You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2011.
Things have been a little quite around here and they are set to stay that way for the next week or so. This is the last week of classes, and next week is the first week of exams. I am working hard at finishing up final papers, giving final presentations, and organizing my stuff for when I return home for the summer next month. I’m sure I will have tons of bookish things to discuss with you all after exams are over.
Each time I mention Tan’s novel here on my blog people are quick to tell me they consider this to be the poorer of her five novels. The other two novels of hers I have read have dealt with the relationship between Chinese-American mothers and daughters. I was glad to see her step away from this theme even though I would agree that it is the lesser of her novels.
Bibi Chen, San Francisco socialite and art vendor to the stars, planned to lead a trip for 12 friends to China and Burma (also known as Myanmar). Unfortunately, Bibi tragically dies before the tour begins. Her group of friends and acquaintances decide to go after all, and Bibi accompanies them to provide narration for the reader.
Once in Myanmar, they are noticed by a group of Karen tribesmen who decide that fifteen-year-old Rupert is, in fact, Younger White Brother, or The Lord of the Nats. He can do card tricks and is carrying a Stephen King paperback. These are adjudged to be signs of his deity and ability to save them from marauding soldiers. The group (minus one male member of the group) is kidnapped and taken deep into the jungle. The disappearance of the “American Eleven” sets off a diplomatic firestorm and a mystery of what happened to Bibi’s missing friends.
The title of the book is derived from the practice of Myanmar fishermen who scoop up the fish and bring them to shore. They say they are saving the fish from drowning. Bibi must think that she is saving her friends from drowning.
My reading of this book was colored by my attempt to read Tan’s novel during the read-a-thon earlier this month. I found it to be too slow of a novel and mystery not nearly as engaging enough to keep my attention during the read-a-thon. The set up for the mystery in this book was quite well-written, but I eventually shelved the book and decided to come back to it at a later date.
There are many characters I never got to know and some of them I really did not care to learn anymore about because of the way they were written and/or presented. The one character I really enjoyed getting to know was Bibi. There was just something about her that drew me to her, a major plus considering she is also the narrator.
But the focus of this book really is Burma/Myanmar and its isolation from the world. The country is introduced from the tourist’s point of view, and the Bibi reminds the reader continuously that these people do not really appreciate the intricacies of the country. Ultimately, not Tan’s best novel but not the worst book I have ever read.
Book Mentioned:
- Tan, Amy. Saving Fish from Drowning. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2005. Print. 474 pgs. ISBN: 0399153012. Source: Purchased.
Subtitled “From Kristallnacht to Liberation”, this book is surprisingly colorful and photographic exploration of life in Berlin, Germany during the reign of the Nazis. The book is divided into ten parts — 1938, emigration, Aryanization, the yellow star, Zionists, forced labor, deportation, betrayal, survival, and Jewish organizations. Stories of individuals and families are used in some instances while other subjects are presented on a large scale.
This collection of essays was one of the more interesting books I read for my class on the Holocaust this semester. While not specifically addressing the issues of rescue and resistance, Jews in Nazi Berlin provides a thorough introduction to the plight of the 153,000 Jews living in Berlin in August 1935.
Why did only 80,000 Jews manage to emigrate from Berlin between 1933 and 1939? Why did countries refuse to allow more Jews into their country? How is the line between collaboration and responsible action on the part of Nazi-established Jewish Councils in the city defined?Why did these councils not forewarn their fellow Jews about what really happened when one was “sent to the East”? How can a Jewish woman willingly and maliciously hand over other Jews?
Although some of the information was a repeat of what I already know about Berlin Jews, I particularly enjoyed reading about how some of the more difficult questions (see last three above) about the Holocaust are answered. The personal experiences highlighted in the book also made for interesting reads. The part about Stella Kübler Isaaksohn was fascinating!
Book Mentioned:
- Meyer, Beate, Hermann Simon, and Chana Schütz. Translated from German by Caroline Gay and Miranda Robbins. Jews in Nazi Berlin: From Kristallnacht to Liberation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Print. 392 pgs. ISBN: 9780226521572. Source: Purchased.
Subtitled “Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe”, Lemmon’s book is an expanded version of an article she wrote for the Financial Times. Her goal was to travel around the world and interview female owners of business in war-torn, gender-divided countries. After interviewing women in Rwanda (which I would really like to read), Lemmon traveled to Afghanistan and met Kamila Sidiqi.
The story begins with the invasion of Kabul by the Taliban. Overnight, Kamila and her sisters are thrown out of school and forced to veil themselves completely behind the burqa. They cannot leave their home with a male relative acting as an escort and even that is incredibly dangerous.
Kamila and her family struggle under the Taliban’s brutal social and economic sanctions to continue putting food on the table for their large family. After convincing her older sister to teach her to sew, Kamila begins a tailoring company for other women out of her family’s living room. This the story of how her small enterprise became a thriving company.
For those of you who hate reading nonfiction and want to learn more about the Middle East, I would recommend this book it in a heartbeat. It’s incredibly easy to read and paints an important picture of the plight of women in Afghanistan.
For someone who has read several nonfiction books about the Middle East, it was slightly over simplified. Since there were no citations within the text, I took everything with a grain of salt. What can I say? I really like citations in the text for my nonfiction readers.
Much of the focus was placed on the time of the Taliban and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Americans was ignored. Kamila looks to the Americans as her salvation, which is perfectly understandable, but I would have liked to learn more about her life after the invasion. There are only a few times where Kamila refers to the rockets going off over her head.
Overall, though, I do think this is an interesting read. I can definitely appreciate this look at the life of a female and her family during the rule of the Taliban.
Others’ Thoughts:
Book Mentioned:
- Lemmon, Hayle Tzemach. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. Print. 257 pgs. ISBN: 9780061732379. Source: Library.
Subtitled “History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome”, Portelli follows the March 24, 1944 massacre of 335 unarmed civilians by the Nazi occupation forces in Rome in retaliation for a partisan attack the day before. The resistance fighters killed 35 Nazis so the Nazis decided to kill ten Italians for each German killed.
With a heavy reliance upon the oral testimonies of the victims’ family, friends, and fellow resistance fighters, Portelli attempts to craft a multi-voiced oral history of the massacre, of its background and its aftermath.
I will confess to knowing little about the Fascist regime in or Nazi occupation of Italy. I was excited to learn more about Italy during this time period, but Portelli’s book just did not do it for me.
There is a wealth of information in this book and it isn’t always the easiest book to read. The interviewee’s testimonies were meant to blend together to paint a complete picture of Italy before, during, and after the war. A picture not clouded by socioeconomic status or gender bias as another book about Italy during the late 1930s and early 1940s I read recently.
But the stories blend too well. It’s really difficult to delineate between the interviewees and I failed to develop a connection with an interviewee. For me, when reading about the Holocaust, an emotional connection is important. At the very least, I want to follow a handful of people so I feel like I really get to know them.
The construction of memory and how it’s shaped by myth is a really interesting subject to me. It’s something I would love to research more and I think this book contributes well to the development of my understanding of how memory is shaped. But I found getting through the book to be really difficult.
Book Mentioned:
- Portelli, Alessandro. The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Originally published 2003. Print. 330 pgs. ISBN: 9781403980083. Source: Purchased.
