Empress, Shan Sa

Initially in french, this will be the first time Imperatrice has been published in English. Current date for publication is May 2006.

The narration style is very unique for a novel. I've read numerous works of fiction that have been translated from other languages so I do believe that the writing style was very deliberate and not a result of translation style. We trace the rise and reign of China's first female emperor, Empress Wu, who reigned for 50 years (think China's version of Queen Elizabeth). Empress reads like the annals of history must read. It feels like more of a listing of events and conversations that have been recorded by attentive poet-scribes than a flowing narrative. This does not detract from the book, but rather enhances it. It gives a sense of authenticity. We never leave the point of view of Empress Wu, starting with her birth and continuing after her death.

Works of historical fiction that look at the lives of great historical women can vary so greatly from the stunning, lyrical, yet well-researched writings of Anchee Min or Indu Sundaresan to the too-colorfully-painted, highly fictional accounts by Philippa Gregory or Sarah Dunant. It is difficult to tackle the lives of women in places where while there were incredibly detailed accounts of daily life down to conversations held in court, but the private points ov view of these women are, for the most part, hidden forever. We can only speculate based on these public records, private letters and even poetry. Shan Sa does an exquisite job of drawing you into a world that while brutal in its bloodshed, was decadent and virile. The arts thrived and wars virtually non-existent except for minor rebellions. Commoners were given a chance to get involved with their imperial government and women had freedoms unparallelled either before the tang Dynasty and, in many ways, since.

For a great article on this era, specifically with regard to women, see Women of the Tang Dynasty. It just goes to show that even when women have freedom, choice and even power....the tide can be overturned by political power, ego and religion and send women back to being submissive slaves of men for hundreds of years. No matter how it looks now, we must always be aware that things can change. Again.

Mostly Bob, Tom Corwin

Courtesy of an evil co-bookseller, I was forced to open this book yesterday. Then I was forcecd to read it. Then cry. Geez. As if John Grogan's Marley and Me wasn't bad enough in its heart-searing, gut-wrenching attack on your heart, mind, soul and any part of you that's ever even looked a dog fondly let alone be stolen away with affection and love for one. Tom Corwin's tiny little 5-minute-read is nearly as devastating emotionally without all the details. When done right, simplicity is a powerful tool. In a matterof pages you meet Bob, fall in love with Bob, being to realize what is happening, then lose Bob. All while looking at a little silhouette in the corner of...who else?....Bob. If this isn't worth purchasing to loan to every dog-lover you know, it is definitely worth a trip to the bookstore with a kleenex to honk your nose and wipe your eyes when you're done. Thanks guys. *sniff*

illness

I do sometimes think that I sholdn't be around books so much. Here's an example of my literary explorations as of, literally, today.

BOOKS PURCHASED TODAY



~Another blank book with the front and back covers featuring the artist Jean Michael Folon

GALLEYS PICKED UP TODAY

Empress: A Novel by Shan Sa

WHAT I'M READING

Intimidated

I am in the middle of reading both The Penelopiad and The Tent - Margaret Atwood's newest. It's so nice to have one follow so close on the tail of the other when we so often have to go what feels like decades between books from her. I am reading too many books at once right now to just do cover-to-cover, but its working nicely with these two since they are full of short, little chapters of exploration. I probably should be reading about Penelope straight through, but its fun doing it in bits. Makes it last longer. So far, I am liking The Tent more out of the two but that could change. I love the minimalism of it, like eating one oreo at a time instead of trying to down the whole lot of them. You know? And the illustrations are fantastic - all Atwood's of course. Below is a sample from her website where she has several comic strips that are caustically funny.



“All children ‘write.’ (And paint, and sing.) I suppose the real question is, why do so many people give it up? Intimidation, I suppose.”

Margaret Atwood

Tingle Alley: P967

This is the blog I most hope to emulate or at least draw inspiration from.

