Eric B. Martin's "The Virgin's Guide to Mexico" - Studying A Role Reversal?

Eric B. Martin', in his novel "The Virgin's Guide to Mexico" tries to capture the 'south of the border' experience through his 17 year old, part-Mexican, Harvard-bound heroine, Alma Price. She is born to a rich American father and a Mexican mother whose past is shrouded in mystery. A 'not-so-good-looking but intelligent girl,' Alma ventures to cross the border disguised as a boy and without the knowledge of her parents to explore her roots in Mexico; specifically a grandfather who she is not sure is even alive. It is this journey of Alma into and through Mexico, and the pursuit of her by her parents that constitutes the storyline of the novel.

The storyline is perhaps the most interesting part of the novel even though it often lacks depth. Eric Martin could have done a lot more in terms of the plot given that he had an interesting array of characters at his disposal. For example Hermelinda, the Mexican mother of Alma, remains an enigma to the very last; why she plays down her past never becomes clear! Similarly, the family dynamics within the Price household are left hazy since Martin underexposes the interactions between Alma and her family. It is only in Mexico that Alma really fructifies in the reader's imagination. In fact the story moves at a much faster pace and with zest only after Alma is in the heart of Mexico, striving to fit into the alien but more open Mexican lifestyle. The dual point-of-view narrative that Martin uses, with both Alma and Hermelinda trying to tell their story, doesn't make it any easier for the reader who is already a trifle weary.

Despite all the above, I enjoyed reading the novel mainly because of the lively cast of characters that Martin provides us with once Alma enters Mexico; Dean, Lee, the transvestite, the prostitutes. Alma's interactions with all these characters makes for some sprightly reading. Also, having pondered over the title, I found new respect for this novel despite it's various shortcomings. Martin has 'virginized' his novel in more ways than one; Alma, his heroine is a 'virgin' embarking on her 'virgin' venture, sans parents, sans itinerary, into a world that's 'virgin' not just to her but to most Americans who only hear of border crossings from Mexico into USA; however, this crossing is 'virgin' in that it's an American Alma crossing over into land south of the border!' For any American reading this novel , the journey of Alma would be a first, and definitely traumatic since the roles of 'native' and 'immigrant' would now be reversed; an ill equipped American desperately trying to survive in a foreign land, among a people so obviously different, and where the ground rules of social interaction are completely unknown to her. Alma truly does need a 'guide' to figure out the mysteries of Mexico!

Finding out whether Alma succeeds or otherwise would be contingent on you reading the book, which I recommend you do only if you don't have a better book on your list.

"Shalimar the Clown" by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie has been making news recently with his knighthood being questioned by Muslims across the world who believe that he misrepresents Islam in his writings. Well, his novel, "Shalimar the Clown" wouldn't help redeem his tarnished image in the Muslim world; if anything it probably made him more unpopular. The novel is set primarily in Kashmir, a long disputed territory between Pakistan and India; also, one of the most picturesque places in the world that I happen to have visited twice. Released in 2005, "Shalimar the Clown" did not make any waves in the literary world and understandably so.

The novel is weighed down by its long drawn out descriptions that makes the reader's interest sag. Rushdie's descriptions of Los Angeles and Pachigam were empty and dead. For example LA as a "decentered promiscuous sprawl of this giant invertebrate blob, this jellyfish of concrete and light" makes it seem like Rushdie held his paintbrush too long and too hard. His language distances the reader from the very places that Rushdie wants the reader to embrace and understand. Pachigam, a pastoral paradise apparently, has no concrete image to offer of itself, so the reader is always on shaky grounds, and thus his disbelief is seldom suspended. The reader never loses himself in the story!

The plot spans through three decades, and human emotions like jealousy, revenge, hatred, and love make for an intricate storyline that switches between the past and the present. The two main characters to house both the past and the present are Shalimar the Clown, a rope artist in a local circus of a small village in Kashmir, and Max Ophuls, a one time US Ambassador to India. "We are all brothers and sisters here,...There is no Hindu-Muslim issue." claims Abdullah, Shalimar's father, leader of a Felliniesque band of traveling players, and this pretty much is the underlying conflict in the entire novel. The rest of the story basically questions this proclamation. Kashmir was home to both Hindus and Muslims before the 90's, and the two communities lived in harmony and even shared a bonhomie that was marvelled at by Hindus in India and Muslims in Pakistan. Then came the 90's with the devious and bloody insurgencies on both sides of the Indo Pak border, the Kargill stand-off, and many such hate based initiatives, and the 'Kashmiriyat' of Kashmir was put to test. Rushdie's novel explores the impact of the 90's on the sensibilities of Kashmiris who all of a sudden faced an onslaught of religious fundamentalism and nationalistic propaganda in their idyllic paradise within the heart of the Himalayas.

