'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (3.5)

Given the subject (adultery), the likability of the main character should not be surprising. Yet, in my rereading of this classic, I was once again surprised. Oddly it was not her adulterous ways, but her attitude and selfishness and the acts resulting from her disregard for others that caused me to find her quite despicable. I guess Flaubert’s lesson to his readers is that her many betrayals in money, love and family were the obvious result of such a personality. As the wife of a small town, incompetent Doctor, Mme. Bovary quickly becomes bored. She’s bored of her husband, her daughter, the town and the neighbors. Her husband idolizes her and cannot see in her any flaws. Eventually she falls victim to her romantic ideas of how her life should really be. This becomes the justification for the first betrayal. I found her second relationship more interesting as she became more confident (Leon has moments of wonder at her prowess in all matters of ‘love’) and more destructive. I do believe this is a classic, but I found the first half too boring and predictable to give it a ‘4’. The second half is interesting and reveals more of the complexity of several characters.

'Homeland' by Cory Doctorow

Homeland, Cory Doctorow (3.5)

For those familiar with Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’, this is the long awaited sequel. It follows the same main characters a little further into the future after their experiences with the Internet, cyber spying and government interventions in that book. Doctorow continues with his rightfully paranoid protagonist, Marcus, who once again finds himself in the middle of a cyber war between those wanting freedom of information and those against. In this case, he receives a wikileak-type drop of documents (800k files on a flash drive) from a former adversary at the Burning Man festival. Side note: the book starts with a great description of the event and characters at the festival. Marcus ends up working for an up and coming politician in San Francisco while trying to publish the documents anonymously (and presumably not end up exiled in Russia). I found it interesting that this book was published prior to the Edward Snowden NSA document leaks. The parallels are very scary. While this book is not as fresh and unique as it’s predecessor, Doctorow’s predictions of technology’s abilities and abuses are uncanny. Any fan of his work will enjoy this book.

'The Reason I Jump' by Naoki Higashida

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, Naoki Higashida (3)

This book turned out to be far more controversial than I imagined. We first heard of it on ‘The Daily Show’, where Jon Stewart interviewed David Mitchell, famous author and one of the translators. Mitchell talked about his son with autism and how the thoughts of Higashida-san on paper helped he and his wife more clearly understand the mind of their son. Who doesn’t want to reveal the secret workings of a non-communicative, hard to understand syndrome, particularly if it afflicts someone you love? So the big question here is – how much was really written by a 13 year old with autism versus how much by his ‘language facilitators’? The book is structured as a series of questions (like ‘why do you jump?’), with answers by Naoki and a few fables he has written in between chapters. The questions are very repetitive and it’s not clear if he was actually asked those questions, or who structured the book this way. Much of the criticism of the book has to do with the insight and poetic abilities of the author. It is hard to believe that someone of that age with little communication to society could be so eloquent and knowledgeable. I tend to think this had more to do with translation than anything else. Much of the short book did read like a 13-year-old’s musings (repetitive, simple, family oriented). My biggest issue with the book is how he answers many questions for the autistic community. If all the non-communicative issues are true, how does he know how anyone thinks beside himself? If I exchange all his ‘we’s’ with ‘me’ and ignore the ‘people with autism feel x’ sections, it helps. I have read a few items about the spectrum and the biggest insight for me had to do with his explanation of the concept of time for him. The idea that time can work different for severely autistic people helps me understand the repetition and difficulty in holding one’s attention.  His explanations for the lack of control for speech and movement were also interesting. While intriguing and likely comforting to some, harder to believe was his incredibly good understanding of the feelings of those around him. Overall I will chose to believe that the majority of this book represents his thinking, though it may have gotten shined up a bit with an award winning author translating.

'Faceless Killers' by Henning Mankell

Faceless Killers, Henning Mankell (3.5)

Henning Mankell has been credited with starting the Scandinavian crime novel trend, which more recently includes best sellers by Jo Nesbo and Stieg Larsson. This is the first of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, which follows a Swedish detective in the rural area near Malmo. Wallander is the definition of an anti-hero. He’s clever, but very broken and rather unlikable. Besides signs of alcoholism, gluttony, and misogyny, he admits to feelings of bigotry and self-pity. Oddly, through all of this, the reader really wants him to solve the crime. In this first Wallander novel, a couple has been found violently murdered in their farmhouse. The clues are sparse and a possibly related death in a refugee community sidetracks the police. An interesting theme, given this book was published in 1991, has to do with Swedish society and it’s increasing issues with refugees from Africa and Eastern Europe. I wanted to like this book more, but found a few niggling problems. The writing did not flow; it was more like a staccato pace (which could have been due to the translation). I also felt the solution of the crime did not make sense, given the severity of the violence done to the victims (as was mentioned several times- ‘It had to be a crime of passion’). The character of Wallander is an interesting one and overall I was intrigued enough to try another.

'The Lowland' by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri (3)

I found this book a little slow to build my interest. It is the story of two close brothers growing up in the 1950’s in Calcutta, India who were destined for different paths.  The quieter, older brother leaves for college in Rhode Island while the younger brother stays home and becomes more and more politically active. The first third of this novel plods along with this narrative. Eventually, a dramatic event jerks the plot forward, though it quickly gets back to a plodding pace as we follow the choices the older brother makes. I kept hoping for more to happen, to like the characters better, but it was not to be, even as time progressed more rapidly. The lack of love in the family dynamics of this book were sad, though maybe not as odd as they seemed to me. I wasn’t terribly interested in what would happen to the characters, and not much good did happen to them.

'Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman' by Robert K. Massie

Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman, Robert K. Massie (4.0)

Mr. Massie said that he tried to write Catherine’s story as if we were seeing it through her eyes. I think that is what makes this book stand apart. I had read a biography of this empress of Russia long ago and, while she was very interesting, the book was not. Massie has taken a historical character and fleshed her out with information found in numerous letters and with much research of the time period. Keeping the drama flowing is particularly difficult given the numerous characters and various Russian name changes. He starts her story in her teenage years as she is sent to Russia (from Germany) to meet the Crown Prince Peter III, the heir to the Russian throne and possibly her new husband. Massie addresses many of the rumors about Catherine (celibate marriage, three children by three different men, Potemkin villages, etc.) with logical conclusions based on the data he could find. It was generally easy to agree with his conclusions. There is no doubt that she was one of the most forward thinking, politically savvy leaders of her time and it is astounding to think that she was one of the strongest leaders of Russia, yet was not Russian and likely produced children who were not actually from the Romanov lineage, but who subsequently ruled Russia.  While telling Catherine’s story, we also get a primer in Polish, Prussian and French history during that time period, all very interesting and pertinent to her actions. Maybe not surprisingly, Catherine’s and Potemkin’s work in the Crimea was just a prelude to the current issues in that area of the world. Russia then, as now, wanted that lovely area with its access to the Black Sea.