From one of the most recent Tingle Alley posts:

Pardon the ongoing lapse in blogging around here. It’s not, as you may have imagined, because the proprietress was on some sort of Schnapps Bender (always great fun until one wakes up one morning on a deserted slope in the Alps, wearing nothing but underwear and a sprig of edelweiss, after an ill-advised “field trip” to the schnappsian fount). Rather, I have been up against one of the great labor inequities of our day, namely the prohibition against blogging in meetings. Since I’ve been in meetings all day every day — in Asheville, in Poughkeepsie, across the Atlantic seaboard; sometimes I just wander into strange businesses and go and sit in their conference rooms, looking around expectantly till someone brings in some coffee and lets me show them my PowerPoint — this has radically curtailed my blogging. In an attempt to find a middle ground between business and blogging, I have even volunteered to live-blog the daily proceedings (“10:31 Jack requests materials for project. 10:32 Client asks for clarification on requested materials. 10:33 James Frey breaks into conference room in crack-fueled rage and combats various cops and authority figures placed around the room, wielding a numchuck in one hand and a 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra in the other. The Powerpoint screen is getting sprayed with snot and vomit and blood. Also, my binder. 10:34 James Frey takes seat and admits that this last bit may have been an exaggeration. He was really just wielding some figures from Accounting. He asks that this remain strictly off the record.”) but so far I haven’t been able to get sign-off.

Source:
Also, JD Salinger? Cancun party animal. Hemingway? Real name: Eunice. And Ginsberg? Whispered..

Funny, funny, funny stuff. If you haven't visited yet, do.

Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take for pity

I know its not technically a book I "read" but it is literary.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING



A Chicago Shakespeare production.

A dear friend of mine got tickets from a subscriber friend of hers who couldn't make it to their picked date for Chicago Shakes' Much Ado. So of course I dropped everything to go with her.

The theatre space at Navy Pier is gorgeous. It is so simple in its lines; lots of wood; a shape that is reminiscent of the old Globe; every seat provides at a minimum a good view. Others, of course, offer great views. It is clear in the staging of the play, the Director takes the shape of the space and the layering of the seats into account. The actors are very aware of the space they have to play in and will often physically open themselves up to the upper levels of seating with gestures, faces tipped upwards, etc. Even in the top tier of seats, you feel included.

I forgot how much I loved this play. It has been too long since I have seen it or read it. The dialogue is so witty and the characters are marvelously created. It never ceases to amaze me that Shakespeare created women characters of such diversity in personality - not jut the demure, obedient, sweet childlike women that all were expected to be, but also characters that were full of pissnvinegar, wit, intelligence and more. Beatrice - the middle-aged witty bachelorette who is insistent upon never marrying - because she can never find her match - one to be her equal or who can handle her. She is very opinionated and not afraid to be so. Uppity Women Unite!! I love that when she does find love it is in a man who is truly her other self. We know that nobody but someone like Benedick could woo her successfully and with whom she could truly be happy. He will let her be herself - loves her spice and sass and independence. If Shakespeare could visualize this hundreds of years ago, why do we women today still settle? Hello!!

My favorite performer in yesterday's show was James Vincent Meredith, playing Don Pedro. He is strong, handsome with a melllifluous voice that resonates in your soul. Yet he played Don Pedro with such sweetness, heart and even vulnerability that it only made him the more attractive of all the characters. In the end, when he lingers back as the lovers dance, you truly ache for him.

My second favorite was definitely Benedick, played by the utterly delightful Jim Mezon. His spit (literally) and swagger only made him more pathetic when he lets down his guard and realizes he is in love. His manliness seeming more a front than something real. His bravado and vocal expressions were perfect. Although I will admit that I was a little unsure at first. Not sur eif he just found his energy or if it was deliberate, but his spark shone brighter the more we saw him.

Constable Dogberry was brought to charming, bumbling life by Scott Jaeck. His constant stumbling around like a drunk when we all knew this guy just simply didn't know how to put one foot in front of the other (or one word in front of the other) although his heart is in the right place and he tries sooooooo hard to be the best Master Constable there could be.

Kevin Gudahl's Leonato was to fall in love with. If only I could have had a father so caring, passionate and sensitive.

Beatrice, Kelli Fox, is a character so well drawn that it is hard to play her poorly. Kelli Fox was no exception. She was given every word in such a way that the words themselves practically are stage instructions on where to look, how loud or quiet to be. What made her stand out was her physical comedy. Fun, fun, fun. Great body language. That woman knows how every subtle movement impacts a character like Beatrice.

Minor player Alan Schmuckler was so ridiculously cute and attractive that it was hard not to drool when he was on stage with his guitar. Yummy!

The one person I didn't care for was Sean Fortunato as Don John. I know the guy is supposed to be a slimy villain but it seemed too forced and stilted. Line delivery was not consistent and while I knew he was a bad guy, I didn't *feel* like he was a bad guy. I really just didn't care for him at all.

