Tag: reading

Black Experience, books, read around the world, reading

Hate has too many places to live: Abyssinian Chronicles / Uganda

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Written as a novel, this is a semi-autobiographical tale of a family’s existence in Uganda in the 20th century. The racial, religious, gender and economic strife is all here. The story begins in a confusing way, setting the stage to meet the main character. At approximately 100 pages in I finally figured out when and who we were supposed to be focusing on. The historical information on the family, however, was needed to make the next 300 pages make sense.

Set in Uganda, we are introduced to the deep-rooted Catholic church’s influence, as well as the Muslim and Pagan traditions. These traditions tend to mix together, with some being incorporated into others. The influences of the outside cultures, Catholic and Muslim, is due to the evangelical history of Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia) and the traders from the Middle East that came with the British. This becomes important when the reign of Idi Amin begins.  

Having an understanding of the history of Uganda would have helped, but this was covered in the first 100 pages through how the family members were impacted. The politics were not the focus, but the impact on the family. Information on what was happening was not central to living lives in the villages at that time. Early in the 20th century the tsetse fly spread a “sleeping sickness” pandemic, killing approximately 300,000. 1962 brought independence from Britain, the first election bringing Dr Milton Obote to power. 1967 brought a new constitution, giving more power to the Prime Minister, Obote. In 1971 Idi Ami overthrew the government and began a reign of terror – killing anyone that did not agree with him. Then the war with Tanzania, which Amin lost, and Obote returned to run a country that was decimated economically and ecologically. A new “plague”, HIV/AIDS then swept the African country.

The story starts in the time of independence, with the beginning being like the sleeping sickness – slow but gotten through. The family is a macrocosm of the country. Serenity (the son of a clan elder that had no interest in leading) and Padlock (a woman that was too brutal with her charges as a nun that led her to be thrown out of the nunnery) were the first despots that we encounter. Padlock required complete obedience from her children, and was brutal in enforcing her rule, while Serenity allowed this to happen as long as he was not impacted.   Mugezi, their eldest son, was never liked by Padlock and took the brunt of her hatred. He learned early on how to survive, instigate, and infuriate those in power. Padlock gets her way to send Mugezi to become a priest. Within the church walls, however, the next set of despots is found, with upperclassmen terrorizing the new students as the priests look the other way, or the controlling nature of the priest to have feasts of good food while the students watched and received mealy porridge.   

Through all of these tests, Mugezi learns how to survive, profit and exact revenge. These skills are what will allow him to survive the ongoing tragedy he is living through. To the very end, Mugezi relies upon his understanding of human nature and his ability to leverage this while not being too greedy.

This story is not easy to read. Awash with violence, the value of human life is cheap. The outright bigotry, of whites against blacks, blacks against Indians, Catholic versus Muslim, is prominent – the white Priest calling the black ministry students monkeys, the glee of the blacks when the Indians were deported, the smugness of the Catholics that only sinners got the “slimming” sickness (AIDS) – are all in the open. The hatred for each of the “others” is breathtaking in strokes, and the root of the cause of so much destruction. I kept looking for hope at the end, but I am not sure I found it.

While this book was well written, you need to be able to handle the horrors that are brought forth. I read this book at a time when I am personally struggling with the ongoing exposure of the deep hatred that remains in the Unites States. The fact that this has never gone away, or truly lessened for those that believe and teach this hatred is overwhelmingly depressing for me. In a world that has become so connected, how does this hatred of others still exist? As with Uganda, the answers are tied in not only racial issues, but are complicated by economic, religious and gender constraints also. These are all entangled and cannot be separated. We need brave souls to stand together to work toward a total solution that is based in respect for human life and beliefs. In 2022 they say there is much to look forward to for Uganda. I hope that is true there, and everywhere else in this world.

Black Experience, books, reading

Homegoing

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In my first attempt of the year I head to my library’s website.  My first stop – my lists of saved titles to read.  Around the World – my list of books to read from every country – beckons me.  After reading many Top Ten lists of 2021, I choose Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. I click the button to reserve my copy.  In one week, it is in my house. 