Here is a novel that held tremendous potential, but Salman Rushdie failed to tap it. If he were to have done so he would have brought the ethnic strife in Kashmir on to center stage for the world to see. He could have achived what Khaled Hosseini did with his 'The Kite Runner' and "A Thousand Splendid Suns"for Afghanistan; placed Kashmir on the world map! Alas, Mr. Rushdie, with his unconvincing protagonist 'Shalimar', a clown turned 'terrorist' who is unable to be the reader's 'knight'-in-armor and sweep the reader off his feet!

"Shalimar the Clown" need not be on your 'to read' list, unless of course you are curious about Kashmir, and even then you may perhaps be better off going here!

Lal Masjid Appeals!

Will you raze me to the ground?

Send shrapnel through my body

in which you reverence found.

Will you taint my sacred soul

gushing rivers of brethren blood

to let insanity take its toll?

Where does that heart reside

That once flowed fulsome faith?

What prompts those tongues

to desecrate a divine domain?

Who so historically myopic

to not let past prevent?

When will you learn

It’s not me you destroy or defend;

It’s but your humanity within

That seeks but self credence.

Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss"- The Sisyphean Task in an Indian Context?

" Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss?...Slowly, painstakingly, like ants, men would make their paths and civilization and their wars once again, only to have it wash away again..." A bleak world view amid a beauteous but smoldering setting.

Kiran Desai at thirty five is perhaps the youngest recipient of the Booker Prize with only one other novel preceding "The Inheritance of Loss". This novel took her some seven years to research and write as its story straddles between three countries: Great Britain, United States of America, and India. Ms. Desai currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, and cites her FMA from Columbia as a formative experience in her writing career. Ms. Desai left India when she was eight, lived in Great Britain for a very short time, and then moved to Massachusetts, USA where she finished her high school and the rest of her formal education. All this time her father remained in India, and she would visit him frequently. Her mother, Anita Desai, a writer herself, provided Ms. Desai with an environment that lent itself to creativity; that could perhaps explain how the character of the tree climbing hermit was born in her first novel. Also this could be why Desai, in only her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss has displayed such an elan of objectivity wherein she holds up a mirror to our conflict ridden world and lets the reader choose the reflection he wants to see in it!

The Inheritance of Loss made for some engrossing reading with its rich and poetic language, its wide range of characters entwined neatly in a complex plot line, but narrated with the ease and dexterity of a master writer. Sai, the chief protagonist holds the center stage with an apparent misanthrope for a grandfather, also her only living relative. Sai's love interest is her young and frustrated Nepalese math tutor who is unable to guage his real feelings for Sai, and in the frenzy of nationalistic propaganda, accuses her of being "like slaves...running after the West, embarrassing yourself. It's because of people like you we never get anywhere." Despite its sombre tone, the novel does provide for some comic relief with characters such as Lola and Noni, the pathetic and delusional remnants of the British Raj. There is also the melodramatic cook without a name, perhaps to bring home his insignificance in the Indian caste ladder, who lightens the atmosphere at the most unexpected moments in the story: in the midst of a terrorist take over of their bungalow where he pleads with the terrorist and turns on his ever ready faucets since "he knew instinctively how to cry", and readily admits, "I am a fool' at the terrorists reckoning. The cook has a son, Biju, an illegal immigrant in the USA, who is extremely homesick while struggling to make a near decent life in the US, only to find his "heart always in another place." The Judge, another pivotal character to the plot, is an abusive husband, a tyrant of a master, and a reluctant and cold grandfather, who in 1986, still diplays behaviour disorders resulting from his humiliation during the British Raj . Finally, there is Sai, the central character in the novel who has recently finished high school where she received a typically British colonial education and who "could speak no other language but English...could not eat with her hands; could not squat down on the ground...had never been to a temple...left a Bollwood film so exhausted...used paper to clean her botom", and she becomes the readers guide into Desai's India in "The Inheritance of Loss".

