Rebeccanyc's 2010 Reading, PART 4

I am starting a new thread for the last two months of the year, since my old one was getting on the long side. My last thread is here. Thank you for visiting.

Over the past week or so, I've read two very different books about two very different contemporary East Asian countries, and I decided to wait until I finished the second and comment on them together.

#80. Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Literature by Deborah Fallows

In this delightful, slim volume, Deborah Fallows uses the Mandarin language, and her difficulties in learning it, as aw a window for exploring the contemporary China she encountered during several years in the country -- its people, culture, and nonstop busy-ness. Largely impressionistic, the book provides insight into some of the differences between both the Chinese and English languages and the Chinese and the Americans: for example, the Chinese at first seem abrupt and even rude to Fallows because they don't use words like "please" and "thank you;" they rarely use pronouns, making it difficult for them to distinguish "he" and "she" when they learn English and lessening the importance of the self ("I"); and they create compound words like "open-close" to mean "switch on or off" or "father-mother" to mean "parent" because they are working with a limited number of words and syllables since each has its own symbol. Although the book is light in tone, I learned a lot about contemporary Chinese life, at least as seen by a westerner, and found the language descriptions and insights especially interesting.

81. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

This is a fascinating, if chilling, look at the horror of life in contemporary North Korea and the ingenuity of at least some of its citizens in feeding themselves and their families at barely survivable levels and even escaping. Through interviews with six people who escaped from North Korea, most from the harsh northern city of Chonjin, as well as considerable research, Demick (a reporter for the Los Angeles Times) weaves a story that touches on multiple aspects of North Korean life over the past 20 years, including the cult of the leaders (every family had to have pictures of them and dust them daily -- there were inspections!); the method of organizing people to watch and report on other people; the "class" system in which people who had any connections to South Korea or other "enemies" in the past find that their families' blood is "tainted" for three generations, affecting their children's ability to get good educations or marry well; the system of organizing workplaces and living quarters so the government not only knows where everyone is but also provides food through the workplace. Then the economy breaks down and famine comes, and people struggle to find even edible grasses. With the breakdown of the system, some people manage to set up very small businesses, making "cookies," for example, even though they have been indoctrinated that private business is evil. They learn to ignore the dead bodies of those who have starved to death and focus on their own survival. Horrifying and illuminating as all this was, one of the most compelling parts of the book for me was the stories of how the different people Demick had interviewed ended up escaping: finding the will to defect and then finding the way to do it, all different, none of the easy.

Demick writes the book not as interviews but as the interwoven stories of the people as they progress from a harsh, totalitarian, and brainwashed, but nonetheless livable, lifestyle to a time of chaos and starvation to the decision to leave even though they have little idea of what they are moving too since all news from outside North Korea is banned (radios and TVs are preset to receive only the official channel) and their new life in South Korea (and how South Korea deals with the North Korean defectors). As she tells their stories, she adds in historical information that she has gleaned from other sources. She is a lively writer, and it was hard to put this book down. "Nothing to envy" is part of a song all young North Koreans learned that taught them that everything was best in their country and they had nothing to envy in others; needless to say, it is a supremely ironic title

I know I already have Dreaming in Chinese in the BlackHole. It sounds like I need to track down the Demick book as well. Thanks, Rebecca!

Ooh, first second one here on your shiny new thread!

Great reviews. These 2 were already on my wishlist, but I will look for them a bit faster now, especially Nothing to Envy. The English bookshop here is having a discussion about it in a few months.

>1 rebeccanyc: Dreaming in Chinese was one I had requested from ER but didn't win. I've got it on the Christmas List now. If that fails, birthday in February. Then I just buy it and say to heck with everyone.

Hi Rebecca. Loved both of your reviews and will look for both books.

I've added Nothing to Envy to my list. I just finished Your Republic is Calling You by South Korean author Young-ha Kim, which you might be interested in. It's the story of a North Korean spy/mole, who's been living undercover in Seoul for more than 20 years. He's become a successful businessman, and has a wife and child who know nothing of his background. He hasn't heard from his North Korean handlers in 10 years. Then one day he receives a coded message from the North that he has 24 hours to return to the North. The book isn't a thriller, but rather follows the action and thoughts of the North Korean for that 24 hours. It wasn't a blow-you-out-ot-the-water book, but it was very good, and I recommend it.

#6 -- I read those the other way around and agree that the two books really inform each other! Both the novel and the non-fiction story were chilling in different ways.

So glad you liked both of those, Rebecca; both are among my most memorable reads of the year. Can't wait to see what Demick writes next.

Deborah, I'd heard about Your Republic Is Calling You and it sounded intriguing -- thanks for the recommendation.

82. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock

Two and a half months and 997 pages (plus appendices) later, I have completed an absorbing and sobering tour of many of the evils of the first half of the 20th century. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union, Bullock, an historian, chose to use a dual biography of Hitler and Stalin (having previously written Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, which I read years ago in college) as a means of exploring what he calls the Berlin-East axis (that's axis as in direction, not Axis as in the powers), which he considered less familiar to English and American readers than the Berlin West axis.

Combining meticulous research with an admirable ability to tell a story, Bullock pairs sections discussing Hitler and Stalin at the same ages (initially, to account for Stalin's birth 10 years before Hitler's) and then, after they reach adulthood, by years. This allows the reader to learn broadly about what was going on in Russia and Germany at the same time, as well as to compare the societies and what Hitler and Stalin were doing. Because I know more about Hitler and the Nazis, having read the wonderful The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich earlier this year, I found the material about Stalin more interesting because it was new to me; I also found Bullock's telling of the war years fascinating and happily aided by good maps. Bullock also spends time comparing and contrasting Hitler and Stalin, something the reader inevitably does as well, and provides insight into the development of the cold war from the ashes of World War II.