The story pulls me in immediately. First, we meet Effia, a girl in a village in Ghana.  Her father is “a big man” in the village.  Her mother beats her often.  The chief is set to marry her when she becomes a woman, but her mother tells her to keep that a secret.  Instead of earning an honored place in the village as a first wife, Effia is given into marriage with a British officer.  When she goes to Cape Coast Castle, she discovers there are people that look like her in the dungeon that will be sold as slaves.  She learns quickly that the British will become “mean” when questioned about this.

Next you meet Esi.  She is the daughter of “a big man” in a different village.  Her mother loves her and is always near her side.  It is in this story that you start to hear that people in the North are not human.  The Villagers have conducted raids across the country, being known as a strong tribe to be afraid of.  Prisoners are held in cages in the village center, with people walking by to spit on them because they are not people.  Esi’s mother is forced by her husband to pick a girl to be a house girl.  The mother protects her as best she can.  It is not until after the girl is whipped by the father for dropping two drops of water, at the urging of the rest of the family, that Esi learns that her mother had been a slave before.  As fate has it, it is Esi that ends up in the dungeon below where Effia is.  This is when we learn that these are half sisters, each traveling a very different path from the other. 

I am very uncomfortable reading this book, which is probably the point.  From the first, when I realize that the villagers participated and profited from enslaving their own kind, just from a different village, I am sick.  When I realize the animals that are found around those villages become what these people are called in derogatory terms, I am horrified – I knew of the slur, but this put the pieces together of where the slur came from.  The way groups of people dismiss others – making it easy to treat them badly by stripping them of any humanity – is way too familiar.  This is the tactics that the Nazis took in 1930s Germany against the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and more.  These tactics are not just our history.

This history continues to haunt us.  The legacy of slavery remains in the systemic structures of our world, including education, economic support for the poor, and access to proper mental and physical health resources. We continue to be faced with the stark realities of continued prejudice: Floyd George’s murder, LGBQT+ being thrown off roofs, and women like Malala being shot.  Until we start looking at others as part of us, this will not change.  There continue to be people that need to be better at someone’s cost. They lead the way for others to feel better about themselves by putting others down. They strip the belief in the humanity from those they push down.  All those that participate in this, or that stand by and let it happen, ultimately lose their own humanity. We need to open oppressor’s eyes to this.  Unless we all understand we are in this together, there will be no end. 

This is my reaction from the first third of the book.  My soul is crying, and I can’t continue.  If the rest of the story continues as well written, I can only guess at the depth of feeling and thought it will provoke in its readers.  As for me, I am too saddened by the reality of what this represents, and gripped by the fear that we have not learned enough to keep it from happening again. 

books, Hispanic Cultures, reading

Hispanic Heritage Month 2021

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In honor of Hispanic Month (September 15, 2021 – October 15, 2021), I decided to read about a place I didn’t know much about.  Cuba, an island that was forbidden, ruled by a man that lived longer than anyone expected, cut off from its closest neighbor, with its people fleeing on makeshift rafts at sea.  What did I know about this island?  Bits and pieces – the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, Cuban cigars, and the place where Sky Masterson takes Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls.  I figured it was time to learn more about the people, and maybe something about the politics of the place.

Since I love historical fiction, and learn about cultures and how they got there from novels, it made sense for me to pick one for the task.  Next Year in Havana is a mix of historical details, sociological analysis, and a love story.  Told from two women’s perspectives and times – Elisa Perez, debutante Cuban in high society of 1958 and Marisol Ferrera, freelance writer and member of Miami’s Cuban exile community in 2017. 

Marisol, raised by her grandmother Elisa, is coming home to Cuba, where her grandparents fled with the family when Castro took over.  She brings with her memories of stories told to her about the way things had been, and a tin containing the ashes of her grandmother, who told her those stories.  Marisol is to find the final resting place for the ashes in Elisa’s beloved Cuba.  Met at the airport by Elisa’s childhood best friend’s grandson, Marisol comes into possession of a pack of love letters from her grandmother to a man that was not her grandfather.  This leads her on a quest for the truth.