Overall, I was so pleased with the show. I laughed my ass off, loudly and heartily. When it was over I felt so light, free and happy. I truly cannot complain about any of it. It was so much fun visually and aurally.

I love Shakespeare.

Ariel Gore

So just a couple of weeks ago, I picked up an ARC (advanced readers copy) of a book titled, beautifully, The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show. Look, even booksellers are swayed by book covers. Maybe more so than average Joe Q. Public because we have so many damn books to read or at least know something about in order to discuss intelligently with customers. So I picked up this book because of several factors.

A) The cover is awesome.
B) The title was intriguing
C) It was slim and I needed something smallish to get back into a fiction groove since I've been reading so little of it lately.

Anywho. I picked up this book and started reading it the next morning. I finished it after work that night. I could not put it down. Compelling characters, structured stream of consciousness writing and an interesting but simple plot. Perfect! A note of redemption and hope found. Some dashes of tragedy and hardness. It's a dark tunnel with a bright light at the end. Maybe a few lanterns along the way. And you just keep going forward because you know eventually that light will reveal itself as something beautiful and open or a train. Either way, the darkness is over and you are satisfied. Incredibly satisfied.

So then I decided I needed to pick up Atlas of the Human Heart, Ariel Gore's memoir. As soon as I saw the cover I remembered seeing it on shelves and wanting to buy it, but not - for whatever reason at the time I have since forgotten.

Dear reader, do you know how hard it is to find a writer whose fiction and non-fiction nearly reads the same? I mean this as a compliment to the writer's voice. As an example, I love Anne Lamott's non-fiction but I think her fiction is terrible. Seriously. Ariel Gore has this voice that is so tough and introverted and exploratory and un-self-conscious all at the same time. I love it. I love the rambles and rants as much as I love her descriptions of the places she visits and the people she meets. Atlas... reads like fiction in its journey forward but is so sincere and honest and revealing that it can only be real. How much of any biography is ever really real, though? With Atlas, it doesn't matter. You don't care.

Come Spring, when her novel comes out, explore for yourself and see if you can figure out which is more true to life than the other - novel or memoir?

And I hope they keep the cover for TTD&RS. Marvelous.

Click here to visit Ariel Gore's website

Floating Through France

Floating Through France: Life Between Locks on the Canal du Midi


Edited by Barbara Euser, I am lucky enough to be published in this Travelers' Tales collection alongside such wonderful travel writers as Larry Habegger, Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar. It is a delightful gathering of travel experiences, reflections, emotions that come out of drifting along this beautiful southern waterway at only a few miles per hour.

Available in Spring!

The Caliph's House, Tahir Shah

Subtitled A Year in Casablanca, this book chronicles one man's purchase and renovation of an estate in Morocco. His tale of foreign home renovation and culture discovery is in the same vein as Peter Mayle's delightful A Year in Provence. In this completely different world than France (although they do speak French), Tahir Shah explores his own family history, ethnicity, culture and more. He contends with difficult employees, bad spirits, and an upside-down government system while making friends with a stamp-collector, a countess and some chamelons.

A brisk journey through the year, The Caliph's House is an easy read, but not without depth. Shah has such a keen eye to his surroundings that he need not use many words to convey a feeling or introduce a person. The story has been done before and as long as people feel like uprooting their families and moving to lands unknown to their own experiences, this story will repeat itself. But the cast of characters is so different, the culture so colorful that it is nearly impossible not to fall in love with Morocco.

Recommended for Armchair Travelers, Culture Explorers and Home Remodelers

A Time to Read

Just in time for later-minute shoppers comes a lovely little essay/recs list by Alan Cheuse or NPR. A Time to ReadAlan Cheuse's Holiday List starts off like an enjoyable little esay about reading and morphs into his suggestions for book-lovers this holiday season.

"Because of the pressure of daily life and the need to kick back and free the mind from the workaday world, many people throw up their hands and then turn on the TV. <...> But then comes holiday time, sacred days, time outside of ordinary time, when it's possible to find free hours for reading during a day usually given over to work."

Ain't that the truth Alan!

Fondling Your Muse, John Warner

I strongly encourage you to take the time to read John Warner's bits of "Brilliance and Wisdom".

These are all funny. Some are really friggin funny and others are downright hilarious!

The book isn't bad either.