At the end, Bullock sums up the devastation of the Nazi/Soviet era and World War II in Europe alone. In World War II, in Europe, some 40 million Europeans were killed: 21.3 million Russians (including 7.7 million civilians), or 11% of the population; 6.85 million Germans (including 3.6 million civilians), or 9.5% of the population; 6.123 million Poles (of whom 6 million were civilians and 2.5 million of these Jewish), or 17.2% of the population; 1.7 million Yugoslavs (of who 1.4 million were civilians), or 10.9% of the population; and hundreds of thousands of British, French, Hungarians, Greeks, Rumanians, Austrians, Italians, and Czechs. If the First World War, Spanish Civil War, and Russian Civil war are added in, the total rises to 58.3 million, and if the deaths attributable to the Russian famine of 1921-1922, Stalin's forced collectivization program, and Stalin's purges and the Gulag are also added, "it takes the total loss of life in Europe from the effects of violence in the period 1914-53 to ca. seventy-five million." My life has been lived in the aftermath of this horror, and it is illuminating to learn more about the world I inherited.

ETA For comparison's sake, US war-related deaths from 1941-1945 totaled 295,000 or 0.4% of the population including the war in the Pacific, i.e., not in Europe alone.

#9: Yes, I definitely need to get around to that one. Maybe after I finish The History of Rome - and its 2099 pages. Yikes.

83. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

I wouldn't have finished this book if it hadn't been recommended to me by people whose opinions I respect (not to mention the Booker Prize judges). Why didn't I like it?

First of all, I found the characters almost universally unappealing. While I am by no means a reader who needs to like the characters or feel connected to them, the three main characters just left me cold: Julian is a pathetic jerk, Sam a self-satisfied ass, and Libor, the most sympathetic of the group, a sentimental widower. The only character I warmed to at all was Hephzibah, a great-niece of Libor who ends up living with Julian.

Secondly, the Finkler question is the Jewish question and I found the portrayal of many of the Jewish characters, and Julian's views of them, all too often stereotypical and bordering on caricature. The issue of Israel and the connection between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is without doubt important, but the way it was handled in this book irritated me (and not in the good way, where irritation makes you think more deeply) and at times almost offended me.

Finally, I just didn't get Jacobson's sense of humor at all. I have this problem sometimes with British humor, so it may not just be him. And some of the situations in which the characters, especially Julian, find themselves are so preposterous it was difficult for me to believe them -- and I didn't think Jacobson always meant them as jokes.

#11: I am sorry you did not enjoy The Finkler Question, Rebecca. I hope your next read is more to your taste.

Sorry you didn't like The Finkler Question, Rebecca -- I feel guilty...

A friend of mine who is a British Jew read the book and had an ambivalent reaction -- he loved it as a story, but had some of the same reservations that you did (thought the issues were dealt with glibly.) My buddy does, however, share the same sense of humor as Jacobson...

Am going to have to read the Alan Bullock book(s)... How does the Hitler book compare to Kershaw's? If you want to read more about Stalin, I think Simon Sebag Montefiore's two books are readable and intelligent.

Have you seen a new book about that era, Bloodlands?

Stasia, I've gone back to The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa who, as you know, is one of my favorite authors. I had to stop it because I was reading it as my subway read and it was too complex for that kind of episodic reading, and so I'm starting again at the beginning to try to get a grasp on who all the characters are.

Suzanne, the "blame" for The Finkler Question should go to Darryl! However, I would have read it anyway because of the Booker.

I haven't read Kershaw's book and it is 35 years or more since I read A Study in Tyranny. I do think the best overall book I've read on the Nazis is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Funny you should ask about Bloodlands. I have wanted to read it since before it was published because of an article I read by the author in The New York Review of Books last year. I snapped it up when I saw it in a bookstore and am planning to start it very soon now that I've finished Hitler and Stalin.

#14: I have not read that one yet by Vargas Llosa. The next one up for me is Conversations in the Cathedral. I will be interested in seeing what you think of The Green House when you are finished with it, Rebecca.

ETA: I do not know if you are aware of it or not, Rebecca, but Vargas Llosa is saying that he will publish a third book in the trilogy that includes The War of the End of the World (which I loved) and The Feast of the Goat. I believe Darryl had a note about it on his thread, so you may have seen it already.

I didn't see that yet, Stasia; I'll have to go check Darryl's thread because I can't figure out what the theme of the trilogy is if both The War of the End of the World (which is my favorite V-L) and The Feast of the Goat have in common. (I could see some connection between Conversation in the Cathedral and The Feast of the Goat since both are about dictatorships

*hiding from the Wrath of Rebecca*

Mario Vargas Llosa! Yes, let's talk about him instead. I'll be interested to get your take on The Green House. I was going to start Death in the Andes in the next day or two, but maybe I'll start The Green House instead.

I haven't heard anything about the MVL trilogy that Stasia mentioned! I may have posted an article about his forthcoming book, The Dream of the Celt, but I think that someone else, maybe Manuel, Matt, Chris or Carlos, had originally announced it here.

#17: Yes, I remember your post about The Dream of the Celt with a link to an article. Perhaps Manuel mentioned it on his thread. Off to investigate . . .

(I will hide with you too, Darryl, since I loved The Finkler Question as well.)

Ah ha! Found on Manuel's thread:

"A new novel by Vargas Llosa comes out on Nov. 3rd- published in Spain. I've asked my daughter to get me a copy and bring it when she comes for Christmas vacation.
It's a historical novel, titled El sueno del Celta (The dream of the Celt?), based on the life of Roger Casement. Casement was a British Consul in the Congo at the beginning of the XX century who was sent to investigage the plight of the Congo workers in rubber plantations owned by Leopold II, King of Belgium (a great book narrating Leopold's attrocities is King Leopold's Ghost.) Casement writings lead to Leopold disposing of his holdings (he was truly an evil man, like Hitler). Casement was then sent to the Amazon to investigate abuses in rubber plantations there. In the end, these experiences radicalize Casement to the extent that when he returns to England he begins to demand the independence of Ireland- he sees the British abuses of Irish people over the prior several hundred years in the same light as abuses in Congo and Peru. The British government goes ater him and ends up finding him guilty of treason and he is hanged.
Casement was a friend of Joseph Conrad and is the person who inspired Conrad to write his novel Heart of Darkness.
Vargas Llosa, so I read, has done a very exhaustive examination of all the documentary evidence leading to the writing of this novel. Several Spanish newspaper comments I've read qualify it as his masterpiece. At 454 pages it's a monumental piece. In its subject it completes a trilogy with the La guerra del fin del mundo(War of the end of the world) and La Fiesta del Chivo (The Feast of the Goat)"

ETA: Here is the link to the article that Darryl posted on Manuel's thread: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/18/new-mario-vargas-llosa-novel

Thanks for the indefatigable research, Stasia. That would explain why I missed it. I must confess I still don't see a connection between The War of the End of the World and Feast of the Goat, although I can see a connection between this new book and War (exploitation of the poor by the rich and powerful and the impact of a charismatic leader).