Then, as before, asking questions can be bad for your health.  Through eyes of revolutionaries, each woman in her time is faced with the stark reality that their lives were pampered, and that poverty was real and near.  The details on how hard life had been on those that remained in Cuba, making a life through the hardships, versus those that left Cuba and settled in Miami clinging to what Cuba had been.  It even goes into some detail on how the island nation had always wanted to be free, but was always at a larger country’s whim – America, Russia, and even Venezuela.  The war that brought about Castro’s revolution, and the war that put Batista in power before him, were all about democracy – and the hope to return to constitutional law.

Ultimately, the question “are you a Cuban first or an American first”, and what that means to those that stayed and those that left simmers under the surface, as does the uneasy peace made to allow the regimes continue the grip on the people.  Love, family love, romantic love, and love of country are at odds with each other in this novel.  Nothing is easy, choices must be made, and you make the best of what you are given. 

Other books that I have enjoyed from Hispanic authors, in no particular order:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent by Julia Alverez

In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alverez

Afterlife by Julia Alverez

The Alchemist by Pualo Coehlo

Black Experience, books, reading

The book of lost friends

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This is a book with at least two stories, all that intersect around family, and history.  We start meeting Benedetta Silva, known as Benny as she starts her first job teaching at a poor rural school in Louisiana to help pay off her student debt.  Although she is white, she is living in poverty until her first paycheck arrives.  She is intimidated by the unruly teens that await her, fighting with each other, and never listening.  She tries everything to get them engaged, even buying treats for those that are hungry from her low salary. 

Next we meet Hannie and her slave family were being moved from Louisiana to Texas by a relative to keep them from being set free.  Out of sight of the owners, the relative starts to sell off the family in ones or twos the whole way there.  The last to be sold, Hannie finally gets the buyer to understand that she was stolen and sold away from her rightful owner.  Along the way, she had kept track of who was sold where, in the hopes to reunite with them in the future.

As we follow Hannie, who is returned to the original plantation alone but strikes out as a sharecropper with a few other slaves that had remained, we see that she is smart and resourceful.  Lavinia, the plantation owner’s pampered daughter, meets with Juneau Jane, the plantation owner’s mulatto daughter by his mistress.  Afraid that Lavinia’s arrival meant that the head of the Gossett plantation was dead, Hannie listens in to find out what is happening because there was only one year left on the lease before the sharecropping land was to be free and clear for her and those working it.  The three end up in an odyssey to find the father, to determine who was entitled to what property.  At one point the three end up in a church, where the walls were covered in posters of letters to friends, where people were looking to reconnect with those that had been sold away. 

Benny, who is renting out a home near the plantation because it was the cheapest she could find, needs help when the roof starts to leak. Through this challenge, Benny meets marvelous women that have kept the community together and give Benny hope for surviving.  Through the stories that Benny hears from Mrs T, she decides that this is the story that would resonate with her students, and asks her to come and tell it to the kids.  The kids are hooked and come up with a way to bring the stories to life.  While not approved by the school board, made up of rich white folks, the stories are coming from the Carnegie Library, a source of pride of the community at one time.  Facing a threatening police force, and the school board that sends their own kids to a private school instead, Benny is told to just let the kids get a vocational education as they were not better than that. 

Throughout the chapters flipping between the two, actual letters written and sent are included.  These had been published in the Southern Methodist newspaper and was shared via pulpits across the country.  The heartwrenching stories behind each of these hit home for me.  I did not know that these adverts had been created for people to finds each other in the late 1800 – early 1900s.  I did, however, understand these completely.  As a Jew, I am fully aware that after WWII, the same was happening in the displacement camps throughout Europe with people searching for any connections that may be left.  It is the guilt at being alive, combined by the fear of being alone, that makes these so sad.  While the longing is always there, sometimes it is easier not to ask the question for fear of the answer.

That also is true when it comes to a hard past.  In the Louisiana is the reality that slavery did happen.  Ancestors we part.  But in order to remain in power, the stories and intimidation continued.  It is this need to keep the power structure as it is, and the fear of what will happen if it is not, that keeps the true history of the plantation and those that lived on it.  Until you face the choices that you made, good or bad, and acknowledge them, you are doomed to spend your life covering up for them. 