Case Histories, Kate Atkinson

This is one of those books I continually found myself gravitating towards while shelving. I would pick it up, look at it, open it, set it down again. I read a great review. Still I didn't read it. A friend of mine called me up and said he was strongly considering reading it. I bought it. I'm glad I did.

While certainly compelling, I wouldn't quite say you can't put it down. You can. I didn't want to stay up until 3am to read it. But I did want to grab it whenever I had a chance to do some reading - even if only for a few minutes over breakfast. So, compelling is how I would summarize it.

Mostly, though, I loved Kate Atkinson's use of detail. A character whom you may only meet a handful of times is first described with such character that you get a feeling for his personal history, something not normally considered useful when dealing with a character who will not make more than a few brief appearances. She takes loads of details and weaves them so smoothly through the narrative that its like reading a personal letter or having someone stand in front of you with their active hands and be very animated about what (or who) they are describing. You have to step back and re-examine the text to really see just how much detail she is using. I love this! Too much detail can be...suffocating. Not in the hands of Kate Atkinson. Her details are old-school, sumptuous, delicate and this book would be nothing without them.

The writing style overall is a very classic style. It makes for highly polished reading despite being a modern story about modern people with modern mystery holding it all together.

The story is simple. Think of the movie Crash. A simple film about a multitude of characters whose lives all collide. Same thing here. Its more about people than it is about dead or disappeared children. That's not to say you don't want to find out the truth. You do. But there is so much more than that. The who-dunit part isn't so important compared to how people become who they are and do what they do. Its seeing how a few simple steps can lead to tragic consequences. But then these same tragedies can breathe life back into the affected people left behind.

The only hesitation I have about any of this book is the no-resolution of one storyline. That of the missing child, Tanya. If the other case histories were not resolved in any fashion for the reader, the lack of resolution in one would no mean a thing. But the fact that we have clarification on all but this one. It is slightly disappointing. Not terribly, because there are hints to a clarification that we have to come to on our own, as a reader.

Or perhaps it's simply me reading between the lines, getting caught up in the hope and sadness of the families we meet. Which appears to be precisely what the writer wants from the reader.

Recommended for Those With a Heart

A Great & Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels, Libba Bray

I picked up an ARC (Advanced Readers Copy) of Rebel Angels at a Children's Rep night a week ago. It looked interesting. But I had to read the prequel A Great and Terrible Beauty first. So I picked it up on Tuesday. Read it by Wednesday morning. Then started Rebel Angels finishing it on Thursday. As you can tell from that, they are easy reads. They are considered Teen books and the writing is a little underdone, but not necessarily in a bad way.

The story is about a young woman in Victorian England at a girls' boarding school. She was sent there from India after her mother died mysteriously. Our heroine discovers she has seeing powers and eventually learns she can access another world called the Realms, a la Narnia but more sinister and a little more moldable. It is a place of great beauty, but also of intense magic and old rivalries contending with a force of evil trying to take control of the world and its magic. She makes friends in unlikely ways. The enemies aren't just in this other world, but every day at the finishing school which has, of course, rich snobbish pretty ladies from the upper upper upper crust of society.

While the story may seem a mish-mosh of Lewis-Tolkien-Forster-Austen, it works. Compelling, intriguing, imagery and staging that is effectively lovely and dark at the same time. The balance of time spent between the real world and the Realms is nicely laid out. The story is less about the other magical place than it is about a young girl trying to find her place in the world, trying to understand herself and the gifts which she has been given. The lessons laced throughout about girls, friendships, first loves, the struggle for power, the greed of the rich and successful, how to balance the expectations of society with your own desires; they are all there and are stitched in to the narrative so smoothly that at not time are you being preached at or being snowed on with sentimental drivel.

The two books could stand together on their own or there could happily be a third and either way, I am satisfied. However, once you read the first one you will find yourself unable to read anything else until you have also devoured the second. Definitely a book for the more literate or intellegent teen girl. Definitely for girls. But also a nice read for adults who want to get away from some of the darker realism we read these days in novels.

Reccommended for Romantics and Women With Over-Active Imaginations

Talk To The Hand, Lynne Truss

Lynne Truss has done it again. She has brought us a book that humorously points out minor flaws in our society that lead to bigger problems when left unchecked. Yes, Eats, Shoots and Leaves did that with its lambast of dropped apostrophes - which can lead to illiteracy and stupidity. Right? Okay, maybe not. But her new book is less a trove of how *to* behave as it is a long essay pondering our lack of general politeness. Am I terrible, rude person because I occasionally spit my gum out my car window? Maybe. But I know I treat people with empathy and politesse in the dry, rude retail industry in which I work.

