Book Review: The March

The March, by E.L. Doctorow is the best Civil War novel I've read in ages. It follows General William Tecumseh Sherman's march from Atlanta to Savannah, through South Carolina, and on to Raleigh, North Carolina. Sherman himself makes many appearances in the book, but it is not a biography of the general. Doctorow gives equal time to dozens of other characters including a pair of Confederate deserters, a displaced Southern debutante, a brilliant Union field surgeon, and perhaps the central character, a precocious freed slave named Pearl.

At times the novel wavers between existential despair and existential absurdity. Favorite characters are killed or otherwise left by the way side as the rest march relentlessly on. Other main characters don't appear until the journey is two-thirds complete. At first, Doctorow's apparently haphazard plotting drove me crazy, but he seems to be making a point. This is war. Don't get too attached to anyone.

What's constant throughout is Doctorow's beautiful prose, masterful strokes in character development, and attention to historical detail. Abraham Lincoln even makes a brief appearance. In the hands of another writer, the scene might have been corny or unconvincing. Doctorow's glimpse of Lincoln is hauntingly believable.
 

No. 1 Ladies' Detective

The hot, dry, dusty bush country of Botswana could hardly be further from New England in winter. Precious Ramotswe's job solving crimes and other mysteries could hardly be more different than working in an office. Maybe that's why I enjoyed The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It's the first in a series of books about the unconventional detective Mma Ramotswe*.

This is not an edge-of-your-seat mystery. It's much more of a character study -- both of Mma Ramotswe and of Botswana itself. Smith takes time to tell the story of Ramotswe's childhood and life as a young adult. He highlights her decision to become a detective to "help people with problems in their lives". Then he brings the reader along on many of Mma Ramotswe's early cases -- everything from a search for a missing person, to tailing a con man, to a surprising murder investigation.

The news from Africa these days is a litany of disease, civil war, genocide, and post-colonial turmoil. This has been the news for as long as I can remember. As Mma Ramotswe travels around Gaborone, Botswana, you sense those things in the background, but you also experience her abiding pride in the relatively peaceful recent history of Botswana and a strong connection to the land and the people. Mma Ramotswe loves her Botswana. I'm looking forward to another visit when I read the next book in the series.

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* In Botswana, Mma is a term of respect. Mma is apparently the equivalent of Madam, just as Rra is the equivalent of Sir.
 

Book Review: The Kite Runner

Kahled Hosseini's The Kite Runner is a wonderful book. It's the story of a close-knit Afghan family from Kabul. It follows the family from before the 1979 Russian invasion of Afghanistan, through twenty years of exile in America, and back to the Taliban's hell on earth in 2001.

The story begins in the 1960s, when Afghanistan was a relatively peaceful developing country. The author initially focuses on the friendship between Amir, a wealthy Pashtun boy, and Hassan, his Hazara servant. Although such a friendship is unlikely in the class-conscious and sectarian Afghan culture, Amir and Hassan share a close bond. Hosseini beautifully captures their days spent roaming Kabul, going to the cinema to see American and Pakistani films, playing "Cowboys and Indians", and flying kites. Just below the surface, however, there is tension. Amir is the more privileged of the two, but he is jealous of Hassan. Without understanding his own actions, Amir rejects Hassan. Shortly after, the Russians invade Afghanistan, Amir's family escapes to America, and the two friends are apparently separated for good.

Hosseini devotes the "second act" of the book to Amir's exile in California's Silicon Valley. This part is also compelling and wonderfully told, but the "third act" is the most memorable. In 2001, the now 38 year old Amir is summoned back to Afghanistan. He secretly re-enters his country, sees the destruction wrought by twenty years of war, and bears witness to the tyranny of the Taliban. It's a heartbreaking and terrifying passage, but Amir sees it as the only way to redeem his past.

Although the story focuses on Amir, it is filled with fully realized Afghan characters including Amir's father (or Baba), his friend Hassan, his "uncle" Rahim Khan, his wife and in-laws, and many more. I think the book gives you a real appreciation of traditional Afghan culture, the tragedy of the Russian invansion, and the ruthless reign of the Taliban.

