DECEMBER READING: PARIS by Edward Rutherfurd

DECEMBER READING: PARIS by Edward Rutherfurd

Well, there is no doubt that this is a very big book - covering 700 years of that iconic city, and trying to do so in 800 closely written pages. Wow. Big. And apparently this is one of his shorter novels. Unsurprisingly 800 pages is not enough to incorporate a detailed and complete history of the City of Light. I expect the author's greatest challenge was what to put in and what to leave out. Who runs the city of Paris also runs France, so leadership is the dominant thread through the book, forming the background to the characters and their stories. So Louis XIV and XVI, Napoleon, the Gestapo, and the Catholic Church as well as the leaders post-French Revolution feature strongly.  Paris is also known for its iconic architecture - the story of the Eiffel Tower features. The reader learns a lot about the geographical layout of the city from its early  Ancient Rome days and the continuity of  such structures as Notre Dame, the Louvre, Sacre Coeur, the main roadways, and above all the the river Seine. This is all fascinating stuff, and the maps at the beginning and end of the book - one of Paris in the Middle Ages, and the other of Paris in the late 1890s - show how this city has grown and moved outward, yet still retaining its core.

Against this historic and cultural detail, the author has woven the stories of a number of families ranging from the aristocratic de Cygne family, the working class Le Sourd and Gascon families, the more bourgeois Blanchard and Renard families, to the Jewish family Jacob. The family tree at the beginning of the book is absolutely invaluable because the author tells the story in the most confusing way possible jumping through the centuries, back and forth in time, introducing different members from the families at different times. The book opens in the late nineteenth century and next chapter we are in the thirteenth century, next chapter a bit later in the nineteenth, then to the fourteenth century and so it goes on. Each chapter introduces new people and plot lines, then the next chapter has other family members meeting new family members of a previously introduced family. Aaagh, gets very confusing!

But, despite all the trickery, this is a very readable and enjoyable book. 800 pages whizzed by, as did 700 years. This is a city that continues to be very high on my list of places to go, and this book has only increased my desire to do so. The author clearly loves the city, but I would very much have liked for there to have been more about the French Revolution - after all this is where much of the modern history of France and Paris itself all started. The chapter on the Terror of 1794 was very good, but I get the feeling the author assumes that all readers have prior and detailed knowledge of the mechanics of the Revolution of 1789, which I don't believe would be the case.

DECEMBER READING: LETTERS FROM BERLIN by Kerstin Lieff and Margarete Dos

DECEMBER READING: LETTERS FROM BERLIN by Kerstin Lieff and Margarete Dos

Growing up in the West learning 20th century WWII history, we took it on board that the British, the Americans and for a while the Russians were the good guys. The Germans and the Japanese were the bad guys - simple as that. History, of course, is always perceived and told from the viewpoint of the person telling it, and often the viewpoint of the other party/ies is minimised, ignored, glossed over or dressed up in a way to enhance the teller's version. We never, ever learnt about the history of the war from the German point of view, from the Germans themselves, and it is only in recent years that the children of those who lived during the war years are now telling the stories of their parents and grandparents. And about time too.

Almost as interesting as the story itself, is the process taken to have the parents'/grandparents' stories told. Often there is so much pain and trauma that many of these stories of survival go unheard. In this particular instance, after some persuasion, Margarete made recordings of her story with her daughter Kerstin, and after her death in 2005, Kerstin took it upon herself to compile the recordings into a book. She also found diaries and photos which have greatly enlarged and enhanced the oral recordings made by her mother.

I can only imagine the emotion that came to the surface during the telling of Margarete's story, the courage it took to open up such old wounds and let out the grief and anger there. As we know war is never pretty, and it is always the civilian that cops the brunt of whatever the conflict is. Kerstin Lieff has transcribed her mother's story, adding historical and narrative detail where necessary.  

Margarete Dos was a child when Hitler came to power, and very quickly it seems he became a figure to be feared and obeyed. She is training to be a doctor when the war starts, but quickly moves back to Berlin to be with her mother. She describes vividly the terror and horror of the city being bombed around her. The brutality of the approaching Russians matches the fear of living under the Nazis, and it seems it is more by good luck than good management that Margarete survives this terrible, terrible time. Her mother is of Swedish origin, so late in 1945, Margarete and her mother finally manage to get themselves on a train supposedly taking them to a new life in Sweden. Instead they find themselves transported to a Russian gulag, where again, against the odds they somehow manage to survive. Their return to Berlin after two years sees them trying to restart their lives, along with millions of other displaced people, and eventually they do make it to Sweden.

This paragraph only gives a taste, and does very little justice to this dreadful time in our modern history. Yet again, we are reminded of the strength of the human spirit to survive, the power of hope, and most importantly that for every war that is won, there is the other side, the loser, whose stories are almost never told, but have as much right to be told.  

DECEMBER READING: THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

DECEMBER READING: THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

So... 125,764 reviews on Good Reads, and another 18,382 on Amazon. How could I possibly add to any of them! Very short review then.

