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Willig’s novel (and now series) was on my radar for quite some time so I eagerly snapped up a copy of the book when I discovered it at a used book sale back in July. The book alternates between the present-day character of Eloise Kelly, an American from Harvard trying to finish her dissertation on the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian in England, and the character of the Pink Carnation, the most elusive spy of the 1800s who single-handedly saved England from Napoleon’s invasion.
This book was perfect fodder for my two plane rides to school. It was engaging enough that my attention was kept despite the cramped, uncomfortable conditions and accommodated my fried brain cells with an easy narrative to follow. Almost four weeks later, I still remember and have fond memories of reading this book.
The character I did not remember again until I sat down to review this novel was Eloise. The back of the book jogged my memory and, now that I think about it, I do remember being annoyed with Eloise’s interruption of the narrative. I really did not need her commentary on the Pink Carnation other than possibly her opening remarks to put the time period and the other spies in context.
Warning! Willig went the way of other authors I’ve read recently and left the ending so open that you are compelled to pick up the next book in the series. This is a major pet peeve of mine! If your book is good enough, I will more than likely be compelled to pick up the next one in the series. But I hate feeling like I am forced to do so.
Book Mentioned:
- Willig, Lauren. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. New York: New American Library, 2006. Originally published 2005. Print. 428 pgs. ISBN: 045121742X. Source: Purchased.
I was all set to jump back into blogging on Sunday now that my intense and exhausting week and a half of training for my new RA position is over. But Hurricane Irene is supposed to plow right through the East Coast. Classes on Monday have been cancelled and the last few days of freshman orientation have been axed as we are all either encouraged to go home (not an option for me) or stay in our residence halls at all time.
I’m over fifty miles from the coastline but am trying to follow my mom’s and my university’s instructions when it comes to this impending storm. I purchased some food yesterday (although the dining hall will be open today and we’re all being given boxed lunches for Monday), have a couple of flashlights in case of power outages, and have a plethora of reading material to choose from.
I hope everyone this storm will affect or already has affected are okay!
In spring 2002, following the fall of the Taliban, Asne Seierstad spent four months living with a bookseller named Sultan Khan and his family in Kabul, Afghanistan. This book is the fictionalized account of the time she spends with a man whose job defies the image the Western world has formed about Afghanistan. Khan hides his impressive stockpile of ten thousand books in attics around Kabul and in Pakistan and has brutal interactions with communists and illiterate Taliban soldiers.
In her introduction, Seierstad says that Khan’s family is unique as most of the family is literate, several family members speak English, and the normally do not lake for money. She also claims to be an “invisible” companion of the family and impartial to the things that occur in their lives. However, even from page one of the novel, she immediately inserts herself and her biases, thoughts, and feelings into the story of this family. No other points of view are presented this book. Seierstad seems determined to distant herself from the Khan family’s customs but continues to remind her readers that all of their problems are caused by their culture. The book ultimately exists in a land of limbo where it’s neither fictional nor nonfictional.
Her sources of information are also slanted. Though Seierstad is fluent in five languages, she does not speak the language most of the family speaks and instead relies upon three family members to do all her translating and collect her information from. This further slants and biases an already biased book.
Sultan Kahn, whose real name is Shah Muhammad Rais (and incidentally shares the same birthday as me), declared in November 2005 that he was seeking political refugee status in either Norway or Sweden as a result of this book. He claims that Seierstad’s book has made life for him and his family unsafe after the book appeared in Persian. Anonymity was not afforded to him despite the change in names; another reason why this book seems neither nonfictional nor fictional to me. He has also published his own version of the story entitled There Once Was a Bookseller in Kabul, which is available in Norwegian and Portuguese. Interestingly, The Irish Times has also reported that on July 24 2010, Seierstad was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay damages to Rais. An appeal is underway.
Book Mentioned:
- Seierstad, Åsne. The Bookseller of Kabul. Translated from Norwegian by Ingrid Christphersen. New York: Back Bay Books, 2004. Originally published 2002. Print. 320 pgs. ISBN: 0316159417. Source: Purchased.
Surprisingly, it took me less time to read part two than part one. The second part of this novel, encompassing chapters _ through _, was previously published as Good Wives and begins with Meg’s marriage. The four Marsh sisters are spreading out and seemingly going their separate ways. Meg is now a married woman while Amy is now traveling the globe with Aunt March. Beth is mostly confined to her home due to her illness in part one, but Jo is attempting to both be there for her and get her manuscripts published.
I wonder how many people build up an affinity for Jo? She’s my mom’s favorite character; she’s my favorite character. And some of the reviews for the novel I perused seem to all point towards Jo being their favorite character. Is it because she is the most “contemporary” of the four sisters? Or because she does the opposite of Alcott’s tells is us correct female behavior.
