A tiny book by the author of “Braiding Sweetgrass” envisions a totally different economy than the kind we have now. She uses a plant, the serviceberry, as a symbol for what she calls the “gift” economy. Instead of everything being focused on maximizing profit, it focuses on sharing and exchange and the idea that natural resources are gifts from Earth, from nature, rather than commodities to be exploited for profit.
She notes that capitalist economies hinge on the concept of scarcity and personal accumulation of wealth often at the expense of others. Gift economies, which occur in many indigenous cultures, focus on the mutual benefit of all which encourages gratitude and trust. Later in the book, she discusses how gift economies can be implemented and flourish alongside the current capitalist economy.
There must be considerable appeal for her concepts because this book has been on the non-fiction best seller list for weeks.
If you have ever felt enchanted by a trip to Rome, you will find this memoir delightful and informative. It made me want to return just to stay a while, wander around, visit the more obscure places Doerr describes, people watch, eat, and drink local wine.
In 2007, Anthony Doerr, the 2015 Pulitzer Price Winner, won the Rome Prize to become a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He and his wife, Shauna, moved to Rome with their newborn twins, Owen and Henry. This memoir memorializes the four seasons they spent living there. They learn to care for babies; wander throughout Rome visiting tourist sites, local restaurants, the butcher, the baker, the toy store; learn enough Italian to acknowledge all the Italians who stop to admire the babies; and attend the vigil for the dying Pope John Paul II.
While there intending to write his later novel (the one that eventually won the Pulitzer) and failing to do so, he does manage to write a short story which I have read in one of his collections and to read everything by Pliny the Elder. His discussions about his readings makes me want to read some of Pliny the Elder myself. As in his short stories and novels, Doerr’s descriptions, language, and observations delight and enchant. This is a wondrous book about one of the world’s oldest and most fascinating cities which he calls, “a Metropolitan Museum of Art the size of Manhattan with no roof, no display cases…
“She was Christian but American Christian, the kind that believed Jesus just needed a bigger gun”–part of the description of the main character’s rich, not dentist mom rich but oil, trust fund rich, blue-eyed, blond girlfriend. Cyrus, the main character is an Iranian American whose father immigrated to the US when Cyrus was a baby after Cyrus’ mom was killed when the US shot down an Iranian passenger plane thinking it was a bomber (July 1988). His dad acquires a job at a Midwestern chicken farm, counting eggs, but special eggs. This farm breeds chickens to grow faster to get to market faster. He works six days a week, long hours, until Cyrus, who excelled in elementary and high school, becomes a sophomore in college. Suddenly, his dad dies.
Cyrus becomes an addict using alcohol and drugs and writes poetry and eventually finishes college. He becomes obsessed with and researches martyrs throughout history–people like Hypatia of Alexandria, Bhagat Singh, Emily Wilding Davison, the Soulit Women. He gets sober and obsessed with his own past. This eventually leads him to travel to Brooklyn to talk to a famous artist whose last exhibit is herself talking to visitors as she dies of cancer. In researching this woman’s paintings, he discovers a strange painting of a young man dressed as an angel whose job as a soldier is to ride at night with a flashlight through the fields of the dead and dying Iranian soldiers consoling them during the Iran/Iraq War. Cyrus knows that his mom’s brother had this actual job during that war and wonders can there be a possible the connection.
Throughout these events the reader is lead to not only explore Cyrus’ thoughts and beliefs but also those of his father, mother, uncle, and best friend, Zee. It is rare for a novel to be both heart wrenching and funny. Akbar accomplishes this task. One moment I found myself laughing out loud and the next almost in tears. I could not stop reading even though the paperback is long. Perhaps my knowing something about Iranian culture, food, etc. helped me appreciate some of the book more than I might have otherwise. Nevertheless, this is a universal story about love, discovering oneself, relationships, parenthood, human nature. It is definitely worth taking the time to read.
While his previous novel, Book Seven for the year, focused on map making, what it is like to be a refugee, and the stories of two, strong girls centuries apart, one of this novel’s main focus is birds. One narrator, at first no name and then later Nadir, relates part of the novel. His mother was an ornithologist who died in a tragic fire. Her ghost often speaks to him. The other main character, Laila, was a famous artist, an illustrator and painter of birds who mysteriously disappeared decades ago. She and a Black ornithologist insisted they had seen a new species of ibis, and she is supposed to have made drawings and paintings of this rare bird but all evidence disappeared with her.
This is also the story of various non-cisgender characters, some of whom hid their true identities from even those closest to them. Additionally, it is the tale of the lives of Syrian Americans in a NYC neighborhood, plus its destruction and renewal. As in his previous novel, the language and descriptions are poetic, often haunting, and sometimes heartbreaking. It also illustrates how our lives are often interrelated even when we are unaware, only to be discovered after years of searching.
I am guessing that the novel is at least somewhat autobiographical given that Nadir, born a girl, knows inside that he is really a boy. Between this novel and the first one, the author transitions from female to male.
Both books are beautifully written and I highly recommend reading them.
Two young heroines dominate this fascinating novel which switches back and forth between the Syria of 2011 and the 12th century. The latter is a girl who disguises herself as a boy to join the quest of a famous mapmaker. Nour, the first girl, lost her father to cancer in NYC. Then her mother, a mapmaker, decides to move herself and the three daughters back to Homs, Syria. They barely settle into their new life when the civil war breaks out and a bomb destroys their house. They become refugees. This is the tale of their harrowing journey from Syria to Jordan to Egypt to Libya to Algeria, then Morocco and finally to Cuenta, the Spainish city on the north coast of Africa, where their uncle lives.