Don't worry, Darryl, I am sure I will return the favor by highly recommending some book that you end up not liking! (Oh, I forgot, you're not buying any more books!)

#20: I did not see a connection between those two books either, but several months went by between my reading of the two so I assumed that was why. Since you do not see a connection either, I do not feel so bad.

Oh, I want to read that!! Casement is an absolutely fascinating historical figure. There is a theory that the reason he was hung is that he was gay, and threatening to be indiscreet about it. (He was also stripped of his knighthood, I think.) Incidentally, I'm probably related to him -- verrrry distantly. A branch of the Casement family from Ireland shuffled across the Atlantic to Canada circa 1820, but from the same townland as Roger Casement's ancestors. I'm kind of pleased about that! First came across him in a book about the Congo, possibly King Leopold's Ghost, or Hochschild's later book on the slave trade.

For Suzanne, Darryl, and others who are interested, I e-mailed Archipelago about why I haven't gotten any books since Eline Vere and this is the response I got.

" Thanks for asking. We had a bit of a hiatus. We'll be sending out our new Darwish, our Bengali novel (My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose), and Joseph Roth's Job on Thursday or Friday. I apologize for the lengthy gap... Thanks so much"

Thanks for the info, Rebecca! I look forward to receiving these books next week.

Phew -- I had been wondering -- thanks for checking with them!!

I must say I was a little worried about them, and hope the gap doesn't mean they're in any kind of trouble, but today I got an e-mail advertising their subscriptions as good holiday gifts, so I guess they're OK>

Oh, good! I had the same worry, especially since I hadn't received any info about renewing my subscription for next year (which I plan to do). Checking...yes, I also received that same e-mail this afternoon.

I didn't really like The Finkler Question that much either, although I feel less specific about why.

Enjoying your thread. Thinking twice about reading The Finkler Question.

Hi Amanda, thanks for stopping by. As I think Darryl/kidzdoc mentioned, people either seem to love or really dislike The Finkler Question, so I might not be the best guide for it. On the other hand, I know we like a lot of the same books, so . . .

84. The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa

Like several of my favorite novels by Vargas Llosa, this one mixes characters, past and present, and conversations and actions not only within the same chapter, but even in the same sentence. I thought I had gotten the hang of reading these books, but I was confused throughout much of The Green House, one of Vargas LLosa's earliest works, and still, having finished it, feel I would have to go back to the beginning and reread it to grasp it more fully.

As far as I can tell, there are several major plots and themes: the exploitation of the environment and the varied indigenous peoples of the Peruvian jungle by white people, including rubber traders and the Catholic church; the exploitation of women by men, including in the Green House, the first and legendary brothel in a desert town; the contrast between the desert and the jungle; the lushness and power of nature in the jungle; corruption and innocence; and the power of music. How all this fits together, in the end, eluded me, although I enjoyed a great deal of the writing and wish I understood this book better.

#31: Well, if you did not get it, I have not got a prayer of understanding it. I will have to re-think reading that one . . .

Stasia, that certainly isn't true. It is beautifully written, and the depictions of the jungle and the desert are stunningly realistic (or at least they seem so to me) -- it is the people and plot connections that remained confusing.

I tend not to be a 'deep' reader and do not do well with books that have tons of symbolism and hidden meanings to them, most of which are wasted on me because they fly right over my head.

I find it depends on the book. I couldn't deal with One Hundred Years of Solitude when I first read it, and still can't today. The writing style and the nature of the themes are what make something readable for me. I know I love Llosa's writing (memo to self: find a copy of The Perpetual Orgy, his book about Flaubert and Mme Bovary), so I'd certainly make the effort.

85. Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

Indian Mound Downs is the last stop for aging racehorses -- and for its human denizens and hangers-on, including elderly African-American groom Medicine Ed, cynical Deucey with one horse, and "financier" Two-Tie, who has been banned from the track. Into this mix comes a 20-something couple: would-be trainer Tommy, and his somewhat slumming girlfriend Maggie. It is the late 60s or early 70s in northwestern West Virginia, just over the Ohio border, and everyone is trying to make or find some luck.

Jaimy Gordon uses language beautifully, and often poetically: to capture the feeling of nature, from the red dust to the singing birds; to bring individual horses to life; to give each of the major characters his or her own distinctive (and sometimes initially hard to figure out) voice and lingo; and to convey the sensuality of the human connection to horses (and occasionally to each other). The novel follows the characters and horses over the course of a year, leading through three races to the fourth, featuring a horse named Lord of Misrule, that brings all the forces that have been building up to this point together.

I really loved most of this book, for the feel of the characters, the life of the racetrack, the "personality" of the horses, and the sense of place, but I found it flawed in a couple of ways. First of all, about two-thirds of the way through the book, a somewhat melodramatic gangster element develops. Although this advances the plot, I found it jarring. Second, and related to this, I found the ending also melodramatic and not entirely in keeping with the rest of the novel which portrays a world in which the more things change, the more they stay the same.

According to Wikipedia, the Lord of Misrule was appointed in medieval Britain and other places in Europe to oversee riotous festivities around Christmas time, in a custom derived from the ancient Roman Saturnalia, in which"the ordinary rules of life were turned topsy-turvy." In this novel, the horse Lord of Misrule sets in motion the overturning of some of the status quo at the racetrack and in people's lives.