Truss has written a diatribe here and it is hilariously funny. Especially for anyone who has had overexposed, prolonged contact with the general public. The deeper implications of what happens when we need to not only have our own personal space bubble, but still respect others is clear. If we don't learn to find a balance in this world of what we can do as an individual and how we need to acknowledge the existence of those around us, civilization as we know it will collapse. Okay, maybe not. But when a young man on a bus in London gets stabbed several times for being brave enough to simply point out that it would be nice for his girlfriend to not have chips thrown at her by another young man; this illustrates a point. We aren't allowed to point out when another person is *clearly* crossing the lines of politeness for fear we will be hurt by the offender. But the offender won't stop unless someone points out to him that what he is doing is not exactly considerate. This example goes beyond personal preferences of privacy or how we feel about people who talk loudly on their cell phones or who forget to say a simple "please" or "thank you" in public exchanges. And therein is the problem. If we can't even talk about these minor infractions that have nothing to do with our own private lives, but everything to do with basic respect of other human beings; how can we expect to solve any greater problems in our lives and communities?

Wait! Despite my depressing commentary here, Talk To The Hand is a delightfully funny book to which any person who has been in public for even an hour in the last year will be able to relate.

Reccommended for Cranky Pants and Sentimental Folks Wanting a Return to the Olden Days and Anyone With a Dose of Common Sense

Nine Parts of Desire, Geraldine Brooks

Published in 1995, this book was written in the late 80's and early 90's while Geraldine Brooks had her journalistic posting in the Middle East. With its pre-9/11 insights and exploration, it ranges in views of and from Muslim women across the Arab Peninsula and Egypt. Brooks realized that one of the ways to take the pulse of the Middle East was to talk to the women - people with whom she could have near unrestricted conversations with, since she also is a woman. An all-access pass to life behind and without the veil. The discussions run the gamut of veiling, driving, sex, working, education and the religion of Islam.

Using the Koran as a resource to draw from while inquiring into the history of the treatment of women was very illuminating. Granted, without reading the Koran itself, in Arabic, it is hard to really get an accurate snapshot of its writings but it was still very helpful in pointing out the contradictions of the Prophet's words and actions. It is easy to see why much of Islam has gone the direction it has - in its cycles of revolutions tilting towards fundamentalism, away from fundamentalism, and back again. It is more clear how some conclusions are come to about the veiling of women, restricting them from leading in the practice of religion (like in Catholicism) and even to the splitting of property and education of women. More clear doesn't mean it makes sense, though. Just because I have an idea of how men come to the conclusion that it is good to cut off a young girl's clitoris doesn't give it any more validity.

Since much of the Koran itself is supported by the Hadiths, or day to day living practices and words of the Prophet and his women, there becomes a problem in translating what it is he meant for all followers of Islam and what was meant only for his household in order to deal with internal conflict and issues. Rather like God telling the Old Testament peoples not to eat pork and other particular items - at that time it was likely necessary to preserve health. At the time there was an appropriate reason for the requirement, but now it is not as necessary. Or is it?

Nine Parts of Desire was a captivating read which I had a hard time putting down when it came time to go on to other parts of my daily life. It made me think more about the women of Islam and the difficult controversial things they have to live with, fight against, choose to accept, etc. There is a certain level of acceptability in veiling when it keeps away unwanted attention from men. I know there are times when I would love the privacy that the more intense forms of veiling offer women. But I would not want it forced upon me. It should be a choice. Conversely, if men did not behave the way they do towards women, would we feel the need to cover ourselves to such an extreme extent? Or does covering so much just make us more tantalizing, adding to the "wanting what we can't have" philosophy of life. It certainly is all about Desire - who causes it in whom? Whose fault is it we desire? Do we put out of sight what it is we desire? Or do we find a level of appreciating that which we desire and can't have?

Will the women of Islam always be running back and forth along the spectrum of the religion's dogma - from a practical, flexible end to a stifling, literal end? Will there never be a balanced growth that continues to move in one solid direction?

Brooks offers us no specific answers, but leaves us to question, ponder and simply explore the lives of these women: women most of us will never be or truly understand, no matter how hard we try or how intensely we want to.

*Highly Recommended*