Book review: Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

I am familiar with many literatures out of my geographical and cultural comfort zone, but the Japanese literature is one of those that cannot cease to puzzle me. The more I read the more far I feel from a palpable understanding of the local cultural soul. 

I´ve intellectually met Sayaka Murata through her short story Convenience Store Woman. Earthlings - translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori brings the discussion about what is normal and what is not from the social point of view to another level. A topic I have personally very conflicting thoughts about it. Although I may accept at a great extent the deconstruction of normality, even beyomd the power-focused interpretation in Foucault´s terms, I am relatively uncomfortable with the everyday interaction with not-normality on a daily, personal basis. 

´I was used with Mom saying I was hopeless. And she was right, I really was a dead loss. The rice I dished up just lay flat in the bowl instead of being nicely rounded´. 

Natsuki believes she is from Planet Popinpobopia belonging to the Magic Police sent to Save the Earth. Her stuffed animal, Piyyut - see the cover - gives her magical powers. Many kids do this at a certain extent, with their imaginary friends and hopes that their stuffed animals can talk or help them when the world of adults fails them. But Natsuki keeps the same mindframe at an older age too, after being faced with an utter cruelty from her mom and killing a teacher that abused her sexually. Her escape from the Baby Factory town and mindset was to marry a man who, similarly to her, was looking to escape the social pressure. Their arrangement was to keep their separate lives while maintaining a marriage of conivence, where sexual contact was out of question. The intrusive society does not help them and they have to run away or submit and either behave properly - get a job and keep it, make children - or part ways. They run to Natsuki´s grandparents house, to join her cousin - once childhood ´husband´ Yuu, initially an alien soul too, who remained skeptical about his condition. Once becoming aware of their alien condition, the three of them are sliding into an abysmal return to their normality. Which, in Earthling´s terms means more than perfect foolishness. I´ve felt I am in a narrative deem of Peter Greenway´s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife&Her Lover. A delirious tremens...

This matter-of-factly approach of abnormality, in the vein of ´when there are no rules everything is possible to survive´/´homo homini lupus´ kind of approach, is shocking by its cruelty. In the same way that cruelty is a ´normal society´ normative. Its vital energy is used for survival only and this is probably why I am so crossed about many attributes of the characters as they are completely empty from the intellectual point of view. Intellectual life and culture too are man-made constructs indeed but they may offer sometimes a frame for discussion. 

Earthlings is like no other Japanese book I´ve read before but I am not necessarily fond of. I would be interested though to read and find out more about the local, Japanese-centered discussion about the ideas shared in this book. As I said at the beginning, the more I read the more puzzled I am about Japan - even despite spending one full year there.  

Rating: 3 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Book Review: The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao

One of the intellectual achievements of this strange personal and global year was to get to know a lot of diverse voices representing authors from almost all over the world. As all my fantastic travel plans are on hold as for now at least I can travel far away with only my heart and my mind getting to know facts that make me curious to explore more - hopefully in person in a near future.

Tiffany Tsao is an author and translator (Indonesian to English) of Chinese-Indonesian descent, currently living in Australia. The Majesties is a combination of literary fiction and mystery thriller - or rather (rich) family saga whoddunit. 

First and foremost, let´s start with the good things. For instance, the mesmerizing cover: a monarch butterfly on the head of a portrait whose face is made of colourful brushes. Finally a cover that is more than copy-pasting a certain format where only the title and the name of the author changes from a book to another. An excellent visual choice hard to compete with.

Another good thing about the book - which I had access to in audio format - is that there is a story which flows good, with individual episodes which are very well written. There are characters with a strong and complex personality and events they are involved to which are enfolding and are very well inserted into the narrative. The problem is when those episodes are brought together.

The Majesties is focused on the events that lead to the poisoning of 300 people at the Sulinado family gathering. Sulinado are a rich Chinese tycoon family and their killing is the work of Estella, a deceived family member. The story is told by her sister Gwendolyn, the sole survivor of the attack. Betrayed by her husband, a womanizer who ended up - as in died/being murdered/poisoned - as a fanatic born-again Christian, feeling abused by her family who sacrified her for their business interests - and she is not the only one - Estella doesn´t have anything to lose. Without a life of her own, she refuses to cope any more with the game of elegant appearances. As there is no way out, at least let´s prepare an epic revenge. Which succeeds. 

The story has an enormous potential of tension and complex turns of events, but unfortunatelly it is told on a monotonous voice which steals the charm and the literary potential of the story. Which is so pitiful.

Rating: 2.5

Political Thriller Book Review: The New Girl by Daniel Silva

´They were racing westward along the A89 Autoroute, the chief of the Israeli secret intelligence service and the future King of Saudi Arabia´.