Finally, do I think this deserved the National Book Award? The only other finalist I've read is Nicole Krauss's Great House, which was one of my favorite recent reads, and which I think equally deserving. Both books are complex, beautifully written, moving, and technically accomplished: Krauss's "works" better, I think, while Gordon's is more ambitious and takes more risks.

What a gorgeous review, Rebecca! I'll definitely look for this ASAP.

What Darryl said!

Great review, Rebecca...

The key thing about the Lord of Misrule in medieval England was that he was named from the lower ranks of a household or community (as during Saturnalia, the slaves could could recline and be served by their masters.) So it's not just rules of life that went topsy-turvy, but the whole social hierarchy. It would be interesting to see an author try and transpose that idea into contemporary society..

Still no Archipelagos.

Well, Gordon didn't take the idea of the Lord of Misrule that far (i.e., transposing it to contemporary society) and everyone in this book is pretty far down in the lower ranks of the community, broadly speaking, although of course there are always those with more power and more money than others. I don't want to give the plot away but I would say the idea plays out in the sense that the this change is temporary, that the social hierarchy always returns.

And yes, it would be fascinating to see the idea transposed to contemporary society, but I'm not quite sure how it would work, since I assume part of the idea of these customs was to give the lower classes/slaves an opportunity to blow off steam before they went back to their daily lives of servitude and oppression. Not sure how that would play out today (especially in the US, where we don't acknowledge that we have classes).

Although -- thinking out loud -- that might be part of the fun, the fact that we don't acknowledge we have classes? Interestingly, both Saturnalia and Misrule were set in December -- maybe a company holiday party, where a CEO is forced to pretend he's just one of the guys, and a guy from the mailroom can get it on with a secretary in the CEOs office? Just thinking about the kinds of situations that might reflect that...

Sometimes I think that if we did just acknowledge that we weren't a classless society, the world would be a better place. After all, it's not about class, it's about rights and opportunities. I know there are people who take for granted things that are completely out of my ken, and those who couldn't dream of doing what I have done. It's the lack of mobility among classes, the equality of opportunity, and equal rights under the law -- as well as ensuring that the bottom economic tier isn't crushed under the weight -- that are the important issues, IMO. No Bush sprog should go to Yale as a legacy, and no bright kid from Appalachia or an urban ghetto should be denied the chance of going to Yale because of inadequate education or finances.

86. Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré

Alas, this book once again shows that try as he does, in my opinion anyway, le Carré just can't match the brilliance of his Cold War thrillers, especially A Perfect Spy and the Karla trilogy. There are hints of his brilliant characterization in the this tale of dirty money, Russian criminals, and their western coconspirators, but only hints; le Carré still can build tension, but by the end I didn't care that much.

#42: I think I will give that one a pass. I did not care much for the one book of le Carre's that I have tried.

I hope you enjoy your next read more, Rebecca!

Stasia, which one did you read? His cold war novels are so much better than anything he's written recently you might have read a dud!

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was the one I read, I think. It was the first book in the Karla trilogy I know that much. I am just not sure I have the right title.

Oh, too bad you didn't like that as it would have been one of the ones I would have recommended. If you ever feel like trying him again, I would recommend A Perfect Spy which I consider his masterpiece. It is less a spy story and more a novel about families, sons, love, and betrayal. But if le Carré just isn't for you, I understand.

I will give A Perfect Spy a try. Thanks for that recommendation, Rebecca.

My Archipelago books arrived today!!

87. After Claude by Iris Owens

Harriet is a darkly witty, self-centered and self-hating, man-obsessed, and seriously delusional young woman who, as an extremely unreliable narrator, tells the story of how she met and broke up with Claude, "the French rat," and then puts her hooks into Roger, the hilariously creepy sidekick to an off-scene cult leader. I found Harriet unpleasant and the book claustrophobic, redeemed only by the brilliance of Owens's writing and characterization, and to some extent by the depiction/satirization of the early 1970s in New York. I would also warn that some of the satire and the language seem more offensive now than they would have in 1973 when the book was written: the constant use of the word "fag" for instance, but also some of the characters' comments about African-Americans and Jews. Finally, the cover blurb says Harriet is an "unblinkered, unbuttoned, unrelenting, and above all bitingly funny prophetess of all that is wrong with women's minds and hearts" -- I'm afraid I just didn't read her that way.

#49: I think I can live without reading that one!

ETA: I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, Rebecca.

>49 rebeccanyc:: pass.

When I first read this review, I wondered, "Why would Rebecca read such a trashy novel, one with a disgusting main character and filled with homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic sentiments?" So I looked it up, and found that it is a New York Review Book, and I find it surprising and disturbing that NYRB would choose something like this to reissue. Very strange, indeed; I hope that this is simply a bad mistake on the publisher's part, and not an indication that the quality of their offerings is about to take a nosedive.

I hope that your next read is a much better one.

Oh, I forgot to say: Happy Thanksgiving, Rebecca!

Well, Darryl, if it were written today, I think it would be considered all of those things, but I think it refelcts how some people actually talked back then. The person who makes the most anti-Semitic comments is the seriously mentally disturbed protagonist, who keeps denying that she herself is Jewish. And she is the one who says "fag" all the time and has racist views (along both the fear of mugging and reputed sexual prowess lines). In other words, I believe these to be the attitudes of the character, not the author. Owens does write very well and has a wonderful ear for the pointed remark, and she certainly does a brilliant job of creating the Harriet character, unappealing as she is. I would say the book is dated, and perhaps happily so, but it does have its moments.

And happy Thanksgiving to you too, Darryl, and to you Stasia, and to anyone else who stops by and is celebrating today.

That makes sense, Rebecca. I am admittedly intolerant and impatient with novels that have racist or racially thoughtless elements, which is one reason why I intensely disliked Blonde Roots and In the United States of Africa.

I confess I was mystified by In the United States of Africa. The conceit of the Africa being the rich/developed/intellectual part of the world and the west being the corrupt and poor wore pretty thin after a while, and there was so much else in the book I couldn't figure out what the author was trying to do. On the broader picture, though, we wouldn't be able to read most classic literature of the early 20th century on back if we couldn't see that the novelists were presenting the world as it was, not the world we might like it to be. Racism and discrimination and oppression are an unfortunate part of history that perhaps are less tolerated now than they were in the past, but we can't pretend they weren't there (and aren't here).

