death

Book 29 for 2024: “The Covenant of Water”, Abraham Verghese

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

I waited for more than a year to get this book via the library. It stayed on the best seller lists for months and months and has been translated into more than twenty languages. It is the saga of one family from 1900 to 1977. The setting is the Kerala area of India (I have been to India but not this area). It is unique compared to much of India in that Christians, Muslims, and Hindus live in relative peace with each other. Unlike the more arid parts of India, this is a place dominated by water which is a major theme in the book. Several of the main characters in the book suffer from an inherited Condition, as they refer to it. In every generation, at least one person dies from drowning.

The book begins with a 12 year old girl being married off to a 40 some year old widower. She has to travel far from her family via water. He is kind and patient but unlike her, who loves the water, he will travel many extra miles to avoid even traveling by water. He is terrified of water because he has the Condition. Eventually, she becomes the family matriarch, Big Ammachi. This is her story and the story of her descendants, the Christian community in Kerala, and the fate of one British man who remained in India after independence. It is also the story of the progress of medicine (Big Ammachi’s granddaughter is determined to become a doctor and find what causes the Condition) and how one family experiences many hardships to further future generations.

The author, Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford, details this fictional family’s history for several generations in 715 pages. It sounds daunting but I kept reading because I wanted to know what happens to all the people. At the same time, I found this to be one of the saddest books I have ever read. Due to the Condition and leprosy, for which there was no cure at the time, many people’s lives are horrendously affected. I did learn a lot about medicine and medical advances, how leprosy destroyed lives, Kerala and, much to my amazement, that many Christians in Kerala continued to follow the Hindu caste system.

Book 28 for 2024: “Gun Island”, Amitav Ghosh

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

A tale based on a Bengali legend about a merchant called the Gun Merchant, Bonduki Sadagar, this novel not only takes place in the mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans but also in Venice. It has nothing to do with guns but demonstrates how differences in language use among languages and translations can lead to total mistranslation. The narrator is an older, male, Bengali, rare book dealer who grew up in Kolkata but now lives in Brooklyn most of the year and goes back “home” occasionally. When he meets a distant relative by chance at a party, he finds himself enmeshed in the Gun Merchant tale and finds himself in search of a remote shrine where a king cobra lives. His adventure leads him to meet two young men and reconnect with an old friend, an Italian woman who is a famous historian.

What fascinated me most about this novel was learning all about the immense number of historical connections between the Bengali part of India and Venice especially related to trade and persons of Jewish descent. It is also filled with lessons in relationships among languages and history. For example, I learned the origin of the word ghetto. During the 17th century a part of Venice, Getto, was where their large and prosperous Jewish population was forced to live, Venice being one of few European cities where Jews were safe. Thus the word designating a part of the city became the word ghetto.

It is also a story about the risks and dangers of immigrants trying to get to Europe. I learned many Bengalis, mostly from Bangladesh, live in Venice and the numerous historical connections between the Bengali speaking areas of the world and Venice.

Book 27 for 2024: “The New Naturals”, Gabriel Bump

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Rio, a young Black woman, and her husband, Gibraltar, academics living in Boston, become concerned and disillusioned with their current lives. She finds an abandoned restaurant on top of a hill in western Massachusetts. Heartbroken after the death of her newborn, she is determined to create a safe, new, underground society beneath the restaurant. She finds a benefactor and her dream begins to take place. Via word of mouth, others hear about this safe place for the “lost” and disillusioned and head there. These include two homeless men from Chicago, a successful, young journalist, and a former soccer player.

Can such a society work? What happens if they run out of money? Regardless, can the care individuals have for each other save them?

Note: Depending on what kind of novels you prefer, this may or may not be a book for you. Several of the characters have serious mental issues, some think it is ok to resort to violence to save what they believe in and find ways to justify their actions, some seem very, very “lost”.

Book 25 for 2024: “The Spoiled Heart”, Sanjeev Shasta

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

The main character, Nayan Olak, is a Sikh whose parents immigrated to England. He has worked decades first on a factory floor and then later risen through the ranks of his union. Encouraged by others, he decides to run for head of the union when suddenly a young woman of the same ethnicity decides to run against him. She will do anything to beat him including using an unfortunate argument between them to accuse him of all sorts of misdeeds.

