One Book A Week-25: “The Daughters of Madurai”, Rajasree Variyar

June 10, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

The first sentence of the book reads: “A girl is a burden. A girl is a curse.”

In India in early 1990s, Janani lives with her abusive mother-in-law and an alcoholic husband who is often absent, chauffeuring people here and there. Although she is allowed to keep daughter number one, the fate of the next daughters is death. She, who is Tamil lower caste, is lucky enough to work for the same higher caste family for whom her mother worked and with whom she spent most of her childhood. They treat her much better than her husband and mother-in-law who hate her for not bearing a boy baby.

The book goes back and forth between this time period and 2019 Australia where the fate of Indian girls and women is far different. The family returns to India for the funeral when the family patriarch dies. Those who know little about their family history learn some shocking revelations.

In the Afterward, the author discusses female infanticide. Although many educated families oppose it and national laws prohibit the practice, it remains so common in parts of rural India that in those places there is a shortage of women for marriage. As a consequence, men resort to kidnapping women from other areas.

I thought it would take me a while to read this 326 page novel. However, I became so engrossed, I finished it in two days while also engaging in several other activities.

One Book a Week-23: “The Devil’s Highway”, Luis Alberto Urrea

June 3, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Even though the events described in this non-fiction work occurred exactly 22 years ago in May in southern Arizona, not much has changed except the nationality of the immigrants. Few Mexicans try walking across the Arizona desert these days. Now it’s mostly people from certain Central American countries, Venezuela, and various other countries, generally places where the climate of the Sonoran Desert is unknown.

In 2001, a group of men, mostly from the state of Veracruz, tried it. More than half died and the coyote who led them remains in prison. This book tells their story. It also describes in detail the networks that lure immigrants to attempt the long journey to the US border, who benefits, who gets paid, the geography and climate of the desert–a true tale of deceit, disillusion, desperation, and loss.

4000 migrants have died in the last two decades trying to cross the Arizona desert. This number equals bodies found; many tell tales of others whose bodies remain lost. 2021 saw a record number of deaths. 2022 data is not yet published.

Note: I like Urrea’s books and have read most of his novels. I recommend starting with “The Hummingbird’s Daughter”.

Book a Week-21: “Boy, Snow, Bird”, Helen Oyeyemi

May 16, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

A unique and sometimes frightening story with a surprising ending, this is another tale of the lengths to which people of color will go to pass for white to gain the benefits of whiteness. For one New England family this has succeeded quite well by sending a too dark daughter back South to live with relatives and never allowing her to come to the town where the rest of the family lives. It fails when a too dark child is born and the parents keep her with them. It is also a tale of gender identity and how rape and abuse can destroy and deform and of resilience in the face of endless obstacles. This is not an ordinary novel.

Book a Week-20: “Sankofa”, Chibundu Onuzo

May 13, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

After her mother dies, Anna searches through her mother’s belongings and discovers a hidden diary written by the African father she never knew and about whom her white mother, who never married, told her nearly nothing. She travels to Scotland to have the diary authenticated by an expert, researches, and discovers her father had to return to Africa, became a revolutionary, and then president (or dictator, depending on the source) of a small African nation. She also learns that he is still alive.

Leaving behind a daughter and white husband from whom she is separated, Anna decides to travel to Africa to find her father. Treated unequally as a biracial child in England, in Africa she is seen as “obroni”, white. Thus, the book addresses issues of racial identity, family acceptance (she does find her father) and belonging, and tells a tale of the adventures of a middle-aged woman in search of self.

One Book a Week-18: “If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English”, Noor Naga

May 6, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Identity politics remains at the heart of this unusual novel. Written in three parts, One portrays a “love” affair between an Egyptian American woman who has gone to Cairo to find her Egyptian self and an unemployed, revolution (as in Arab Spring) photographer who alternates between living in a rooftop shack and homelessness. Each vignette starts with a question and alternates between the voice of the woman and the man, expressing their viewpoints on life, love, and their situation. Part Two is the same except without the “headline” question. Part Three is a big surprise–a discussion, written as a play, a critique of the rest of the novel among the author, an instructor, and several “students”.

