Literature

Apr

2021

In the Kingdom of Men

I recently finished reading ‘In the Kingdom of Men’ by Kim Barnes and I liked it. It’s well-written and an easy read but with frequent twists, turns and surprises.

As the NYT reviewer points out, it takes a bit of self-confidence to name the book after a quote from the Bible and then start chapter one with ‘In the beginning…’, but Kim Barnes pulls it off. The protagonist and narrator, a young American girl from Oklahoma named ‘Gin’ is raised by her fire-and-brimstone grandfather who tells her that she is a ‘daughter of Eve, a danger to herself and a temptation to all around her’. The book is the story of what the men around her view as her many transgressions. Gin is filled with defiance against all the rules that box her in and her refusal to be looked down upon.

Gin demonstrates her defiance (and transgressions) by getting pregnant on her first date with young Mason McPhee, a local college-bound boy. Her grandfather shuns her but Mason does ‘the right thing’ in 1967 by marrying her, giving up his dream of college and going to work in the oil patch. Gin has a miscarriage and cannot have any more children so things look bleak in their little honeymoon shack.

But Mason is recruited by Aramco which is building an American empire in Saudi Arabia. Just like that the two find themselves in a spacious, sumptuously-appointed house with a houseboy and a gardener in an American ‘compound’ in Eastern Saudi Arabia. After a few hours of orientation, Mason is sent to an offshore oil rig and Gin is left to figure out life in the Aramco compound and the rules. There are lots of them. Women are not allowed to leave the compound except in the company of men. They are not allowed to drive where they might be seen by Arab men. While alcohol is officially forbidden, most houses have a still to manufacture their own ‘sadiqi’. “Houseboys” tidy up; husbands go off to work; wives laze in bathing suits by the pool and have discreet affairs. “You take a bunch of healthy men and women, fence them up in the middle of the desert, throw in some sadiqi juice and see what happens,” one woman tells Gin. “It’s like ‘Peyton Place’ around here.” Outside are the realities of Saudi Arabia: women can’t walk alone or drive, and must dress in modest attire.

Gin manages to defy most of these rules. She becomes friends with her Punjabi houseboy and treats him as an equal – something viewed with horror by the other wives. She defies Islamic custom by wandering a market town with a bare-armed friend. She defies her husband by going off with an Italian photographer to film student protests during the Six-Day War. She makes one girlfriend but refuses to play by the rules. She doesn’t take golf lessons or learn to play bridge from the boss’s wife despite repeated invitations.

Meanwhile, accidents are happening off base and Mason gets involved in trying to stop them and the corruption and bigotry that fuel them and Gin, driven mad by loneliness and the strictures that surround her gets involved in dramas of her own. It’s a complex story about American venality and greed and those who defy the norms or try to change things get dealt with…one way or another.

As I said at the beginning, I liked this book a lot. I think most of you will too. Put it on your list.

Apr

2021

A Thousand Ships

I recently finished reading ‘A Thousand Ships’ by Natalie Haynes and I enjoyed it very much. It’s witty and fun and I recommend it to all of you!

I don’t know how many stories of the Trojan War I have read, but it’s a lot, starting in high school with the Iliad. This one is one of the very best…and most subversive. Haynes delivers a sparkling narrative and tells the story with a comic flourish starting from the very beginning. When Homer invokes the muse to tell the story of Achilles and Ajax and Agamemnon and the rest, Calliope tells him basically to buzz off; the poets should serve the muse and not vice-versa and she goes on to tell the story herself.

And what a story she tells! Haynes makes bronze-age problems seem like today’s and it’s not about the men, it’s about the women. Calliope’s narrative pays scant attention to the Trojan Horse and the celebrated beauty, Helen of Troy, and focuses more on war’s victims: “If [Homer] truly wants to understand the nature of the epic story I am letting him compose, he needs to accept that the casualties of war aren’t just the ones who die. And that a death off the battlefield can be more noble (more heroic, if he prefers it that way) than one in the midst of fighting.” She’s referring to the acute suffering of women as they mourn their dead husbands and sons and the raping of their daughters and themselves as they become spoils of war. “When a war was ended, the men lost their lives. But the women lost everything else.”

It tells in lively fashion gripping tales of bravery, treachery and revenge. There are the tantrum-throwing goddesses who plot to incite the Trojan War (they decided against a plague to kill the masses, choosing instead to use the Spartan Helen’s adultery to spark a war with a high body count); Penelope’s aggravation and struggles to protect her kingdom as she waits decades for Odysseus’s return from the war; the fearless Amazon princess Penthesilea who fights to the death against Achilles; and the bravery that the Greek princess Iphigenia shows before she’s murdered by her father, Agamemnon.

Haynes is a gifted writer and a former stand-up comedian and her gift of humor shows frequently in the narrative. I laughed out loud several times while reading this. You don’t really need to know anything about Greek mythology to enjoy this book. Put it on your list!!

Mar

2021

Larry McMurty

I was saddened today to learn about the death of Larry McMurty. I really enjoyed many of his books and the movies made from them. He was quite prolific and quite good at the same time. Like many other people I think I liked ‘Lonesome Dove’ the best but I didn’t really care for his follow-ups to it. I liked The ‘Last Picture Show’ (both the book and the movie) and it’s sequel – ‘Texasville’. I enjoyed ‘Cadillac Jack’ and ‘Horsman, Pass By’ and the movie ‘Hud’ made from it.

