Seattle Revelations

This week I read the 10 stories that comprise Sherman Alexie's collection of stories, Ten Little Indians, published in 2003. They are all good and sad and funny, as Alexie's work is.  The stories are about 10 different American Indians, all living in Seattle.  They are different by occupation, age and class; some are of mixed race, some not.  But all are interesting, and each is exposed to the reader's view in a rather extreme way.

What the stories have in common is this openness, this stark honesty that reveals the characters' dark secrets, not only to the reader, but also to other characters, many of them total strangers to the protagonist.  In fact, it is this confessional aspect of each story that ties it to the next. It's almost as if the characters are acting as readers for each other.

Alexie always has a storyteller in his fiction; he sees the storyteller as central to his culture, even perhaps to all cultures.  As a storyteller himself, Alexie knows that for the storyteller to complete his mission, there must be a listener who is willing to enter the storyteller's world. In each of the stories in Ten Little Indians there is such a listener: kind, tolerant, responsive, insightful.  And I would add: grateful. Grateful for the story, for the chance to the see the world through a stranger's eyes.

It's been a few months since I've read Alexie's work (See my October 11, 2012 post), so it was nice to get back to his world, although I must say that Alexie's vision is not for the faint of heart. It's intense, but rich in its intensity.  A little Alexie goes a long way, but that little bit is immensely satisfying.  And the feeling lingers; after reading one of his stories, I think about it for hours and sometimes days.

The best story in the collection, in my opinion, is "What You Pawn, I Will Redeem." It's a story with a classic structure, comprising 24 hours in Jackson Jackson's life, starting when he sees his grandmother's dance regalia in the window of a pawn shop.  The pawn broker tells him that if he can raise the $1000 it cost, he will sell it to him. But he gives Jackson only 24 hours to raise the cash or the deal is off.  He even gives Jackson $20 to get him started on his quest.

And it is a quest, like that of Odysseus in a way--a long, winding journey that gets sidetracked many times because, you see, Jackson is a homeless alcoholic who tends to spend any money he comes into on alcohol.  He has many friends, though, including the local police officer, who accompany him at various points on his journey.  It seems likely that Jackson will not succeed, but as with many of Alexie's stories, miracles (of the earthly sort) have a way of happening.  The outcome is unexpected, and very satisfying.  I recommend this book highly.

My next book will be non-fiction, and in keeping with my alphabetical selection method (I'm still in the As), I'll be reading Beyond Knowing: Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life from a Forensic Pathologist, by Janis Amatuzio. It appears to be a memoir of Dr. Amatuzio's life and career as a pathologist, with the focus on mysteries of death, in particular spiritual mysteries. It looks interesting; I'll let you know what I think later.

Liar, Liar

I finished (finally) When Presidents Lie, but I must admit I fast-forwarded through much of it, not only because there were a great many details, but also because many of those details were distressing.

The chapter on LBJ was upsetting in that it seems those at the top spent little time thinking about the many American men and women (not to mention the many Vietnamese people) who would die or be forever maimed, mentally and physically, before committing us to a war no one (including the South Vietnamese) seemed to want. Who benefited? Other than companies supplying the war effort, no one, it seems.

The chapter on Reagan was worse, in that not only did we get involved in conflicts that were unnecessary, but our involvement was almost wholly secret (and arguably criminal) and covered up by our government (both executive and legislative branches, apparently).

None of the presidents featured in the book (FDR, JFK, LBJ, Reagan) came off looking very noble, attractive, or even moral.  They were all described as pathological liars and they seem in the book to have little feeling for the people who were hurt by their lies.

The point Alterman is ultimately making, however, is not just that the presidents were bad men and talented liars, but that their lies hurt our country and our democracy.  After reading and skimming the book, I would agree with him.  But his solution--to never lie--seems not only impossible, but also not the best course in every situation.  Maybe our presidents could try a little harder, though, to determine when a lie is absolutely necessary and whether it is worth its considerable cost before launching into one (or two or 300). 

I can't say I enjoyed reading this book, but I did learn a lot from it--some of it I'd rather not have known.

Next up: some fiction, I think.

American Wars, South and North

I finished The House of the Spirits last week and did finally get the answers to my questions posed in the last post.  The other "I" of the story turned out to be the granddaughter of the main character, Esteban.  And I decided that we occasionally get Esteban's narration to provide some perspective on a character who might otherwise be seen as wholly negative. For those who might read the book, I won't reveal what happens at the end, but for me it ended satisfactorily, if not entirely happily.