The Kite Runner is a story of personal redemption, but it is also unmistakably an allegory for the redemption of Afghanistan itself. Having read the book, I am proud of the role America played in ousting the Taliban and hopeful about the country's future. Salaam Alaykum, Afghanistan. Peace be with you.
 

Book Review: Mrs. Roberto

I recently finished reading Mrs. Roberto, the fourth installment of the Moosepath League series by Van Reid.

I'm too rushed to write a complete review, but I heartily recommend the book. I've written about the Moosepath League series before. In my opinion, Mrs. Roberto is the best installment yet. The fifth book, Fiddler's Green, is also the last in the series. At least it is the last one published. I hope there will be more.

Here are some real reviews at Amazon.
 

Book Review: Absolute Friends

Absolute Friends, by John le Carré, is a well written, gripping, ultimately infuriating book. It's the story of two friends: Ted Mundy, a British boomer born in Pakistan at the time of Partition, and Sasha, a radical German gadfly.

The book is roughly divided into thirds. The first part follows Mundy from birth, through a meandering adolescence, to the time he first meets Sasha in a 1960s West Berlin commune. Sasha is the intellectual leader of the commune. Mundy is a chameleon, trying on different ideologies. Although polar opposites, Mundy and Sasha form a strong bond. They are abruptly separated when one of their student demonstrations ends in violence.

The middle third of the book starts more than ten years later when Sasha reappears to draw Mundy into the Cold War espionage game. Somehow Sasha has become a member of the East German Stasi machinery. He enlists Mundy for a complicated double spy operation. I won't tell you who is really spying for whom.

The third act finds Mundy and Sasha together again after another separation of ten years. Both have been drifting since the Cold War ended, but Sasha has found a new patron, a mysterious billionare named Dmitri. Many reviewers have said Le Carré falters in this part of the book. Oddly enough, I think it is the most compelling part. The first and second parts are masterful set pieces describing 1960s West Berlin and Cold War espionage respectively, but the last part picks up the pace considerably. Mundy is drawn into a plot murkier than anything he experienced during the Cold War. Who is Dmitri? Is his scheme a front for a terrorist operation? Does Sasha know more than he is telling?

It's great stuff -- up until the last ten pages. I won't give away the ending, but it comes out of left field. Le Carré apparently contrived the ending to warn the dear reader about the true menance in our post-9/11 world. And Le Carré's politics are definitely left of center, if not left of Michael Moore.

Some reviewers have cited Le Carré's bias in dialog like this about the War in Iraq:

"It was an old Colonial oil war dressed up as a crusade for Western life and liberty, and it was launched by a clique of war-hungry Judeo-Christian geopolitical fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America's post-9/11 psychopathy."

You certainly can't assume Le Carré believes that line of dialog. If he does, he picked a strange mouthpiece. The character who recites the line doesn't even believe it. However, throughout the book Le Carré implies that American leaders, particularly Christian American leaders, are the real extremists. And he certainly believes it is now Europe's duty to counter the world's lone superpower.

All in all, Absolute Friends is a brilliant book -- well worth reading. I just think Le Carré is worried about the wrong bogeyman. But I have the benefit of hindsight. Le Carré's book was originally published before the terrorist bombings in Madrid and London.
 

Book Review: Nop's Trials

Ever since I first watched a sheep dog trial, I have been fascinated by border collies. With just a few commands from his master, a well trained border collie is able to gather a small herd of sheep, march the herd through a gate, and drive them into a pen. It's a eerie mixture of predatory instinct and obedience training.

Nop's Trials, by Donald McCaig, is a story about a border collie named Nop. I am not giving away too much of the plot by telling you Nop becomes separated from his master, a Virginian farmer named Lewis Burkholder. The story follows Nop from one bad experience to another. Meanwhile, finding his dog becomes a kind of quest for Lewis Burkholder.

This sounds a little like Lassie Come Home, but it's not kids stuff. The book is unflinchingly gritty at times. It's also inventive. It's told in the third person, but McCaig often gives you Nop's perspective. There's even dialog between Nop and the other dogs he meets. Dog dialog may sound like a gimmick, but if despite your better judgment you have ever wondered what your dog is thinking, you will be enchanted.