I loved this book in part because it enabled me to learn a lot about Egyptian cultures, but also because I found it thought provoking and intriguing.

Baja Trip-5: Wandering Around Ensenada

May 3, 2023May 3, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

First, we went to the fish market where I saw fish I could not even begin to identify. Then we strolled along the wharf.

This mural portrays the matriarchs of the northern Baja area. each from a different indigenous tribe who lived there before others arrived.

Cruise ships dock here several times a week.

Built when alcohol and gambling were illegal in the United States, this was once a famous casino where the rich and famous came to gamble and drink. Now it belongs to the city and is used for weddings, retirement parties, etc.

Back in the 30s, the water came up to the edge of the casino property so people could come in their luxury yachts, dock, and walk right inside.

The original bar still exists and is well stocked. Here we heard the story of the invention of the margarita. Many claim to have invented it in various places in Mexico. It seems to trace back to a bartender who moved from place to place and brought the drink with him. Who knows?

One Book a Week-13: Blue Desert, Celia Jeffries

April 3, 2023April 3, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

As an ardent reader who prefers what are usually referred to as literary novels and serious non-fiction, few books impact me deeply and emotionally like this one has. As soon as I finished it, I reread parts of it several times, then sat silently stunned.

After her family moves to North Africa for her father’s work, an 18 year old British girl, rescued by a Taureg leader, is believed dead by her family until she resurfaces years later at a Catholic “home” run by nuns in North Africa. She re-enters British society, marries, leads a relatively “normal” life while keeping a secret for decades. When she receives a telegram, “Abu is dead”, everything changes. Her past comes rushing back in unexpected ways.

One Book a Week-3

January 20, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

While wandering around Barnes and Noble looking for something new to read, I read the blurb for An Imaginary Life by David Malouf, an Australian writer. I bought it. Of course, I had heard of Ovid, seen parts of Metamorphosis, his most famous work, but knew little about him. Emperor Augustus exiled him to the remote regions near the Black Sea for reasons not totally known but perhaps due to the nature of Ovid’s erotic poetry which was very popular. Written in the first person, this book relates Ovid’s experiences, thoughts, and feelings while in exile. The urbane and educated Ovid now has to learn to live with superstitious, illiterate, poverty stricken people whose language he does not know, who possess none of amenities to which he is accustomed, who live in a bare survival mode. They find a “wild child” and Ovid becomes determined to catch him and teach him. The Child has lived with the animals and speaks their language, seems immune to weather even though naked, knows nothing of humans. As Ovid lives with and teaches the Child, he begins to question what it means to be human, to be civilized, to be different. What is the true meaning of life?

Note: If you look up Ovid, you will find a birthdate but no date of death. No one knows exactly when or where he died or where he was buried.

An Afternoon at the Cheech Museum – 2

January 9, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

The second floor of the Cheech contains even more astonishing art including more multidimensional pieces except smaller than the giant one you see when you enter the building.

Depending where you stand in front, to either side, what you see is quite different. I kept thinking some old Flemish art or Hieronymus Bosch meets modern technology.

Much of the art makes a social or political statement especially about colonization, culture, poverty.

Some of the art is reminiscent of Mayan and Aztec calendars.

Hearts appear in many of the paintings.

And of course Frida.

This is a space ship with changing eyes. If you walk around the back there is a creature inside watching everything with monitors.

An Afternoon at the Cheech–1

January 6, 2023 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Some of you may remember the comedy duo Cheech and Chong way back in the day. Cheech has spent his life collecting Chicano and Chicana art. This year he gave a lot of his art collection to open a new museum in Riverside, California. Earlier this week my grandson, his girlfriend and I went to visit the museum. Photos and videos are allowed without flash. The following is the first set of photos I took. Please note that you need to see this art for yourself. Photos do not do it justice. Much of it is multidimensional and looks very different depending on where the viewer stands.

This is what you see when you enter the door; it is two stories high and multidimensional. Look how different the next photo of it looks from this one.

Walk farther to the side and it looks totally different again.

This speaks for itself. Right now where I live the air is clean enough that unless it is foggy, I can see all the way to downtown LA 30 plus miles away.