I am a big fan of the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva but somehow I skipped the last year installment. When I´ve read the New Girl the dramatic changes in the Middle East were underway and probably those are the best news of this damned year so far: the UAE and Bahrain signed a peace treaty with the state of Israel - although they never been officially at war. The so-called Abraham Accords were announced in a sensitive political moment and at a White House occupied by a problematic president, but no one assumes that they are the result of only of a couple of months of negotiations. Probably, those historical agreements are in the making for good couple of years and hopefully, the two countries that will normalize the relationships with the state of Israel are not the only ones. 

Enough with my political enthusiasm. There is enough to talk about in Daniel Silva´s book. Allon, the Israel´s top spy is operating on behalf of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia - KBM - who has many similarities with the controversial MBS - who allowed the women to drive, but also locked his relatives in Ritz Carlton and also decided the murder of an inconvenient journalist, which in the book is called Omar Nawwaf. 

Allon is trying to save the world balance in the Middle East from a Russian-led conspiration and it sounds as post-Cold War as possible. Realistic yet embelished and antagonised with the courage of writing imagination. Although, as usual, the story has a high dosis of suspense, cruelty and unknown terrorists, as well as old characters, as the Philby daughter, former chief of the British intelligence that spied for the Russians, I´ve felt more than once that the story of the Saudi Crown Prince disbalanced the story and many details were too much molded in order to replicate the real-time events and the character. Otherwise, expect a very suspensful ending.

Silva´s latest, The Order is approaching a topic not necessarily very popular those days, but often associated with a hollow of darkness...Hopefully will be able to finish it in the next four weeks.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Book Review: Man of My Time by Dalia Sofer

It´s not an everyday literary occurence to stay in love with a book I was waiting to read for a long time. Man of My Time by Dalia Sofer - which I had in audiobook format - was a pleasant surprise coming from the author of Septembers of Shiraz, that was also turned into a movie. Surprise because of the maturity of the writing and the complexities of the characters.

I will explain further my literary surprise. I´ve read in the last years a good number of books written by authors of Iranian origin - most of them living in the USA. Especially in the last months, there are a couple of aclaimed titles that were published placed within the events before and after the setting of the Islamic Revolution. Not all of them are equal and the emphasis on the history instead of the focus on the development of the story and of the characters is detrimental to the quality of the writing. Indeed, for the average non-Iranian especially European and American reader, a lot of historical background for understanding the complex Iranian history is needed. But the art of the writer is to create contexts and stories that may save the reader from a long - not always interesting - historical ramble, otherwise available in non-fiction books.

Man of My Time by Dalia Sofer do have some historical - pedagagical intermezzos - but what prevails in the end is the strength and failures of the characters. Especially of the storyteller, Hamid Mozaffarian, member of an educated family that left Iran after the Revolution. He stayed and reached modest professional achievement, in the end as employee of the Cultural and Foreign Affairs ministries.

Why exactly Hamid is telling the story is not clear. Looking for an excuse? For an absolution - including from himself? Trying to repeat his father encyclopedic preoccupations but at a more mundane level?

Hamid betrayed his father - not necessarily as a Freudian temptation. Why, is also not very clear, rather a mixture of youngish lack of conscience and blind enthusiasm and careless for the consequences, as trying to proof his new identity towards the new rulers. His father was against the Shah but assumed that by keeping his position within the Ministry of Culture he will destroy the system. He ended up becoming the system. Hamid will try the same and will end up in the same way. But he will be lonlier as ever: estranged from his family and his child, alienated in a world that he helped to be built - as a post-revolutionary auxiliary interrogator - unaware of its terrible turn of events.

This is what happens when intellectuals - or people with education - accept for different reasons the morganatic marriage with violent ideologies or with mindsets that pretend that killing a part of the population has religious or political excuses.

The ambiance of the story is often heavy but Sofer saves the day with hilarious references and encounters - from the guidance sought by opening My Uncle Napoleon to the religious dangers represented by an indecent woman on a cameo or the visualisation of judicial files brought home into a grocery plastic bag. I´ve always find dictatorship a source of tragi-comical inspiration, but only when you are an observer from afar, not a direct actor of historical events.

A special note to the reader of the audiobook: Navid Navid. A professional actor based in Germany, he made the reading original and alive, bringing sounding color into the story. The only problem - the horrendous French pronunciation, but for once I can be tolerant with such failures.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Review: The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

Michael´s mother is Greek Cypriot - his grandparents call him Mikaelis - and his father is Jamaican. He is growing up in London, gay, surrounded by love and friends, but still not feeling ´enough´.

It´s only for you to decide your identity said Michael, the character of The Black Flamingo, that I had access to as audiobook, read by the author himself in the clean British accent. He is looking for his own magic, but once he got it he is happy to share it with the others. This magic means for him playing in drag. ´I am a man and I want to wear a dress on´ it´s the identity he wants to dress on too. Your gender, assumed by birth and attributed mostly in the society context may matter but should not limit someone. 

