the site of the original academy that the spirits attended. We continue to be introduced to more family powers on this new Ark and the twisted path of clues does not become any more clear. Still fantastic.

4 stars (out of 4)

Noor

Nnedi Okorafor

With Lagoon set in Lagos, Noor is set in the north (Abuja and into the desert). Far future Nigeria means that there is less direct "culture" here than near-future Lagoon and more likely remnants of culture to inform the story. A cybernetic woman (named OA) and a traditional herdsman (named DNA) are coincidentally thrown together in a series of traumatic events. They are on the run from the government, and more dangerously, from the Ultimate Corporation (imagine Amazon or Apple 30 years in the future). Each is learning how naive they were, and how much power they actually have to change the future of the country they love. The plot is thin and a bit too convenient, but it is a quick read and a not-so-unbelievable portrayal of "Ultimate Corporation". 

3 stars (out of 4)

Children of the Street

Kwei Quartey

A Darko Dawson mystery. Dawson is a police inspector in Ghana (stationed in Accra for this episode). He is lead investigator in the murder of a street kid whose body was found dumped in the fetid canal waters near a slum. Over the course of the book, the murder turns out to be the first of a serial killing spree of street children and Dawson must use all of his intellect, instinct and empathy to solve the case. Just as important, the enjoyment in reading Quartey comes from the culture and family and lifestyle snippets that we learn about Ghana. So while it is a straight up mystery novel, it is also a character study into Ghana. 

4 stars (out of 4)

Gold of our Fathers

Kwei Quartey

Darko Dawson is a police inspector in Ghana. If you want a quick feel for what you will get, think of a Ghanian Harry Bosch. Dawson is a bit of an arrogant investigator, but it is earned based on the results he gets. In this story he is transferred to a new city and a homicide immediately lands on his desk. A Chinese gold miner's body has been dug up from his mining pit, hands tied behind his back. While in many ways a standard police detective drama, Dawson also plays the role of one of the few incorruptible officers in the Ghanian Police (or entire Ghanian gov't for that matter). Quartey does an excellent job of evoking an understanding of what, for me, is a foreign world and simultaneously putting illegal immigration and police conduct on the table (which are relevant social issues globally). These issues in a context different than mine help to add perspective and interest. Definitely a fun read. 

4 stars (out of 4)

Supernova Era

Cixin Liu

When a supernova sends deadly radiation toward earth, and when said radiation kills all adults, what happens next. This novel by Liu is telling that story, a world inhabited and run by children. Sort of a modern telling of Lord of the Flies. Most of the novel is told from the perspective of the Chinese, and when the Americans enter the scene, stereotypes abound (not incorrectly I think). In the end, what is really useful/interesting about this story is the reimagining of the value of children and imagination and play in terms of creativity and productivity and general happiness. Absolutely a fun sci-fi read, probably even if you are not really into sci-fi. 

4 stars (out of 4)

The Bourne Objective

Eric Van Lustbader

Book 8 in the Jason Bourne series

Lustbader went full Dan Brown with this one. Hopefully this is not the new trend for the Bourne series. Previously the intrigue for Bourne is based on his getting pulled into political/national security/national intelligence scenarios that are complicated by the Treadstone training and his amnesia. This story inhabits that world, and those characters take part, but the story is pure illuminati. Disappointing. I give hime another try, hoping this is an aberation.

2 stars (out of 4)

Confessions

Kanae Minato

Translated from its original Japanese, this novel is delivered as a series of 1st person accounts surrounding a local tragedy. We open with a middle school homeroom teacher talking to her students on the last day before summer break, giving her "end of year speech". This monologue sets the story (she is leaving the school and it has everything to do with the fact that her 5 year old daughter recently died) and it sets the stage for a mystery thriller. Since we are hearing the perspective of the teacher, there are clearly point of view issues that the reader can intuit. Gaps in her knowledge, conjectures that we wonder if they are correct, etc. Minato expertly fills in those gaps, slowly unpeeling the layers of this story, not by retelling the same event from several perspectives, but by allowing the story to progress in time (or even to flash back) from other perspectives. It all seems natural and is well connected. I love the story telling mechanism simply because it is so well done. And the story itself is fascinating, as watching a slow motion train wreck is fascinating. All this while exploring the depth of the characters neurosis (what do you expect from middle school kids) and asking deep questions about morality, love, and life purpose. Well done.
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The Sympathizer

Viet Thanh Nguyen

This is a fabulous investigation of identity. The time setting is the end of the Vietnam war and our protagonist is a North Vietnamese man who has been embedded with a South Vietnamese general as a spy. After the fall of Saigon, they escape to the US and continue (as southerners in exile) to work toward the defeat of the communist north. This work involves raising money and keeping the U.S. political interest in an anti-communist southeast Asia alive. As a spy, it involved regular reporting back to his superiors and even working as a consultant on a hollywood movie. At one point, in discussing the merits of working on this movie we find Mao's discussion about the role of art and literature as tools for both revolution and domination. At the end of the discussion about the value of the movie

...emotions [about the movie] were irrelevant. What mattered was that the audience member, having paid for the ticket, was willing to let American ideas and values seep into the vulnerable tissue of his brain and the absorbent soil of his heart.