Desai's colorful cast of characters takes the reader through a medley of themes: the after effects of colonialsm, the ills of capitalism, the downside of globalization, immigration - the family and morale breaker, the myth of multiculturalism... just to name a few. As the novel progresses, the author surreptiously has the reader share the chief protagonist's understanding of life: it " wasn't single in its purpose...Never again would she think there was but one narrative and that narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own mean little happiness and live safely within it."

The novel with a title like "The Inheritance of Loss", could well have sunk into despondency and pessimism but for its tantalizing plot and the colorful characterization. All the characters have suffered in some major way, and though survivors of sorts, carry bleeding wounds that need healing. It is to Ms. Desai's credit that the novel reads with zest despite its hurting cast. She leaves it to the reader to decide what mood he wants to walk away with; "The five peaks of Kanchenjunga turned golden with a luminous light that made you feel, if briefly, that truth was apparent." What 'truth' is made 'apparent' here, is again for each reader to figure out for himself.

A thought provoking saga of beings who 'hurt' horribly but don't give up 'living', and the reader walks away wondering why!

Elif Shafak's "The Bastard of Istanbul" A Search for Identity.

"The Bastard of Istanbul", an interesting read, no doubt! A title that intrigues and a setting that is of contemporary interest were perhaps two reasons for picking up the book. Turkey has been in the news for various reasons in the past few years. It is a country trying to establish it's real identity amid the market furore of globalization and the fast build up of religious fervor around the world. While the EU beckoned with the lure of a promising economy, Turkey was battling with a sudden growth of Islamization within the country. "On the one hand there are the ones who want Turkey to join the EU, democratise further and become an open society," says Shafak, but on the other "are the ones who want to keep Turkey as an insular, xenophobic, nationalistic, enclosed society". It wasn't surprising then that writers such as Pamuk and Shafak began spinning tales around this turmoil, and thus "The Bastard of Istanbul" was born.

The story of two young lives: one a Turkish Muslim living in Istanbul who is clueless about the identity of her father, a 'bastard' in a social sense, and the other an Armenian American who has travelled to Istanbul from San Francisco to trace her roots, a bastard in terms of her national identity. Both carry a painful past that they want to confront and resolve, and this leads to the touchy subject of the "Armenian qustion" that many in Turkey are still not ready to discuss. Shafak in an interview said, "They can't talk about 1915... ours is a society with collective amnesia. We haven't come to grips with our past, nor have we recognized how bitter the Armenians are because their grief goes unacknowledged. I would like Armenians to forgive and forget one day, too, but we Turks need to remember first".

This novel got Elif Shafak into some real hot waters and she became yet another writer to join sixty others, including Orhan Pamuk, who have been charged for defamation and misrepresentation under Turkey's Criminal Code. Shafak was shocked and "didn't think a work of fiction would get me branded a traitor to my country". Why is Art under so much pressure? Since when did a work of fiction come under such scrutiny for historical legitimacy and be charged for ethical or criminal misconduct? A baffled Shafak claims, " I am a novelist. When I write, I don't calculate the consequences of what I'm writing. I just surround myself with the story." Apparently the charges have cited defamatory language used by one of the characters, such as 'Turkish butchers' that 'slaughtered the Armenians like sheep', as a prime reason for the charges. How this character's expostulations translate into Shafak being charged as a traitor is beyond logic!

The female characters that abound in this novel are varied, complex, and often shocking; they shatter some stereotypes that we have built about women residing in Muslim countries. Along with a gripping story, and enticing charcterization, the novel offers an inside view of Turkish culture with a focus on the aromas and recipes of Turkey's ancient cuisine. The reader feels like he's returning from Istanbul after turning that last page.

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" By Khaled Hosseini- # 1 on NY Times Bestseller list

A gripping story! It is near impossible to put the book down once you begin reading it. Khaled Hosseini's new novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns is bound to be a top pick this summer, and not without reason. Mr Hosseini is a natural storyteller. He may not have an intricate plot to lay out, or dynamic characters to manipulate, but he sure has a knack for weaving a web around the reader; a web that tightens and envelops as the story unfolds.