In the meantime, a woman, Helen, who left town under mysterious circumstances years ago shows up with her young adult son who is recovering from the aftermath of another unfortunate misunderstanding. Helen works for home health but refuses to take care of Nayan’s dementia ridden father. He cannot figure out why since she willingly takes care of others. He becomes obsessed with her, helps her son who becomes a sort of substitute for Nayan’s son who was killed along with Nayan’s mother in a fire many years previously. The police never determined who started the fire even though they knew it was arson.

Tragedies ensue as this story about race, misunderstandings, secrets, and relationships progresses. It also demonstrates the power, for better or worse, of misunderstood words and actions.

Book 24 for 2024: “Inland”, Téa Obreht

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

While I found her first book, “The Tiger’s Wife” fascinating, I remain uncertain regarding this one. First it is long, 374 pages (I do read long books); second, it tells two different stories which do not interconnect at all until the end of the book. I kept wondering, asking myself, “What?” For me at least, the story picked up about half way through and my interest greatly increased.

One storyline is the life of one homesteading family in rural Arizona in the 1850s told mostly from the viewpoint of the wife. Her husband tends to wander off for long periods of time leaving her on her own with their children. His latest adventure is not only their homestead but also owning and running the local newspaper in the nearest town. The reader also meets some rather powerful but unsavory characters who want to own all the cattle and all the land.

The second storyline deals with the men who were hired by the government to bring camels to the West and manage them, one of whose story–a real historical person–is told. His name was Ali, a Syrian cameleer, who died in 1902. He was called Hi Jolly because people in US seemed unable or unwilling to pronounce his real name correctly. This part is told from the viewpoint of another cameleer, Hi Jolly’s friend, who has a criminal history and is trying to elude the law. Camels were brought to the US by the United States Camel Corps in the 1850s. At that time few roads existed in the Southwest, water was scarce, and camels were known to be able to go long periods without water. The experiment failed so camels were left either in the hands of the individuals who rode and cared for them or left to roam wild. Some of the men, including Hi Jolly, were able to open businesses transporting goods to remote areas via camel. This book details part of that history.

In both storylines one recurring theme is the lack of water. At one point the homesteading family have no water at all. In the other storyline people hire the cameleers to take them to places not realizing that even camels need water occasionally. I find it telling that 175 years later we continue to struggle with water issues in exactly the same part of the country.

Book 22 for 2024: “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, Mohsin Hamid

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Written in an unusual style, the narrator, the main character, tells his story to an American visiting Pakistan. While they are sitting eating dinner and later walk to a hotel, the narrator relates his life as an immigrant who found US life too shallow, too focused on profit. The narrator, a young, Pakistani man with an Ivy League degree, attains the heights of success in the US, working in a highly desirable career position where he is the star. After 9/11 occurs, he questions who he is, what working in this sought after career means, whether it is even ethical to work in a position for a firm whose job it is to investigate companies, their profits, and ruin the lives of the people who work there. He is sent to Chile to investigate a literary firm, meets the manager who takes him under his wing and helps him look at what he is doing in a totally different light. Is money everything? Do the lives of ordinary workers matter? In addition, it is a love story. He meets a beautiful, young, wealthy, US woman, they develop a close friendship, and he discovers she is not mentally stable and does everything he can to help her.

While on the surface this appears to be a story of a young immigrant who does not ultimately fit in with US life, it is much more. It raises the questions of the definition of success, of what love is, of profit over humanity.

Book 21 for 2024: “The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu”, Tom Lin

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

If you like the unusual, violence, magic, revenge, stories of racism, classism, and Westerns, this is the book for you. Ming Tsu, a Chinese orphan at the time when the Chinese were building the railroad, is taken in by the head of a crime organization and taught to be an assassin. He falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a wealthy railroad magnate, elopes with her only to have her father (who has hired the crime organization to further his goals) kidnap her and force Ming Tsu into labor for the railroad. He eventually escapes, joins with a Chinese clairvoyant whom he calls the Prophet and a group of touring magic show performers, many of whom have supernatural abilities. He sets out to gain revenge, hunting down and killing all who helped his father-in-law kidnap Ada and put him in bondage. This is the classic Western romance, revenge story with a totally different twist and an unexpected ending.