This is the essential argument about consumerism and marketing. We can all claim that what we watch and/or read is just entertainment and does not need to reflect our values. But somehow, by spending our money (placing value on) this entertainment, we are opening our mind and spirit to the message. It seeps... and has over time ability to change our identity. Maybe the question becomes, does awareness prevent, or slow, that identity change? Does self-reflection allow us to maintain our role as audience member, or is isolation the only way to maintain a value system? Many religious sects have chosen the later...

This is but one example of the thinking about identity and culture that is prompted. I can't recommend this novel highly enough.

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The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution

Mariano Azuela

A translation of the novel from Spanish, which was first published as a newspaper serial in around 1915. A good scholarly introduction to this edition tells us that first, the title is not right. The underdogs suggests disadvantaged sports team overcoming all odds to win something. And while this is one possible reading, the translation is probably better as "the people beneath". In fact, it is a story of survival, of poverty fighting against political power and then not knowing how to "win" or to stop fighting, how war is an intoxicating/addictive drug. Demetrio is a guerrilla revolutionary who has some military success based on his fearlessness, leadership, and ferocity. This is  his story, about the transition from a two ox farmer to a general, his own recognition of his changing identity, and his inability (disinterest?) in stopping the change. And somehow, even in victory, the people beneath are still beneath...
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The Man with the Compound Eyes

Wu Ming-yi

Three stories told interspersed. The story of Alice, a Taiwanese writer/professor who lives on the eastern seaboard. She has lost her husband and son, has aboriginal friends who look after her and is struggling to find purpose in life. The story of Atile'i, a pacific islander who journeys off his Island, finds a big world and seeks to understand it in terms of his existing worldview. The story of Sara and Detlef, European scientists on personal journeys to understanding their connection and responsibility to the earth. In fact, all of these stories are about connection to earth and the responsibility of humanity to understand the earth and act accordingly. The unifying event in these stories is a large storm that breaks up the great trash vortex that has been collecting in the Pacific gyre and sends it on a collision course with Taiwan. Each story is independently engaging, and the connections between them are natural and unforced. Wu does not feel the need to make explicit connections with plot, but allows the reader to feel the connections just by acknowledging that the characters inhabit the same space. May be one of the most environmentally persuasive books I have read.
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The Three-Body Problem

Cixin Liu

Bestselling Chinese Sci-Fi novel that was translated to English. Although it is sci-fi, I would probably say its primary genre is Mystery-Thriller based on how it reads. It just so happens that the mystery is sci-fi based. Beginning at the cultural revolution, we are introduced to a scientist and his family and a set of ethics/values that sets the stage for a conflict between a scientific worldview and a cultural/religious worldview. This feels like a common conflict and recalls the feeling of other Chinese cultural revolution or Soviet Marxist revolution story-lines. This setting provides the basis for decisions, planning and scheming around a first contact event with an alien (extra-solar) civilization. Liu does an excellent job of playing with both the psychology of humans knowing about alien civilization and the reality of physical interaction with that civilization. Overall, this is a fun exploration of competing worldview's and the implications of worldview on actions.

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Decoded

Mai Jia

Rong is a young boy with autism and a proclivity for math. His mentor pushes him to challenge himself in problem solving and patterns and the regularity of the problems becomes a comfortable/safe place to retreat. When he is recruited into a special military unit charged with codes and code breaking, Rong is finally at home. But when he finds himself entering into an addictive battle to break some unbreakable codes and simultaneously maintain his humanity, finding balance is not easy. It seems Jia's aim is to open a new window into a life as an autistic man. Unfortunately, the actual novel is not as engaging as this treatment sounds like it could be. I have not read enough translated works to be familiar with the feel of a translation, but my "feel" on this one is that something is lost in the translation.
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Baghdad Diaries

Nuha al-Radi

A set of four diaries set over the course of about 15 years. The author is a Iraqi artist who was in Baghdad during the initial US bombing after the Kuwaiti invasion. She found that writing short snippets of thoughts and chronology was all she could manage creatively for awhile and it turned into a discipline she continued for the next decade. I love the descriptions of life in Iraq. It is not a description that is place based, although place is clearly important. Instead, it is relational. These are the people who lived in my house during the bombing, these are the people we checked on every week, these are the people we corresponded with, etc. And the little hints about what it means to be Iraqi (apparently Iraq is a dog country, while Lebanon tends to favor cats). Al-Radi has a section on war, embargo, exile, and identity. Each is revealing of the stresses and idiosyncrasies that come with being the recipient of bombs and missiles. While she is not blind to the wrong-doings of Iraq and its political leaders, she does legitimately call out the hypocrisy of the west, in particular the US and UK in the decade long sustained war. And continually asks the question about the justice of bombing the people of Iraq. Overall, while I enjoyed reading her first hand account of this now "old" war, the main effect was just to make me mad all over again. Frustrated with the political leadership of my country, both then and now.