The title could be suggestive as the author admits, "I went into this with a bit more of a mission than the first novel." He may have gone the Shakespeare route and spun a pun on the unsuspecting reader in the title itself. Is the novel really about the many splendid 'suns' that rose and set over Afghanistan in the last some years as the title suggests, or is there perhaps a pun intended in the title 'splendid suns'; Mr Hosseini is in fact making a sarcastic dig at the 'splendid s"o"ns' of Afghanistan, who in the name of religion inflicted heinous inhuman crimes against their own. These 'splendid' sons, first the Mujahideens and then the Taliban, eventually became models of male despotism and transformed Afghanistan into a theocracy where its women were pitted into an inferno of servitude, shame, and illiteracy.

The novel spans across a 30 year panorama that lays out, evocatively, the history of a war torn Afghanistan. It is on this canvas that Mr. Hosseini paints the story of two quite ordinary women who struggle to survive in a battle zone, amid starvation, human depravation, and world apathy. The two meet, in unusually contrived circumstances; grow, despite and due to their challenging environment, and eventually become, 'splendid' daughters of Afghanistan to bring about a constructive change in their own lives, and in the social fabric of their beloved war ravaged country.

The novel is a work of fiction, but Khaled Hosseini's has definitely placed Afghanistan and its ordeal on the world map, and has perhaps proved himself a 'splendid sun' for Afghanistan.

The American Place Theater Presents Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner"

I remember reading The Kite Runner a couple of years ago, and then buying a second copy to mail to my father, living some ten thousand miles away, as a must-read. The Kite Runner was perhaps the first novel I read that was set in Afghanistan, the cultural ambiance of which fascinated me no end; the family dynamics, the male domination, the willing serfdom, and the passive acceptance of violence and aggression as a way of life had me spellbound. I am told Hosseini, at first, had submitted the manuscript of The Kite Runner as a short story. Apparently, the story made such an impact that publishers encouraged him to expand the story into a novel; that he sure did because the Kite Runner is 400+ pages long and spans over three generations.

The reason I'm pondering on a novel I read three years ago is because I revisited it today when I watched Ariyan Moayed do a verbatim theatrical adaptation of it for The American Place Theater - Literature to Life series. The solo performance was superb in that it brought the story alive. Ariyan Moayed, the solo performer, gave each of the five characters he played a distinct life of his own. His mastery of the bodily adjustments he made to suit individual characters was remarkable. For example, when playing Hassan, the servant boy, Ariyan was slightly bent over but with eager wide-eyed looks eager to please his master at any cost. Then for playing Amir, the rich but cowardly son of a powerful Pashtun landlord, Ariyan adopted jerky body movements that so aptly portrayed Amir's indecisiveness especially during trying and stressful situations. Indeed, Ariyan Moayed brought the novel to life in his rendition of but the first seventy pages of the novel, and it will be credit to him if the sale of the novel suddenly skyrockets in the tri state area since I saw bus loads of high school students at this performance.

Wynn Handman who adapted and directed this solo verbatim is a part of the American Place Theater group that aspires to make Literature closer to the lives of young Americans so that they are encouraged to read. It's a good first step, and what I saw today looks very promising, but a lot will depend on the kinds of novels that are picked for adaptation. For instance the fact that The Kite Runner was set in Afghanistan made for a lot of initial curiosity in the audience, and then of course Ariyan did the rest. The selection of novels will be crucial to the success of the Literature to Life project of The American Place Theater.

"The Kite Runner" is a heartrending story of friendship, guilt, and forgiveness that spans across two continents and three generations that lived through the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the American invasion of it, and then the horrifying Taliban ordeal that followed. The novel needs no recommending; the fact that it had been on the NYT bestseller list for two years and has sold some four million copies says it all.

*Khaled Hosseini's new book titled "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is out this month, and the reviews are promising.

Lake Peigneur - a man-made disaster yet again?

An old story, but another proof of man's tampering with nature.

An eleven foot freshwater lake, Lake Peigneur, transforms into the deepest salt water lake in Louisiana and changes the surrounding landscape as well; the environment paid the price for a multinational to drill for black gold.

Here is an unforgettable video of Lake Peigneur disappearing.

However, we still haven't learned our lesson, and there are plans to drill yet again!