But I cannot say that this is a favorite novel. When Jo brings her manuscript to Mr. Dashwood, he tells her that “People want to be amused, not preached at, you know. Morals don’t sell nowaways” (pg. 454). The narrator (Alcott) interjects this “was not quite a correct statement, by the way” (pg. 454). A book does not have to amusing to make me like it; I do occasionally enjoy books with a good moral. But I do not enjoy being preached at, and this is all Alcott’s classic novel seems to do for me.
Stressing the prime female qualities of the era (sweet, mild, submissive), readers are supposed to see why girls like Beth make for better wives (or people, in general) than clumsy, bold Jo. Girls like Beth and Meg are to be cherished while girls like Jo are destined to be unhappy and ruin their own lives. Or so the ending of this novel tells me.
*spoilers*
This mostly came about because I did not like the relationship between Laurie and Amy. He was so distraught and upset after Jo spurned his advances, and I felt quite bad for him. But then he was reunited with Amy and proceeded to marry her. Was he looking for someone completely opposite from Jo? Possibly, but I couldn’t help but think that the two were not right for one another in any way, shape, or form. My feelings on Laurie, whom I generally liked throughout the novel, did a completely 180. I ended the book hating him!
But don’t worry about Jo being alone. Life works out neatly for these ladies! Jo develops a relationship with a professor, whom we are supposed to believe is a better match for her. A brief struggle with motherhood is resolved to create the image of a perfect mother and wife in Meg.
*end of spoilers*
I understand that I am reading an old text with a contemporary mindset, and I think it largely affected my liking of the book. If I rated books here, I would give it three stars. I didn’t connect with Alcott’s novel the way I hoped I would but there were bits and pieces of it that I liked. I also can’t help but wonder how I would have felt about the novel had I read it at a younger age. Most people I know who have read this book and loved it seem to have done so when they were younger.
Others’ Thoughts:
- BookBath (full book)
- Rebecca Reads (full book)
- A Room of One’s Own (full book)
- The Zen Leaf (full book)
Books Mentioned:
- Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1999. First published 1880. Print. 643 pgs. ISBN: 0448060191. Source: Gift.
- Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. New York: Warner, 1999. Originally published 1936. Print. 1037 pgs. ISBN: 9780446675536. Source: Library.
Reading Buddies:
Hosted by Erin of Erin Reads, Reading Buddies was born out of Erin’s 2011 reading goal of tackling books on her TBR list. She put out a call to find out if anyone was interested in reading some of the same books along with her. Since she and I shared several books between our two lists, I jumped at the chance to cross books of my TBR list and read along with her. Little Women is the selections for August. September’s selection is Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh.
At the beginning of chapter nineteen, which I used as the dividing line between parts one and two, Steinbeck traces the ownership of the land know forming California from Mexicans to land-hungry Americans who actually worked the land, to owners who are more like overseers than farmers. This land is a distant notion — a sort of line in an accounts book – to these men rather than something they live and breathe. The Joads and other “Okies” streaming into California are people to fear as they are the new land-hungry men and women looking to make a buck and feed their children off this land.
“In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. They said, These goddamned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They’re degenerate, sexual maniacs. These goddamned Okies are thieves. They’ll steal anything. They’ve got no sense of property rights.” (pg. 283)
There is also the conflict amongst those laborers already here and those arriving by the hundreds thousands every day. Unable to find workers, these large landowners imported people from Mexico or China or other parts of the globe. Should these workers get out of hand or start talking about unionizing, it’s quite simple to deport them. You can’t deport an American from America. Plus, as more and more men streamed into the lush valleys, wages were driven down.
“If that fella’ll work for thirty cents, I’ll work for twenty-five. If he’ll take twenty-five, I’ll do it for twenty. No, me, I’m hungry. I’ll work for fifteen. I’ll work for food.” (pg. 283)
Not to mention, prices stayed up as wages went down. Steinbeck gives the example in chapter twenty-one of a cannery paying lower than cost of production for the input and keeping the price of canned goods high so small farmers were forced to sell out to those farmers, banks, and companies who owned the canneries. People, this is the food system we have in the United States today! The fields are even more fruitful today than they were back then, and yet there are people all over this country (and the world) who are still hungry. This is the world in which the Joads live, and it’s a world that still exists today. We still dump food today.
“There is a crime here the goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And the children of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates – died of malnutrition – because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.” (pg. 349)
So, of course, this book is still relevant for today’s readers. This raw social commentary still applies to so many factions of our society – immigration, crop laborers, our food system, the face of hungry – that it’s still as difficult of a read as I’m sure it was back then. But it deserves it’s title of “classic” and I urge you to pick it up if you haven’t already.
Others’ Thoughts:
- Zawan’s Blog (whole book)
- The Zen Leaf (whole book)
Book Mentioned:
- Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Classics, 2006. Originally published 1939. Print. 464 pgs. ISBN: 0143039431. Source: Library.
The Classics Circuit
I read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck for The Classics Circuit‘s A Celebration of Steinbeck, which continues through August 26, 2011. Those visiting for this tour might also be interested in my thoughts on two other works by Steinbeck — Of Mice and Men and The Pearl.