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note: this book is part of a Reading Lolita in Tehran project, which you can read more about here.

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running

Haruki Murakami

This is a short memoir describing a few years of Murakami's life in the early 2000's. As an avid runner (he has run at least one marathon a year for the past 25 years), the premise is one of illuminating his thinking about running and ruminating on its impact on his life. This particular book follows his preparations for one running of the New York City marathon in 2006. It turns out to be as much about him as a novelist and a person as it does about running. The only other thing I have read by Murakami is The Windup Bird Chronicle, which I really enjoyed and shows some of the same style characteristics. Here, I think, we get a picture of how Murakami is as a person, which informs his writing style. I would probably categorize him as a severe pragmatist. He takes everything in life in stride, accepting what befalls him as it is and moves on. There is no drama. Perhaps that should read NO drama. I don't know if this is Murakami personality, or this is Japanese culture. I suspect it is more of the former, and only a bit of the latter. When he talks about running, he does not proselytize, or dissuade. He reveals, "this is what I feel like when I run. I don't think it will be that way for everyone and if you think this sounds appealing and decide to run, great. If not, also great." You could substitute almost any idea in for running, as he says the same thing about his writing. "This is why I write. If someone happens to like what I write, that is great. If not, then they don't." And yet, with this pragmatic personality, Murakami is able to simultaneously demonstrate a true passion for what he does, describing the joy and energy that he receives from writing and running. It is by no means a dry or stale existence. He is a fascinating person and author. A very fun read.
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The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel

Adam Johnson

I suppose that this is fictional realism. That is, a fictional story that is based in reality. This could have actually happened. In fact, the story and writing reminded me a lot of both Unbroken and Shantaram. Specifically, all of these stories follow a protagonist through a portion of their life and the life described is fantastical. The events and interactions and series of coincidences are crazy/amazing that they could happen to a single person. And these three books are non-fiction, fiction based on a true character and pure fiction. But the gestalt is the same.

Based on his research and interviews with those who have interacted with North Korea, Johnson creates the character Pak Jun Do. Jun Do is raised by his father (a single dad) in an orphanage. He takes on the identity and characteristics of an orphan (a particularly low social class) while his self identity is as a regular kid who lost his mother. As Jun Do grows, we follow him through his jobs as a tunnel rat (military position of living/fighting in the tunnels that cut under the DMZ), a covert radio operator on fishing boat and in prison. We are introduced to the crazy social strictures of North Korea, ostensibly a fear based society where it is better to feed yourself to a shark that to lose your copy of the portrait of the Great Leader Kim Jung Il. It is also a society where the story is king. It is more important to have a believable story, or at least plausible, than to be a truthful person. This way at least you give the listener something to hold their hat. Johnson contrasts this with the American society, where the truth of the story doesn't matter, but it is because we judge the honesty/trustworthiness of the person. Johnson demonstrates this throughout the book, but really drives it home in the second half when he starts following Commander Ga, the Minister of Prisons and Mines. His interactions with the interrogation unit are highly illuminating.

Perhaps the most valuable part of the text is the appendix interview between Johnson and his editor. This interview gives some background on the research done to create the characters and describe the culture of the close North Korean society. This interview gives confidence that we really are reading fictional realism. Without this, you could easily mis-categorize this novel as dystopian. In fact, maybe the most amazing thing is that this story is more on par with Hunger Games and Divergent than it is with any realistic situation. 

A great book on many levels.
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The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami

Again strange. I don't quite know how else to explain this. Murakami is a well known, well regarded Japanese author and most of his novels have been translated to english. I enjoyed this novel as it gives a little bit of insight into Japanese culture, much like Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor did for me. I feel like (and this is speaking from ignorance) Japanese culture has a certain respect for spirituality and belief in the supernatural. Along with this is a pretty matter of fact acceptance. There is not a lot of drama about the super in supernatural. Here Murakami presents Mr. Okada, a recently unemployed law clerk who has chosen to enjoy his unemployment while his wife Kumiko supported them. When their cat disappears, Okada and Kumiko consult with a local "shaman" to help them find the cat. Eventually, the missing cat turns into a missing wife and in the search, Okada becomes central in a "spirit world" (for lack of a better descriptor) struggle between Kumiko's family and his own interest in having his wife back. The language is not dramatic, but often plodding and methodical. There is a real sense of "this is the way life goes", bordering on (but not really) existentialism. I know individual people that have this life outlook, but when a culture embraces it, it feels foreign. This book is definitely worth the time.

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