If you haven’t, read one of his books. It’s a whole different world.

Mar

2021

Miss Iceland

I just finished reading ‘Miss Iceland’ by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir. I enjoyed it very much. It’s an atmospheric novel set in Iceland in the early 1960s. In this time of COVID, sometimes we want to be transported to another place and this book will do it. A fair warning though, Iceland of 1963 is not a particularly wonderful place.

The story is narrated by Hekla, named by her father after a volcano. She is a talented young writer but she encounters many roadblocks to publication in a time when the only acceptable roles for women are beauty queen and plaything of men, or wife and mother. Hekla leaves the family farm in Dalir ( spent some time looking up place-names in Iceland) and takes the bus to Reykjavík to pursue her dreams. She meets two childhood friends there, David Jón John Stefánsson Johnsson, and Isey.

Jón John, named for both a famous poet and his unknown father is gay in a place and time where that is simply not tolerated and considered criminals and pedophiles. He feels he will never fit in anywhere. He’s periodically suicidal because of the treatment he gets and the only jobs he can get are horrible voyages on fishing trawlers where he is punished by the other crewman. He allows Hekla to share his attic garret.

Ísey, Hekla’s other childhood friend, leads a suffocatingly lonely life, married to a barely literate construction laborer and homebound in a dark basement flat with one baby and another on the way. She struggles to stay sane by keeping a clandestine diary in which, since so little happens, she records what doesn’t happen.

Hekla lands a job as a waitress and discovers that her pay is exactly half that of the male waiters and she is constantly harassed by the male patrons (and that’s considered part of the job). One constantly remarks on her figures and tries to get her to become ‘Miss Iceland’. She works all day and writes all night.

She finds a boyfriend – a poet. Reykjavík appears to be overrun with poets and aspiring poets – all men of course. She moves in with him. She knows that what he wants is a subservient, attractive girlfriend so she hides the fact that she is a writer until he discovers her typing in the middle of the night. After he pries the truth out of her, he transfers his jealousy of her close friendship with Jón John, whom he invariably refers to as “the freak” or “the queer,” to her disciplined output and clearly superior talent.

There is a lot of discussion of volcanoes, which are a constant feature of Iceland. While she is in Reykjavík she notes a number of volcanic eruptions as well as events such as JFK’s assassination. Eventually it becomes clear to her that she will never be allowed to succeed in Iceland and she and Jon John leave for Denmark.

Denmark turns out not to be the place they thought it would be although Hekla does make some progress in her career. Eventually, they opt for something else in an ending that is a bit surprising but believable.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a fairly easy read except for the Icelandic names. Give it a try, I think you’ll like it and it will open your eyes to, perhaps, a new author and a new world.

Feb

2021

His Only Wife

I just finished reading ‘His Only Wife’, the debut novel by Peace Adzo Medie. I enjoyed it and I think you will too. It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2020 and highly recommended by Buzzfeed, Christian Science Monitor and many others.

The novel is sort of a fairy tale story turned upside down. It starts simply enough, a sweet and beautiful young woman marries a prince…in this case a wealthy, handsome businessman. Afi Tekple is a young seamstress in Ghana. She is smart; she is pretty; and she has been convinced by her mother to marry a man she does not know. Afi knows who he is, of course—Elikem is a wealthy businessman whose mother has chosen Afi in the hopes that she will distract him from his relationship with a woman his family claims is inappropriate. But Afi is not prepared for the shift her life takes when she is moved from her small hometown of Ho to live in Accra, Ghana’s gleaming capital, a place of wealth and sophistication where she has days of nothing to do but cook meals for a man who may or may not show up to eat them. She has agreed to this marriage in order to give her mother the financial security she desperately needs, and so she must see it through. Or maybe not?

He finally does appear and melts Afi’s heart. He is so much more than she imagines – and the young woman falls in love with her prince. Though their initial meeting goes well, Eli leaves again, giving no indication of when he might return. In the meantime, he suggests that Afi might want to enroll in school to help her fill her days. Learning of her skills as a seamstress and her interest in fashion, he sends his sister around to take Afi to the city’s design schools.

It is here that Medie’s story departs from the traditional fairytale. Afi avails herself of benefits Cinderella never received, opportunities like an education that helps her develop her talents and begin to make a name for herself in the fashion world. There are no wicked stepsisters in this story, either. With Eli away for weeks at a time, Afi develops friendships with other women, including his sister and his brother’s girlfriend. These friends open her eyes to possibilities that she never knew existed – let alone imagined – for herself.

Her women friends also give Afi a clearer picture of the Liberian woman, who, it turns out, is not at all how Eli’s mother had described her. She discovers this for herself when the two meet by accident and Afi realizes Eli never needed to be rescued.

But neither does she. In this very contemporary story, Afi gets her fairytale ending, just not the one that generations of girls have been told to expect. Afi rescues herself and goes on to live her own, independent life.

It’s well-written and a fun, easy read. There’s lots of references to wonderful Ghanaian food and you can get a little bit of a feel for modern Ghanaian life. I always loved visiting Ghana and very much enjoyed the people. Give this book a try; I think you’ll enjoy it.

Literature

In the Kingdom of Men

A Thousand Ships

Larry McMurty

Miss Iceland

His Only Wife

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