How clever to take the main genre of current TV - the reality contestant elimination show and make it something evil and very, very nasty - a fight to the death that the whole of society must watch, and every night of the week. Plus, the contestants are children, fighting for food to feed their own. As a parent I had no desire at all to indulge my reading or movie viewing time in this contrived and utterly senseless story making.

However, by the very virtue of being a parent, you do become entwined in your children's interests. So now that the second movie is out, passionately embraced  by 16 year old, I thought maybe it was time! And yes I am glad I did. Great plot, terrific characters, lots of twists and turns right up to the last page.

The best part about this novel, and I am sure the others in the series are the same,  is what great heroes the three main characters are to young readers. In an age when young girls feel they have to wear very few clothes and twerk themselves to get attention and young boys feel they have to drink themselves stupid and prey on young vulnerable fellow teens, such fine characters as these Katniss, Peeta and Gale are very inspiring. No wonder these books have been such a hit.

Looking forward to reading the next instalment of Katniss, Peeta and Gale. Off to the movies I go!

NOVEMBER READING; THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE by Emily Maguire

NOVEMBER READING: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE by Emily Maguire

Luke Butler has recently been appointed senior pastor at an evangelical Christian youth centre in suburban Sydney. He is in his late 20s, and never known any life apart from the orphanage he was brought up in following his abandonment at birth, or the church to which he has devoted his life to and where he has finally found a family of sorts. He has no knowledge, or indeed any desire to find out about his birth parents or family. Luke's life is one of order, devotion, tolerance and adherence to God and the teachings of the Bible.

Across the road from the youth centre is, in a bizarre situation of polar opposites, a family planning clinic, managed by the very capable, compassionate and real Aggie Grey. Aggie has a complicated back story too, but wildly different from that of the chaste and clean living Luke. She is a counsellor at the clinic, dispensing contraceptive and relationship advice, helping those with gender identity and sexual orientation issues, counselling women with unwanted pregnancies, and dealing with sexual diseases.

The snake on the cover of the book does not need an apple to tell you what is going to happen when these two meet. An instant and dangerous connection sees them both compromising their deeply held values and beliefs. Into this mix comes 16 year old Honey, pregnant, alone and without a clue as to what she should do. She has been treated very badly by the men in her short life, and she is inextricably drawn into the powerful relationship bubbling away between Luke and Aggie.

The time worn theme of two people falling in love at the wrong time in the wrong place is at the core of this novel. And just like Romeo and Juliet, there are myriad forces at play to prevent any lasting happiness. The elephant in the room is 'abortion' and what is seen to be in the best interests of Honey by the pro life and pro choice factions, ie the church and everyone else. As expected, things rapidly spiral out of control, and there is no happy ending in sight.

Despite the deep and controversial subject matter, this is a straightforward and easy book to read. The characters are perhaps a little too stereotyped and one dimensional, but this is an important subject with neither a right or wrong answer that has been intelligently handled. 

MASTERING THE ART OF SOVIET COOKING by Anya von Bremzen

NOVEMBER READING: MASTERING THE ART OF SOVIET COOKING by Anya von Bremzen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87lMFkCQaUM

Growing up in the West during the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s, international relations were dominated by this thing called the Cold War. The war was between 'us' and 'them' - a whole different, entirely undesirable, backward, and frightening other world behind this other thing called the Iron Curtain. It probably never entered my empty teenage head that there were people just like us behind this Iron Curtain - Mums, Dads, children, teenagers, grandparents. They were, quite simply,  all communists - baddies, a serious threat to the democracies we pretty much took for granted. But after reading this memoir by a woman of a similar age to me, is it possible that  threat may well have been a lot of hot air? It seems they were all too damn hungry and spent too much time standing in queues to be a threat to anyone! 

Nevertheless, Anya von Bremzen's memoir is a book truly written from the heart - for her mother and grandmothers, her father, her grandfather, her fellow Soviets, the terrible waste, deaths, family tragedies all  resulting from the megalomania of a few. In their own way each of the leaders was mad. The chapter on Stalin is the most compelling and frightening to read, Khrushchev is positively boring in comparison, and the chapter on Gorbachev was a complete revelation. In the Western media, I remember him being portrayed in glowing terms - perestroika, glasnost and all that. But in the USSR it seems he was quite a different sort of fish.

And of course throughout the book there is the food. It is amazing how we so often associate food with how we feel, our overall well being and happiness with ourselves, our lives and how it lives on in our memories. Now a successful food writer in the US, Ms von Bremzen takes the traditional Russian food of her family and weaves the history of both her family and  Communist Russia from its beginnings in 1917 under Lenin to its dissolution in the early 1990s. She treats the whole 70 year odd years as an unmitigated disaster for virtually everyone. I really hope that writing this memoir was cathartic for her and for her mother who is still alive.

Anya was very fortunate that in 1974 when she was 10,  she and her mother fled to the US, leaving everything and everyone behind, knowing that they would never be able to return.  In her writing there is very little happiness or nostalgia for what she left, and although their first few years in Philadelphia were not easy, at least it was better than what they had come from. She would never have had the life she currently has if they had stayed.

The link above is an interview with the author talking about the book and her life. It is long, but well worth it. She makes for a great interview subject, and best of all, her mother is in the television audience. Beautiful to watch.