88. Your Republic Is Calling You by Young-ha Kim

With the saber-rattling on the Korean peninsula, this seemed like a good time to read this book. I have mixed feelings about it, though. On the one hand, it was an interesting look at contemporary South Korea, South Korea 25 years ago, and North Korea, especially at some of the ways that North Korea trains its spies to become moles inside South Korea, and the idea of a long-term mole, with a South Korean life and family, being called back north is intriguing. However, I feel the author was trying to do to much and it didn't all work. Along with the spy story, he mixes in the stories of the protagonist's wife and daughter, as well as a variety of other characters. I believe this is designed to give a fuller picture of contemporary South Korean life (as well as develop the idea that we all have secrets), but it didn't completely work. Also, the author occasionally lapses into almost journalistic sections to inform the reader about different parts of Korea and Korean life. These were jarring.

Nonetheless, I read the book in almost one sitting because I wanted to find out what happened, and I learned a lot about South Korea and a little about North Korea. It was interesting to read this book so soon after Barbara Demick's wonderful Nothing to Envy, a journalistic look at the lives of North Koreans. It had a completely different approach, and for me was a far more compelling work.

89. The Princess, the King, and the Anarchist by Robert Pagani

I picked up this novella in a bookstore because I couldn't resist the title, and what a strange little book it is. The fictionalized account of an anarchist's failed attempt to bomb the 1906 wedding procession of the young king of Spain and a younger British princess, it looks inside the minds of the couple as they proceed in a carriage from the church to palace, as well as during the aftermath of the bombing, and for most of the time they are thinking about sex (she as a very naive virgin, he as quite the ladies man) and other physical urges (her need to find a bathroom). Clearly, we are meant to contrast these bodily functions with the absurd pomp and snobbery and idiocy of the whole idea of royalty; in the end, the king's power is undermined, but not by the bomb. I can't say I really enjoyed this book, but it is certainly making me think about what to write about it.

Nice reviews, Rebecca. I think I will skip the Pagani book though. I already have both Kim's and Demick's books in the BlackHole.

90. Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa

Fairly lightweight (in length, style, and complexity) for a Vargas Llosa novel, this book reintroduces the character of Lituma, who first appeared in The Green House and later appears in Death in the Andes.* Here, he is the sidekick to a police (Guardia Civil) lieutenant as the two of them investigate the brutal murder of a young air force recruit. As they, but mostly the lieutenant in his own inimitable way, interview potential witnesses, Vargas Llosa portrays a cross-section of Peruvian society in a remote coastal area in the 1950s, illustrating the class and racial tensions that pervade it. And, it wouldn't be a Vargas Llosa novel without a sex angle, this time the lieutenant's obsession with a married woman. I found this novel enjoyable, if surprisingly straightforward for Vargas Llosa, but certainly not up to his best.

*I am a little unclear about the chronological aspects of this, since Palomino Molero explicitly takes place in the 1950s, Green House implicitly during World War II, and Death in the Andes at an unnamed time, but apparently during the era of the Shining Path, which Wikipedia says was formed in 1980. However, this gap of 25+ years is incompatible with Lituma being sent from the coast to the mountains at the end of Palomino Molero. Artistic license? Or am I missing some aspect of Peruvian history?

#60: OK, I will not be rushing off to read that one. The local libraries do not have it, so it may be just as well.

I had the same take on Your Republic is Calling You--it would have been a better book had the subplots with the wife and daughter been omitted. I still have Nothing to Envy on my wish list.

I didn't actually mind that there were subplots with the wife and daughter, because I thought it was good both to give a fuller picture of the protagonist's life and to portray different aspects of contemporary South Korean society. But I thought they were a little over the top, and could have been worked into the novel better.

91. Job: The Story of a Simple Man by Joseph Roth

This deceptively simple story of a "simple man," a retelling of the Job story set in an early 20th century Russian shtetl and in New York City, grew on me as I read it. At first, it seemed as though Roth, surprisingly, was writing a version of a typical Yiddish shtetl tale, but gradually his usual themes of lost worlds, borders, interactions with officials and the people who always spring up to help with dealing with officials, and longing for what is lost begin to appear, this time in the dying days of Tsarist Russia, as opposed to those of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As in some other works I have read, Roth demonstrates his talent for portraying the beauty and grandeur of the natural environment.

Mendel Singer is the "simple man" of the title, a Torah teacher and pious Jew in a small town on the western edge of Russia. But, oh the troubles he has. As the translator's afterword (in the new Archipelago edition that I read) puts it, "his youngest son is born with what seem to be incurable disabilities, one of his older sons joins the Russian army, the other deserts to America, and his daughter is running around with a Cossack" (actually, with several Cossacks). When Mendel and his wife and daughter move to join the son in New York, who has been quite financially successful, at first life improves a little, although both parents are distraught about leaving the disabled son behind. Then, even worse troubles develop, Mendel questions his faith and grows old, and then . . . the not so unexpected miracle.

Both realistic and a fable, the story is compelling because of Roth's lyric writing, the palpable sense of loss, and the portrayal of life in both the pastoral shtetl in Russia and the urban version of the shtetl in New York City.

Great review of Job, Rebecca! I can't wait to read this now, and I'll probably get to it next weekend.

#64: That one sounds terrific! Thanks for the review and recommendation, Rebecca.

It does sound good. Wishlisting that one.

I think I already have the Job on my TBR -- somewhere...

I also read the Demick book and Your Republic is Calling You this year; the latter drawn to my attention via Amazon Vine, though I ended up buying it when it came out. Both ended up on my list of the most interesting books of the year, despite being quite different. I definitely agree with you about the sideplots involving the wife and daughter -- the wife's motel expedition and the odd question of the daughter's friend with the invisible house guest just distracted me from the core of the book. I ended up liking it quite a lot, though, mostly because it was so fresh. My other N. Korean read this year was A Corpse in the Koryo, a mystery set in Pyongyang and N. Korea, oddly enough -- apparently written pseudonymously (sp??) by a former intelligence officer. I was underwhelmed by it, but may try the sequel just in case the writing/plotting improves, because the idea of a N. Korean mystery/detective story is so intriguing!

92. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

In this stunning and chilling book, Timothy Snyder, a Yale history professor, illuminates the darkest side of the years 1933 to 1945 in Europe by exploring the mass murders of conservatively (conservatively!) 14 million people in what he calls the "bloodlands," the countries from Poland in the west to western Russia in the east. This already shocking total includes civilians and prisoners of war but not soldiers killed directly in the war as Snyder is covering "deliberate mass murder." The countries of the bloodlands, as he defines them, are what are now eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia.

Bloodlands takes the reader from the forced Ukrainian famines and collectivization of the early 1930s and the purges and great terror of the late 1930s in the Soviet Union through the early days of World War II when the Nazis and Soviets collaborated to take over Poland and "give" the Baltics to the Soviet Union, through the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, which opened up the east for the Nazi death camps, to the Nazi retreat and the bitter partisan fighting in many countries, at times encouraged by Stalin knowing it would lead the Germans to kill leaders who would otherwise live to make trouble for the Soviets, and winding up with post-1945 ethnic removals to make the countries that emerged from the war "pure" and the final Soviet purges, including the anti-Semitic "doctors plot." Throughout, in addition to the horrific details and statistics, Synder tries to emphasize that everyone who was killed -- by starvation, bullets, or gas -- was an individual human being, and includes quotes from people who left written records (sometimes on the walls of the buildings in which they were imprisoned prior to being killed).

Snyder makes several points. First, we as westerners have a distorted view of the bloodshed of these years partly because all the sites in the bloodlands where people were killed were liberated by Soviet troops and ended up behind the iron curtain; when we think of camps being liberated, we think of the skeletal survivors of the work camp at Dachau and when we read of the holocaust we read the stories of survivors. Second, almost all the countries in the bloodlands suffered from being occupied first by the Soviets, then by the Nazis, and then by the Soviets again. Not only was each occupation brutal in its own way, but people had complicated calculations to make about their degree of collaboration or resistance. Third, both the Soviets and the Nazis, but especially the Soviets, put a big priority on killing leaders, both military and intellectual, thereby not only reducing the ability to fight and resist but also impoverishing the population for years to come. Fourth, although we think of Jews being killed in the death camps by gas, and millions were, more were killed by bullets, millions of people killed one by one and thrown into pits.

This was not an easy book to read, because the horrors are so overwhelming. But I learned a lot, especially about the partisan fighting in Belarus and about the uprising first by Jews and then by the Polish Home Army in Warsaw, and much much more. This is an important book.

#69: This is an important book.

It sounds like it! I will have to see if my local library has a copy. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Rebecca!

Got it on my Kindle; had been eyeing it since I read about it in a book catalog last spring -- now will have to bump it up the reading list...

>69 rebeccanyc:: That sounds like one worth reading.

I wanted to let you know that I read Nothing to Envy this weekend after having discovered it on your thread. Thank you for pointing it out. Although it was harrowing, I'm very glad to have read it.

Perhaps I'll wait until after the holidays to add Bloodlands though as Nothing to Envy was difficult enough for now.

The Joseph Roth book and Bloodlands are now on my TBR list! thanks

Thank you all for stopping by; I hit a little bit of a pit of reading mediocrity for a while but am glad to have emerged from it.

#75: Glad to hear it, Rebecca!

I put Bloodlands on my list when I read about its pending publication. Hope to get to it soon.

I first heard about Bloodlands when I read an article on the subject by Snyder in the New York Review of Books, probably a year ago or so, so I was eagerly awaiting its publication.

It's horrible to have to wait so long for books that you want to read NOW. I just realized that I will have to wait until next September for Vanished Kingdoms: The Lives and Afterlives of Europe's Lost Realms by Norman Davies. Bah, humbug, say I.

I have gotten used to waiting. When I first learned, after reading their Anna Karenina, that Pevear and Volkhonsky would be translating War and Peace but it would be three years or so before it came out, I thought I could never wait. But now that I'm older, time speeds by so fast, it's scary. What I'm eagerly waiting for now is Vikram Seth's promised sequel to A Suitable Boy, one of my favorite books of all time. I am looking forward to rereading Boy before the sequel, A Suitable Girl, comes out in 2013.

I still need to read A Suitable Boy but I find its size intimidating!

Edited because I missed a letter

Stasia, you will not want to put it down and you will not want it to end! As I got closer to the end, I read more slowly because I just didn't want to leave the characters behind.

#82: OK, you have convinced me to dig it out. I will hunt for my copy in the next few days.

93. A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé

I liked a lot of this book, but in the end I was disappointed and I wish I liked it better. The idea of two people setting up a bookstore that only sells the best novels is wonderful, and the satire of French publishing (what I understood of it; I know I missed a lot of the jokes) is fun. But . . . the mystery plot that begins with attacks on the members of the bookstore's selection committee and the difficult romance of one of the founders and the characters of the founders didn't really come to life for me. The introduction of a mysterious first-person narrator part of the way through the book also seemed jarring to me, and when the narrator's identity is finally revealed (not a total surprise) the narrator's voice doesn't seem consistent with what else we know of the character. And at times the book seems a little didactic.

You might think from the above that I didn't like this book at all, but that's not true. I loved the parts about the bookstore and the authors and the readers and the novels the store stocks. That part was really a fable, and a novel of ideas and, to my mind, anyway, very French. The surrounding plots . . . I don't know. As I said at the beginning, I wanted to like this book more.

#84: I already have that one in the BlackHole just waiting for the library to get in a copy.

I share a lot of your quibbles with this book, Rebecca, although I did end up enjoying more than you did. The narrator issue was odd and struck me as unnecessary (especially when the identity was revealed); in contrast to you, I was a bit sideswiped by the narrator's identity, as that individual had struck me as one of the least sympathetic characters in the book. Definitely a novel of ideas, rather than characters, although the glimpses of the characters when the author chose to do that showed she could do a lot more.

94. Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa

I had so much fun reading this book, and I'm quite sure Vargas Llosa had a lot of fun writing it! Pantaleon Pantoya has just been promoted to captain in the Peruvian army's Quartermaster Corps, and despite his steadfast devotion to the army and his genius at organizing, systematizing, and making anything run efficiently, he is horrified to learn that his new assignment will be to start a prostitution operation to serve soldiers in remote Amazon posts who have been creating problems for the army by raping the local women. Of course, to carry out this order he must appear to have nothing whatever to do with army itself, which is a source of great sorrow to him. At the same time, Brother Francisco is gathering supporters for his religious movement, crucifying insects, small animals, and the occasional person in the belief that this will bring good to his band of "brothers" and "sisters."

A satire of both the military and religion (and implicitly of the similarities between them), this novel includes narrative sections (with Vargas Llosa's typical mixture of various speakers and situations within the course of several paragraphs), army memoranda, radio programs, and newspaper reports. Needless to say, Pantoja becomes totally absorbed in his assignment, always wanting to build the best, most efficient, and largest possible "special service," but with his success come problems of various sorts -- lack of support from his army superiors even as he calculates the need for a larger and larger operation, blackmailing by the local radio commentator, obsession with his star "specialist," an unhappy wife and mother, etc.

All in all, it is a rollicking read, with memorable characters, both broad and subtle humor, and some interesting ideas underneath the fun.

Great review, Rebecca! I have a feeling that I'll be buying this book this week.

It's not easy to find -- I ordered it from the Book Depository (cheaper than Amazon).

I am going to have to get a copy too! (after the book buying ban is over, that is)

95. School for Love by Olivia Manning

"Felix" means "happy" in Latin, but Felix is not a happy boy, nor are any of the characters in this coming-of-age novel happy; each is alone, if not actually lonely. At the beginning of 1945, Felix is sent from Baghdad, after the deaths of his father and mother, to live in Jerusalem with Miss Bohun, a quasi-relative and a schemer of the first order, who is often mean and occasionally downright cruel, but always convinced that everything she does is to help others. Over the course of the year, Felix meets various equally sharply drawn characters, pours his love into his relationship with Faro, Miss Bohun's cat, and gradually learns to observe and understand people on his own and even take action on his own.

There is very little plot in this book, but the characterizations are brilliant, the insights into psychology subtle but penetrating, the natural and human setting of Jerusalem on the edge of World War II and on the eve of the departure of the British and its own war between the Arabs and the Jews fascinating and haunting, the depiction of British colonial behavior sharp, and Manning's writing as wonderful as ever. Her larger works, especially The Balkan Trilogy have a broader scope than this short novel, but it is a gem.

#91: I need to read her The Balkan Trilogy, which I bought earlier this year, and then I will get to that one. Nice review, Rebecca. Thanks for the recommendation!

School for Love sounds wonderful, I'll have to find a copy.

96. Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi

The feeling of tension builds in this novel, subtitled "a testimony," because the phrase "Pereira declares" is repeated frequently as Dr. Pereira, a 50-ish journalist who is still living in the past, slowly, oh so slowly, opens his mind and psyche up to the increasing dictatorship in Portugal in 1938. In the end, the reader doesn't know why Pereira is declaring: Has he been arrested and is he testifying to the police? Or has he fled and is testifying about Portugal to anti-fascists?

This novel beautifully creates not only this sense of tension but a portrait of life in Lisbon and surrounding areas in the late 1930s, with some aspects of earlier times along with the growth of a police state in which shocking attacks are never mentioned in the press, the only source of news is a café waiter whose friend gets the BBC from London, and a doctor in a seaside health clinic offers insight into some psychological concepts.

I understand there is a more recent translation than the one I read by Patrick Creagh which was published in 1995 (a year (?) after Tabucchi published the novel in Italian). I was occasionally jarred by some slang terms which I didn't understand, and therefore couldn't tell if they were English slang that dated to the time of the novel, in the late 1930s, or were just awkward, I would be interested in knowing if readers of the more recent translation encountered this same issue.

I love your review of Pereira Declares, especially your mention of the repeated use of the phrase "Pereira declares", which adds to the sense of foreboding throughout the book. I'll definitely be on the lookout for more of his books, and I have a feeling (especially based on deebee's comments about Tabucchi) that he will join the list of my most favorite writers.

I cannot get my hands on any translation at the moment, so I am going to be of no help whatsoever. Sorry, Rebecca.

Thanks, Darryl. I should have mentioned I read Pereira Declares because of your review.

No problem, Rebecca; I'm sure that there have been many books I've read the past couple of years due to a recommendation or review from you!

97. Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier

I could hardly put this book down because Ian Frazier is such a wonderful writer. On the surface the story of his five trips to Siberia -- with a cross-Siberia drive the centerpiece -- it encompasses a great deal more: the history of Siberia (and Russia) from the Mongol tribes to the gulag and beyond, including a compelling chapter on the Decembrists; natural history from mosquitoes to ravens to reindeer to sables (with fascinating information about the historic fur trade) and geology from permafrost to oil wells; Russian literature and culture; Russian technology, especially cars and roads; and of course people of all sorts.

Despite the seriousness of some of these topics, Frazier's writing is so deceptively easy that the reader (or this one, anyway) learns a tremendous amount while feeling entertained. Frazier has a remarkable ability to talk to all sorts of people and convey their information in their own voices, a lively sense of humor, and an unobtrusive way of bringing his own thoughts and feelings into the story. He can be funny, horrified, worried, admiring, and appalled, and everything in between. He fell in love with Russia, and especially Siberia (which occupies 1/12 of the earth's surface), and by the end of the book the reader has too.

I first read excerpts of this book in the New Yorker; somehow, I'd missed Ian Frazier until then. Now I will look for his other work

#99: Nice review, Rebecca. I will look for that one.

I'm so glad you liked both of those books as both are on my list to read soon! Darryl loaned me his copy of Pereira Declares, and I have the Frazier book sitting on my Kindle and staring at me reproachfully. Next month...