In Michael´s world, everything is a choice and this choice empowers. Even coming out it is a personal matter. When done, it should happen for and to yourself, not because other people expect you to behave in a certain way. 

Written from a voice of a teenage searching for identity and ways to express the book has a message to anyone, no matter your choice of gender or ethnic background - personally I´ve loved a lot the idea that you cannot be half/quarter of something, you are a full human being; wish I had this answer long time ago when peopel were counting the percentage of my (very) complex identities I inherited from my very complex family: It´s your choice to defnite - or not - yourself. And this is a very beautiful life line...

The style of the book is easy and addresses probably a teenage audience, but it states simple yet sometimes hard to achieve objectives. Happily, Michael´s world is not stained by open violence and parental denial - his father is absent and his mother, when hearing that he is gay was ´ok with that´, although later when he wondered ´how do they know I am gay´, his mother answered plainly: ´Cruelty is part of life´ - but finding one´s place in this complicated world is not easy. Michael´s message is empowering and his fairytale inspiring.

Rating: 3 stars

My Poetry Book of the Year: Sin by Forugh Farrokhzad

If there is one single poetry book to read over and over again this year, it will be Sin by the less-known Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, excellently translated into English by Sholeh Wolpé, a poet herself.

It´s very difficult to find quality modern and contemporary poetry in flawless English translation. Farrokhzad is one example, altogether with Shamloo or Sohrab Sepehri. Persian poetry sounds, indeed, much better in the original language with the special inflections of the language, but translating them to the non-Persian poetry reader is an act of justice for the beauty of their verse. Especially when, as in the case of Farrokhzad, they are on the black list of the current rulers of Iran. Her brother, the gay entertainer Fereydoon Farrokhzad, was murdered in Germany part of chain murders ordained by the Islamic Republic in 1992. Her sister Pooran Farrokhzad was the author of the first women encyclopedia in Iran.  

Farrokhzad had a short yet creatively rich life - she died in a car accident in her early 30s - being is compared with the young rebelious women of universal poetry like Silvia Plath, Anna Akhmatova, Maria Tsvetaeva or Dahlia Ravikovich. Also a film director, she had to fight against the conservative realm of her everyday life and strict family environment. Her child was taken away and she divorced, and was interned in mental institutions where, among others, she went through electric shocks treatments. 

Her first collection of poems Asir (Captive) was published in 1955. Other volumes and poems followed, published by literary reviews and edition houses. Her openness about intimacy and sexual encounters was new for the public and often she was accused of irreverence. What I´ve discovered myself while reading Sin - which is a selected collection of poems from previous volumes, including the postumous Let Us Believe in the Dawn of the Cold Season - is the complexity of feelings she finelly yet firmly is relating to and about. Sometimes, the words make an arch in the skies like the fluidious characters of Chagall and you feel yourself within the realm of feelings. This approach of full intimacy and declared love was maybe not comfortable to the Persian culture, especially at the time she created as it is not now. The Western reader, familiar with outbursts of feelings and declarations of love, will be overwhelmed too though, as the feelings expressed in Farrokhzad poetry are genuine and definitive. It´s not encounter it is love.

I don´t read too much poetry in translation, but the one provided by Sholeh Wolpé does not sound like a translation. It flows original and flawless and it is such a pleasure for the brain to be able to read this poetry. 

´Happy, because we love

Heartsick, because love is a curse´.

Book Review: If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan

´Tehran isn´t exactly safe for two girls in love with each other´.

I had quite a lot of expectations from If You Could be Mine by Sara Farizan. The topic - gay love in the Islamic Republic of Iran - is interesting beyond the literary approaches. The book was the acclaimed debut of the Iranian author living in America. I don´t know directly how does it feel to be a gay person in Iran, but being gay is considered an ´illness´ and gender change is an official policy, which make the Islamic Republic the second in the world after Thailand for such interventions.

The characters in the book, Nasrin and Sahar are in love since they were little children, but the social and political circumstances were against a love together. Nasrin, a spoiled girl from a rich family, will be married while Sahar is considering a gender change operation. The dynamics between the two are relatively simple and I was expecting more complexity given the religious and political context. Nasrin is manipulating Sahar who is introduced further to the gay world of Tehran by her gay cousin Ali. At a certain point, when Ali is offering her to move together to Turkey, Sahar has a patriotic outburst, but completely out of the blue and without any further explanations or demonstrative behaviors in this respect. Sahar, which is presented as the intellectual, reasonable character of the book is sheepish and is lacking any complexity - either emotional or intellectual. She is just following blindly Nasrin, no matter how much she is used by her. 

Personally I was curious to find out more about the young life in Tehran besides the nose jobs, lavish parties and secret outlet stores (the kind of information easily available from the Rich Kids of Tehran Instagram account anyway). There may be for sure better books written on this topic around the libraries.

Rating: 2.5 stars