OCTOBER READING: LUNCH WITH THE STATIONMASTER by Derek Hansen

OCTOBER READING: LUNCH WITH THE STATIONMASTER by Derek Hansen

In June I read the fourth book in the 'Lunch With' series -"Lunch with a Soldier". The subject of this review is number three in the series; I also have number two! I noted in my review in June that at times I thought the writing was a little contrived, and that I couldn't really imagine four elderly gents in a cafe in suburban Australian actually having a conversation such as that recorded by the author. But, on the other hand, the author is damn fine story teller, which of course does forgive many a little niggle.

So how does this one, number three, compare? In a word, outstanding. Fantastic story telling, very believable and real characters, plenty of action, danger, fear, courage, hope, endurance, loyalty and above all love. Like the other novels in the series, the narration moves between the present - the weekly lunch dates of Milos, Neil, Ramon and Lucius; and the past, in this case Milos' story. As with number four book, there are a few twists and turns, which for me, seemed to make a great deal more sense than they did in Neil's story, the subject of number four book.

So, in this novel of nearly 600 pages, which by the way you will race through because you won't want to put it down, Milos narrates the story of Milos, his brother Tibor, and young friend Gabrielle who is loved by both Milos and Tibor but whose heart belongs to Tibor. It is 1941, and Hilter and his machine have their sights set on world domination including Hungary where these two Jewish families are about to have their worlds turned upside down.

This is a corker of a story, an absolute page turner.Brilliant for a holiday read, or a wet weekend. Better get myself started on number two.

NOVEMBER READING: A HISTORY OF SILENCE by Lloyd Jones

 NOVEMBER READING: A HISTORY OF SILENCE by Lloyd Jones

Review copy of this book supplied by Penguin Group (NZ) Ltd, via Booksellers NZ

http://www.themonthly.com.au/book-club/2013/september/transcript

I had the most peculiar reaction to reading this memoir by the very highly regarded Lloyd Jones. For the first five years of my life I lived 1.7kms in one direction from where the author was living out his childhood, and for the next 15 years I lived 1.7kms in the other direction. Our paths never crossed, (he is a few years older), but everything he writes about the place of  Lower Hutt, and the sense of place is very strong in this book, had a startling ring of truth about it. From Stellin Street where I learnt to drive, to his days at the intermediate school, to the shop in the High St his school uniform was bought at, to his descriptions of Petone, the Hutt River bed, Eastbourne and the bays - I could see it all so clearly and in his retelling of his memory, he made me remember too. Just as wonderful was the quite amazing thought that just up the road a writer of such genius was slowly incubating! 

Every family has its secrets, its stories that change over the years to accommodate new narrators and mores of the time, its black sheep, and often full truths never come out because they are too painful, considered too shameful, or quite simply just too hard to deal with. Lloyd Jones' parents, Joyce and Lew, were both extensively scarred by the circumstances of their childhoods, carrying their burdens into their marriage and the parenting of their five children, of whom Lloyd was the youngest by some ten years.

Lloyd grows up in a household of silence, where he and his siblings know very little about their parents' early lives. All they really know is that there was a fair bit of sadness. There is a complete lack of family stories, no photos on the walls, what he calls 'wilful forgetting'. Because he has nothing to compare this with, he grows up thinking nothing much about this lack, and is puzzled only momentarily when he goes driving, from time to time, with his mother to a house that they sit outside of for a while and then drive away again. His siblings are adults long before he is, and so he lives alone in the house with his parents, about whom he knows very little. One Christmas his older sister produces the results of her own research into their parents, a myriad mix of birth, death and marriage certificates which doesn't really answer any questions and leads to a whole lot more.

The devastating Christchurch earthquake of February 2011, was the catalyst Lloyd Jones needed to kick start his search for where he came from and what made him. Throughout the book, Jones uses  Christchurch repairing itself and rebuilding its foundations as an analogy for him finding his own base and putting the pieces of his family puzzle into place. The narrative takes the reader from Christchurch to Lower Hutt, as far away as Wales, Wairarapa, the backblocks of North Canterbury, Wellington, backwards and forwards, to and fro, weaving and threading the story of a family through these places. 

It is very moving to read such a personal account of a family's story, or more to the point the stories of Joyce and Lew. This memoir reads more as a tribute to the parents, and Lloyd himself finally seems to find out from whom he has inherited aspects of his own self and the influences that have shaped him. This is writing written with love and longing, and all the more poignant for that. The story teller in the author comes shining through as he expands on the lives of the people he is writing about, as they react to the events taking place around them. There are some threads I just could not figure out the relevance of  - the boxing bout between Bob Fitzsimmons and Gentleman Jim Corbett springs to mind. But boxing was a big thing in the house he grew up in.  Maybe I was just too tired to fully comprehend the significance. Never mind, such a tiny criticism, it barely matters.

This is a book I will treasure, not just because of the eloquent writing, but because he has given honour and integrity to the lives of two people who were unable to really find it for themselves during their own lifetimes. Read or watch the interview in the link above - well worth the time taken.