98. The Haunted Looking Glass: Ghost Stories Chosen by Edward Gorey edited by Edward Gorey

I have only myself to blame for buying this collection yesterday after seeing its lovely Edward Gorey cover on display at my favorite bookstore, because I know perfectly well that ghost stories don't do anything for me. And indeed, they didn't, despite the equally lovely Edward Gorey illustrations that act as frontispieces for each story and the illustrious authors who include Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker and, more surprisingly (to me, anyway), L.P. Hartley. Some were ingenious, most were well written, nearly all were utterly predictable -- well, as I said, I have only myself to blame.

Great review of Travels in Siberia, Rebecca. It made me want to read the book right now. I remember seeing the articles in the New Yorker on the initial skim that I do when I get them each week. Like I do most of the time though, I never go back to actually read much. Luckily, alot of the good stuff ends up as books.

99. A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov, most famous as the author of The Master and Margarita, originally trained as a doctor and was sent, in 1916, just of medical school, to be the sole doctor at a remote hospital way off in the country because Russia was short of doctors as most had been drafted into the military. In this semi-autobiographical collection of stories, he vividly portrays the wildness of the country (the snow, the wind, the wolves), the abject ignorance and superstition of the local people, and most movingly the fears of a doctor who knows he doesn't know enough for the job into which he has been thrust. This book is lightweight compared to Bulgakov's later work, some of the medical scenes were a little too realistic for me, and the last story was a little politically self-serving, but all in all I enjoyed the collection and the insight into a young doctor's psyche.

Edited to try to get touchstones to work.

I've caught up with your comments and find some books here which I will definitely add to my Must Buy list. Thanks Rebecca.

#104: Well, rats. No luck with the local library on that one.

I think it has been out for a while, Stasia, because I bought it remaindered for $4.99.

Thanks, Amanda. I've had some great reading this year.

#107: Well, I cannot say that I am surprised my local library does not have it - they do not have any of Bulgakov's books. I think sometimes that if the author's last name is not 'Smith,' they are not going to stock the book :)

Travels in Siberia is going on the TBR list! Sounds wonderful, and I'm in a bit of a travel-memoir mood these days as it is.

I'm also adding Travels in Siberia and adding Frazier on to my list of writers to look out for.

100. Great Plains by Ian Frazier

Had I not read Travels in Siberia first, I would have loved this book even more. As I noted in my review of that book, Frazier has a wonderful ability to talk to all sorts of people, tell their stories, and weave history, the natural world, and tales of the road together. In this book, he takes the reader to the least inhabited part of the North American continent and, as he travels from Montana in the north to Texas in the south, and from New Mexico in the west to Kansas in the east, the reader learns about the history of the Native Americans of the area (including the life and death of Crazy Horse), the stories of immigrants lured to the plains, the challenges of farming in such a dry region, the nuclear missile silos buried beneath concrete platforms in the middle of nowhere, and much more. What makes th

Well, at an even 100, that probably wraps it up for 2010, since I won't finish the other book I'm reading, The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford tomorrow. So, after much thought, here are my favorite books of 2010. I struggled mightily to reduce this list even more, but this is the best I can do. What can I say? It was a great reading year!

New and Recent Fiction

The Best
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
Great House by Nicole Krauss
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Siege by Helen Dunmore
Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom

Runners Up
Q Road by Bonnie Jo Campbell
The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah
The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore

Classics and Older Fiction

The Best
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson
The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa

Runners Up
School for Love by Olivia Manning
Wolf among Wolves by Hans Fallada
Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes
The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa
Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth
Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

Honorable Mention
Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig
Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg

Nonfiction

The Best
Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
Murder City by Charles Bowden
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich byWilliam Shirer
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
The Road by Vassily Grossman (this collection includes both fiction and nonfiction, but the essay "The Hell of Treblinka" is the brilliant, horrifying heart of the book)
Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
Hitler and Stalin by Alan Bullock

Runners Up
The Whites of Their Eyes by Jill Lepore
The Eitingons by Mary-Kay Wilmers
Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Great Plains by Ian Frazier
In Search of a Lost Ladino by Marcel Cohen
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre

Congratulations on reaching 100 books, Rebecca! I've saved Message 112 for future reference.

Echoing Darryl's congratulations and I'm going to save your list for future reference too.

Happy Reading in 2011!

Thanks, Darryl and Pat.

Everyone, please visit my my 75 Books in 2011 thread.

#112: What a great list, Rebecca!

Well, I made it to 101!

101. The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford

I discovered Jean Stafford this year with the NYRB reissue of The Mountain Lion, an extremely disturbing novel which became one of my favorites of the year. So I immediately bought this collection of her stories, and at first was very disappointed in it. The first groups of stories -- they're arranged roughly by locale, with the first set in Europe, then Boston, then the west, and then (partly) New York -- didn't interest me; they seemed dated, overwritten, over-explained. Finally, most of the ones set in the west grabbed me, and the final New York store (which actually takes place in Maine) is stunning.

In a collection this size, it is not surprising that some stories are better than others. At the same time, the size makes Stafford's themes clear: unhappy children and women/wives, children without their families, children with monstrous parents, children who are alienated from their families, the hypocrisy and smallness of many people's lives and interests, the desire if not always the opportunity to escape, illness as an escape, drinking to escape, loneliness, and psychological suffering. Clearly, Stafford was not happy herself, especially in her marriage to Robert Lowell, as the introduction by Joyce Carol Oates makes clear.

So that's it for 2010! Come on over to my 2011 thread! Happy new year!

Loving your list -- and the fact that you made it to 101!!

Looking forward to seeing what crosses your path in 2011...

Happy New Year, Rebecca! I am so looking forward to seeing what you read in 2011!

I like the sound of the Ian Frazer book. Have you read anything by Dervla Murphy or Sara Wheeler? Dervla Murphy wrote Through Siberia by Accident and I thought Wheeler's mix of travel writing and look at the history and politics of Arctic exploration and development of the region in The Magnetic North last year was fascinating.

Thanks for those recommendations -- I'm not familiar with either book or either author. And please stop by my 2011 thread.