Toward the end of the book I was starting to get impatient with the narrative's many, many rich and evocative details.  Though I found them enjoyable throughout most of the novel, I got a bit bogged down by them when the narrative reached modern times.  Maybe because much of what was being described was the country's political turmoil, I wanted to move through those grisly details more quickly.  I had no idea Chile was going through so much; I want to read more about this country's history when I get the chance.

It's an odd experience, though, reading novels that incorporate real history, especially when it's history I'm not aware of.  The descriptions of the terror, corruption, torture, and other shocking events seem almost cartoonish in The House of the Spirits.  I had the same reaction to a book I read that was set in India, Six Suspects. (See my blog  8/14/11.)  It makes me think that this style of presenting terrifyingly real details in a comic light is frequently employed, probably to make the subject more palatable to those who would otherwise be repulsed by it.  It reminds me of how Native American writers jokingly tell of the despair that continues to haunt their people.  The ability to rise above suffering through humor not only reveals the suffering, but also shows the bravery of those who suffer.

Interestingly, in her novel Allende does not seem to take sides.  She presents each side of the socialism vs republicanism debate (and the negative consequences of each type of government) from multiple perspectives, primarily through the eyes or voices of the characters, while the omniscient narrator stays mostly neutral, except to condemn dictatorship.

As I said, I enjoyed the book but was ready to move to non-fiction for a while, so I jumped the alphabetical list a little bit to choose the next non-fiction book, When Presidents Lie, by Eric Alterman, a columnist for The Nation and author of many books about politics and history.  Though published in 2004, When Presidents Lie does not take up George W. Bush's lying to start a war with Iraq, but past instances of presidential lying about international conflicts that had, Alterman believes, grave consequences.

At the moment I'm in the section about Kennedy's lies during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The book is not a story, but an analysis, and for that reason is a bit dry, but it is interesting since it discusses events I know very little about.

I'll let you know how it goes. Stay tuned!

Women's Worlds: Real and Magical

I finished Writing Women's Worlds, enjoying it greatly.  I wrote to the author, a professor at Columbia, to tell her so, and she very graciously wrote back, thanking me.  That's one of the nice things about reading a scholarly book: the writers are often not famous (other than in academia), and their email addresses are completely accessible on the websites of their schools.  If your email doesn't go in the person's junk mail box, you may get a reply.

I'm now almost finished with Isabel Allende's first novel, The House of the Spirits.  It's really quite good, and I don't know why I didn't get into it the first time I tried to read it.  It's a saga about a family in Chile, the Pruebas, from the turn of the 20th century into modern times.  They are an upper middle class family, land owners, who go through the turbulent 20th century and are affected by it in various ways.

What makes this novel different from others of its genre is that it incorporates magic realism in telling its story.  Magic realism is a technique that describes magical and supernatural events as if they were no big deal, placing them in an otherwise ordinary, realistic narrative.  At first, readers are startled to see magic in what they assumed was a realistic story (not science fiction, horror or fantasy), but eventually, they get used to it and come to accept it as natural and ordinary, the way the story's characters do.

But even though the magic elements stand out, they are not what make The House of the Sprits a great story.  In this story, it is the realism that gripped me.  When I think of sagas, I think of romance fiction and its ilk, since that's the genre where sagas normally appear.  But the family saga in this story is not in the least romantic because it shows the way people really act and think.  The main characters are all flawed, and their flaws cause them and the people around them great pain, even while their perfections give great joy. 

Because of the stark realism, it's hard to know who to root for in this story, but it seems that Allende gives the women a slight edge, though several of the men seem worthy of praise and admiration.  Wanting to know what happens to all the characters is what keeps me reading.

What is perhaps the most striking feature of this novel, though, is the wonderfully detailed descriptions of the people, places, and events of this (not entirely) imaginary world.  It presents a rich tapestry that is quite satisfying (especially if you like details).  It makes me wonder if James Lee Burke picked up this method from Allende. Maybe I'll ask him.

One thing I don't understand in this story, though, is why we occasionally get the first-person narration of the main character, Esteban.  Along those same lines, who is telling another part of the narrative and referring to her/himself as "I"?  Perhaps I'll find these things out before I finish the book.

I am enjoying it and recommend it highly.