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My Christmas morning

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Twas the morning of Christmas, and all through the house

Not at creature was stirring, I hope there’s no mouse

I woke with a start, I started to panic

Did I do this or that, or did I just jam it?

So I crept down the stairs, quite as can be

To do more puzzles, a quiz, but nothing before coffee

The puppy remains upstairs in her bed,

With visions of car keys dancing in my girl’s head

The boy is out cold, with a clicker in hand

As he tries to win best fortnighter in the land

We unplugged last night to play Monopoly

When hubby and I ended our spending spree

All is peaceful for now, with everyone out

So soon they will wake and begin to shout

Today is the day when nothing is open

You know that means they need something this moment

With a mug in one hand, and a wish in my heart

That I remembered my glasses so I could read the next part

So I move to the keyboard, enlarging the font,

Wondering what next they will want

I write down my saga, however so sad

That I cant read without glasses – and that makes me mad

I can’t go back up and wake up my hubby

Or the dog will start barking and then in a hurry

They all will be up, my peace will be gone

The chores will begin and I’ll be forlorn

For these hours I cherish – you’ll find me if you look

Curled up on the couch, reading a new favorite book.

Merry Holidays to all!

books, reading, Uncategorized

Clinging to Authors

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When you discover a book that is well written, engaging and thought provoking, you tend to take note of the author. As with many, I read Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and was transported by her language and compelled to finish by her plot development.   I read Winter Garden next, and while not as page turning, just as compelling a story. I remember feeling the cold as she spoke of the garden.  Thus, when I picked up Summer Island, I was expecting the same level of engagement and complexity. This was definitely an early book of Ms. Hannah’s. The story’s central character was self-centered, egotistical and bitter person.  Under the guise of selflessness, she agrees to help her mother, who abandoned her when in high school.  In the process of gathering dirt on her mother for an expose, Ruby re-discovers who she is as she reconnects to her past. Forced to see the world differently from a teen-aged view for the first time, she is faced with the facts that life is way more complicated than she wanted to believe. The ease with how the information is provided, and the acceptance that it is given, is in the span of hours, not even days. And the re-connection of Ruby to her high school sweetheart is again too much to fast. Forgiveness of herself had been withheld for 11 years, but was found in his eyes?  When I read any more of Ms. Hannah’s books, I will stay with more recent ones, where her storytelling has matured and grown.

Another author I found was Geraldine Brooks.  A Year of Wonder, a surprisingly non-morbid story of the plague, was a book I handed back to my mother when she handed it to me, thinking this was a title from her book group that only read terrible, horrible, emotionally scarring stories. She handed it back and said to read it.  She was right.  The story of humans connecting to each other, and themselves, in order to survive, or at least not harm others, was inspiring. The place where this ends (no spoilers here) is the most uplifting and hopeful.  I wanted more of Ms Brook’s work.

I found People of the Book. I was again captivated.  The story of returning to your history while striking on your own to excavate the past in the pages that are left are fascinating to me. The Haggadah, as story of a history that you are commanded not to forget, leading to the finding of so many other histories that tie us together, was the perfect vehicle for this exodus from ourselves.

Then I started to read another by Ms. Brook – March.  While I appreciate her willingness to explore new ideas, I could not have my own vision of Marme (from Little Women) be so radically changed.  That book didn’t get finished, and I am currently taking a break from Ms. Brooks’ books.

Finding a good author that can take on different stories, themes and eras can be difficult, but there are many out there.  Once you find one, keep the name close when you need a new read.  They usually don’t disappoint.

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What a Klutz!!

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This has been a week unlike any other. Let’s just say when you are in the ER thinking you broke your knee and get a call that your father is in the hospital with a broken knee, things seem a bit weird in the world.