To keep sane, Nour repeatedly tells herself the story of Rawiya, the disguised girl who is an apprentice to the map maker. When he was alive, this was the favorite traditional story her father told her. The book alternates between what is really occurring to Nour and her refugee family and this ancient story. At the beginning of the section for each country through which they travel, there is a touching and beautifully written poem in the shape of the map of that country. The poem for Jordan/Egypt is printed below.
The subtitle of this book is “The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe”.
The empire to which they are referring is the empire created by Charlemagne which was at the height of its power in the early 800s. He had managed to combine the territories of almost all of what we now consider Europe except for the far north and southern Italy and Spain and Greece. He managed to do this through cooperation among the nobles and the elite and it held throughout his life. He helped the spread of Christianity throughout what was previously pagan areas, e.g. the Saxons. Then not long afterward chaos ensued.
This history book details what occurs when fissures develop in what was once a stable social and political network and the bloody consequences of disagreeing on facts and reality. What happened?
For some time after Charlemagne’s death one of his son’s was able to hold the empire together by deftly giving bits of power to various sons and relatives. Once he died, a chaotic blood bath arose. Fathers and sons, brothers, uncles, nephews, everyone was killing or maiming each other for power. If they felt it was too unChristian to kill you, they just blinded you and sent you off to a monastery. If that did not work, then they would declare a female relative to be a witch and we all know what happened to witches. Meanwhile while jockeying for power, all these men declared they were doing what they were doing in the name of Christianity. If one brother won a battle, then he declared himself to be a better Christian than the one that lost. Even monks and bishops and the Pope became involved.
Then came the Battle of Fontenoy in what is now a part of France. Brothers against another brother with each leading more than 10,000 troops and in some cases as many total as 100,000. Watching was a noble who also commanded a huge army, but mostly he decided to just watch. The end result was a total bloodbath with one side violating the then current rules of battle. Normally, battles before this did not include a huge amount of killings in spite of what we now see in movies. This battle left thousands dead for the wolves, vultures, and other scavengers to eat, and the nearby streams ran red with blood. None of the warring brothers were killed so their fighting continued but no one ever really won and the great Frankish Empire created by Charlemagne fell totally apart. Some claim this battle was the beginning of the separation of a lot of Europe into what we now call France and Germany. Currently there is a marker at the place where the battle occurred. Regardless, Europe was never the same again for many centuries.
Note: Many find the world a very violent place today. Currently, wars and revolutions of one kind or another are occurring in many places in the world. Generally speaking, however, we do not find fathers and sons and brothers killing each other for power. We are seeing the consequences of what was once a relatively unified populace disagreeing on the facts and reality. Will we too fall into a dark ages like Europe did?
After reading his other collection of short stories, I ordered this one which is an earlier collection. Once again, he does not disappoint. One of the stories, “The Hunter’s Wife” won the O’Henry Award and has to be one of those most touching and unusual stories I have ever read. One main character, the man who makes his living guiding hunting parties in Montana, becomes obsessed with a young woman he sees in a magic show and follows her everywhere. When he first meets her, she is underage and he does nothing. Later when she is older he relentlessly pursues and marries her. After years of enduring the hardships of living in a remote cabin in the mountains, she leaves. She has always possessed the ability to feel the emotions of both other humans and animals and begins to make her living using this ability to help people. After never seeing her for twenty years, the hunter comes to one of her events. The story details the years between their first meeting and what happens when the hunter attends this event.
The title story, “The Shell Collector”, details the life of a blind expert on certain kinds of sea shells and the marine life that inhabit them, some of which are poisonous. He moves to a remote Pacific island, becomes familiar to those who live there. After a local child becomes ill and her father thinks the shell collector saves her, his peaceful life as he has known it becomes totally upended.
All the stories are notable but another one I found fascinating is “Mkondo”. The main character, Ward Beach, works for a natural history museum and goes to Tanzania to study and collect specimens. While there, he becomes fascinated with a young woman he sees rapidly running through the forest. The rest of the story details his pursuit, their life together, their separate lives, and questions the meaning of what is considered success in life.
I generally am not a short story reader but Doerr’s stories are unique, insightful, touching, and carry a sort of magic not found in many novels or stories.
This book is part of a group read at the church where I sing. Classified as science fiction because it occurs in a society on the moon of a different planet far into the future, it is the cheeriest science fiction I have ever read. One of the main characters, Sibling Dex, is a tea monk who travels from town to town, village to village, dispensing the right herbal tea and “advice” to the people who come to see him. He becomes frustrated and bored with this life and decides to head out into the countryside, out into the untouched nature where all the old roads are overgrown or now non-existent.
Due to past experiences, these humans have freed all the robots after they became sentient, and they have an agreement as to where each lives. In addition, humans have decided to live very differently, leave a lot of nature to nature and so live only in certain areas, in bigger towns and small villages with some nature here and there, but most of nature is now untouched and left to do whatever nature does.
Dex heads out in his tea house wagon which he pedals to generate electricity. It is self containing and he has everything he needs for at least two weeks. At one campsite not too far into the wilderness, a robot named Mosscap appears. Mosscap has volunteered to go into human territory per the ancient agreement between humans and robots and learn about humans. Dex finds this a mixture of frightening, intriguing, and confusing. Yet he agrees to allow Mosscap to accompany him on his adventure. The rest of the book is about what they discover, what they learn from each other, and the future they plan.
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