Canyon de Chelley–Part Two: Driving into The Bottom

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Canyon de Chelley was named by the Spanish who could not quite pronounce the Diné (Navaho) word for it and hence this name which is pronounced like de shay. It is more than 30 miles long and has a river running through it at least a substantial part of the year. In summer native people live there with sheep, horses, etc. even though fewer and fewer of the younger generation choose to do so. To enter the bottom of the canyon, you must acquire a permit and hire a Navaho driver. This is to protect it from the vandalism that occurred in the past. Canyon de Chelley is jointly managed by the National Park Service and the Navaho Nation.

Canyon de Chelley begins at the edge of Chinle, AZ, near the Holiday Inn which, by the way, serves traditional food such as mutton stew and blue corn fry bread. Yes, I ate both. This photo shows the beginning.

It was quite a trip; I sat between two women in the back of a Jeep with a perfect view of everything right in front of me. Oscar, the driver, knew exactly how to traverse the water, the wash (what they call this stream), run up and down the banks.

Driving right up the middle of the wash.

Petroglyphs can be seen in so many places we stopped that I lost count. Oscar said they are nearly endless and can be found throughout the canyon walls.

A few days previous to our arrival it had snowed so everything was green and lush from snow melt.

In addition to petroglyphs, there are etchings in the rock walls.

In this case an etching/rock carving of horses.

Yes, we drove under this overhanging tree limb.

Sometimes the wash was narrower and deeper and we drove up and down steep banks and through deeper water.

Ancient pueblo people lived here for centuries, some more than 5,000 years ago. This is one of the largest pueblo structures in the canyon (The White House–due to a white washed wall which you cannot see from this vantage point). The fence was built to protect it from vandals. We saw many smaller dwelling places and Oscar said there are hundreds in the canyon.

Headed back down the wash. This was a half day trip so only saw less than half of the canyon. You can hire for an all day trip complete with picnic lunch and go all the way to some of the famous formations that can be seen from the road at the edge of the top. There is also a side canyon called Muerto–due to a massacre of the natives that occurred after the Navaho forced long march.

The Jeep needs a bath after this trip.

Note: With a permit and guides, there is camping and horseback riding trips up the canyon in addition to this type of tour.

Book 20 for 2024: “The Midnight Library”, Matt Haig

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Regrets and depression seem to have overwhelmed the main character, Nora. She’s lost her job, a car ran over her cat, she thinks she has failed at everything, and she says she wants to die. But does she really. Through a series of parallel universe experiences she gets to try out many different lives based on her long list of regrets. None really work because none of them exemplify her real self. She thinks she might like this new life or that new life, but none fulfill her, reflect her true self. She learns that money, fame, riches are not necessarily the answer. But what is the answer? What is the best way to live?

Book 19 for 2024: “Unearthing”, Kyo Maclear

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Several months after Maclear’s father (who was a famous journalist) dies, she decides to take a DNA test to find out more about her family health and personality history, mainly because of the stories about a particular grandmother. She wonders if certain traits she and her sons have might possibly be inherited. The results of the test are a shock. Her father, the father she adored, who raised her and adored her, is not her biological father. At first, she thinks perhaps it was a sperm donor, but then she discovers this is not the case. Through the DNA test and her detective work, she finds two biological half-brothers (she was an only child before this discovery) who are willing to communicate with her, send her photos, etc. She tries relentlessly to acquire more information from her mother, who is often unforthcoming or tells her contradictory information. Then her mother gets dementia.

This is also a story of plants, of gardening. Both she and her mother are amateur botanists and expert gardeners. When nothing else works in their mother-daughter relationship, their love of plants and gardening holds them together. Even with dementia, her mother knows plants. Their other joint endeavor is ink drawings and love of art.

Additionally, this is the story of family, family secrets, inter-racial marriage, and challenging relationships. Kyo’s mother is Japanese living originally in England and later in Canada who often struggled with her status as a Japanese immigrant. Her “real” father, the one who raised her, was of British and Irish descent; her biological father was a Jewish formula one race car driver.