I am comforted to know that my life is not stranger than fiction. Especially since I fell soon after I finished a dark and disturbing book, Behind Closed Doors. I don’t even have it a fraction of what Grace has going in this book. While not necessarily to best writing ever, it keeps coming back to me at different times as I sort through the emotions it evokes. In the same vein as Gone Girl and Girl on a Train, the story examines the evil that exists in world, just behind the curtains. If I say anymore, I am afraid I will give the whole thing away.

As a counterpoint to this, being the person who has spent way too much time in ERs waiting for xrays, I took a book with me. First one I grabbed, thank goodness, was a light read that I was able to put down and pick up often without getting too lost. The Forever Summer fit that bill perfectly. While slightly far flung, this is a Hallmark movie waiting to be made. And sometimes, you just need that.

I followed this up with The Most Beautiful Book in the World: Eight Novellas. Each story is beautifully written, and points to the most beautiful thing in the world – love in all its various forms. The best way to enjoy this is to read each story on its own, and savouir the emotions it invokes before moving to the next.

And now I feel restored in mind, if not body. While my knee is no longer the size of a watermelon, it is the color of eggplant. As I work through this, I will keep reminding myself of the lessons in the last 2 books I mentioned – there is good when you look for it.

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Bookpacking the World

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I have been thinking a lot about travelling lately.  It’s not something I do that often anymore. At one point in my life I think I was on a plane at least once a month.  Now that the kids are home from camp, all they want to do is go away.  And they have plenty of ideas of where to go (and no concept of what it costs.)  Of course, I translate this to reading – that’s what I do.  I started to think about where I have read in relation to where I have been.

Thus far, I have identified that I have been to 10 countries, 18 states, and 30 cities (that I count as “visited”) but I will probably remember more.  After doing a fast review of my completed titles, I seem to be centered on fiction located in Asia, Middle East, Europe and North America.

Books set in Asia tend to be focused on China or India.  These cultures have always fascinated me.  The deep history, and the struggles between the sexes and classes are an endless source for tales of strength and redemption.  Recent favorites from here include Lisa See’s The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Camron Wright’s The Rent Collector, and Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. These stories touch upon the struggles of being women in cultures that do not value them, as well as the difference between the “haves” and “have nots” in those societies. They do not, however, leave you feeling downtrodden, but with hope for a better future.

While the battles between the sexes are not as pronounced in Europe, the number of stories that have captivated me remains a big draw.  With the focus on the royal family, with births, weddings, retirements and more, I have been reading some fun fictionalizations about the Queen.  Mrs Queen Takes the Train and The Uncommon Reader are perfect if you want to see the Queen in a very human light.  For a wonderful fictional account of the history of England, there are few (if any) that could challenge Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge Trilogy (Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and A Column of Fire), or his more contemporary Centuries Trilogy  (Fall of Giants, Winter of the World, and Edge of Eternity).  Zadie Smith’s On Beauty takes on the ever present challenges of race differences, JoJo Moyes takes on love and rights, and the plentiful mysteries set there make it easy to find a book located there.

For books set in the Middle East, I have focused on Afghanistan and Israel.  The beautiful yet sad reality that is brought to life by Khaled Hosseini is made more poignant with each book he writes.  The Kite Runner and And The Mountains Echoed, while amazing, are actually not my favorite. A Thousand Splendid Suns continues to resonate with me, years after I finished it.   And as the wars have scarred Afghanistan, reading modern Israeli writers show that the years of conflict have taken a toll on the psyche of the Israeli people. Bethany Ball illustrates this well in What to Do About The Solomons, as does Edeet Ravel in One Thousand Lovers and Look for Me.  Capping this is the memoir written by Laura Blumfeld Revenge: A Story of Hope, that illustrates how complicated the hatred between people can be.

And while I have not focused a large amount on Africa and South America, I have read books based there, also.  Favorites in Africa include Americanah, Things Fall Apart, and Poisonwood Bible. Beautifully written, complex emotions and cultural structures are explored and explained within the pages of these books.  In Latin America, I have just finished Ten Women, and will continue to explore titles in this region to continue to expand my cultural horizons.

I will continue to seek out books centered in other cultures, because I live in a world that keeps shrinking.  We need to know as much about other people as possible, because we keep bumping into everyone on the tiny planet of ours.

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