Book Description
The Book of Salt serves up a wholly original take on Paris in the 1930s through the eyes of Binh, the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Viewing his famous mesdames and their entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binh observes their domestic entanglements while seeking his own place in the world. In a mesmerizing tale of yearning and betrayal, Monique Truong explores Paris from the salons of its artists to the dark nightlife of its outsiders and exiles. She takes us back to Binh's youthful servitude in Saigon under colonial rule, to his life as a galley hand at sea, to his brief, fateful encounters in Paris with Paul Robeson and the young Ho Chi Minh.
Customer Reviews:
Boring... But Well Written.......2007-09-08
I was supposed to read this novel for an Asian Literature class as an undergrad at UCLA (over three years ago) but I could never get past the first few pages. Figuring I'd give it another chance I recently set out determined to discover why a university professor would select it for her class. Apparently I was right the first time; the only thing that got me to the end was Truong's exceptionally well written prose- the actual plot itself literally bored me to sleep on several occasions. Bare in mind, though, I am not particularly interested in Vietnamese history or Gertrude Stein, so if those are topics that interest you it may be a worthwhile read.
Low Sodium.......2007-08-02
A rather dreary book, this- thus the 3. Spectacular writing (4). But participating even on the margin of the scrumptious life of Stein and Toklas poor Binh just never gets a bite. If you're too euphoric right now, read this book. Just the right recipe!
If you enjoyed The Hours, you should love this........2007-05-27
This is a hauntingly beautiful story of Binh, an Indochinese world traveler (and world class chef) who ends up in the Paris home of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. This is NOT a story about food or grand cooking anymore than "The Grapes of Wrath" was about picking vegitables.
This is a richly drawn character study. I found the story compelling and colorful and poignant. Binh's interactions with the two ladies is priceless. The scenes between him and his family - especially those envolving his mother - are quite elegantly rendered. The entire tale is told with exquisite attention to detail.
If you love literary novels that use historical figures as characters, you'll not want to miss this one.
Book is over-hyped fraud.......2007-05-02
Anyone who buys this book believing it is about food, feasting, cooking or sitting in on any of Gertrude Stein's parties at a time when her Paris salon was visited by so many influential artists, writers and other creatives is going to be EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED. Book manages to demean both Stein and Toklas's work and lives as only an envious out-sider can. More of a self-pitying romance novel than historical fiction.
I gave it one star but deserves a black spot. Back cover blurb completely misleading.
Plaintive, poetic and delicious.......2007-01-09
What Ernest Kroll said of Washington, D.C., "How shall you act the natural man in this/Invented city, neither Rome nor home?" could be the anthem for the American psyche. Stories of alienation, of strangeness, of the perpetual foreigner in a land and culture inscrutable, or exotic or simply different and unaccommodating, are our story. It is the person repelled by the tribe, the unelect, the different, she who bears the Scarlet Letter, who fascinates us, perhaps because we Americans feel alienated and separated from the ancient, the profound, the old and settled civilizations, and are uneasy, even lonely, in the artifice of our grand New World. In those who are different we see ourselves, outside but yearning for some attachment, pretending solidarity but ambivalent about our roots and place, nostalgic for times and places we've never seen, that never existed.
Monique Troung strikes the chord of alienation and plays it magnificently in this multi-layered story. It is the fictional memoir of Binh, a Vietnamese cook living in France, who enters the service of Gertrude Stein. Binh is a superb chef, whose many unique and exquisite dishes are served to a Stein and Toklas so self-absorbed that, while they find his cooking delicious, they chomp dumbly through their meals without the presence of mind to appreciate the delicacy and sophistication of his work. Stein and Toklas, of course, like Binh, are strangers in France, alienated by their own special work, by their sexuality, and even by their crudeness and unattractiveness. Binh is a puzzle to them, at once a pet and an artist of the palate whose food they enjoy while his being is ignored or diminished. "Too thin Binh," they call him, playing on his name, putting him in the diminutive, while Binh, who has little English, ponders their meaning but senses their disdain.
Binh is gay, but he is quietly so, secretive and limited in his affairs. Troung's interest is in exploring the wounded and exiled, and while Binh's sexuality is there, she avoids any explicit prose. Indeed, sensuality is seen not in Binh's encounter with his "Sunday Man" (an expatriate American rumored to be part black, another layer of alienation). These encounters are told with tenderness and humor without any meander into explicit sex. The book's sensual indulgence is in the glorious, exotic food Binh prepares, delightfully and artfully described by Troung with concupiscent abandon. We taste it as we read.
In Binh, Troung has created a wry and insightful character, sensitive to the emotions and limitations of all those he encounters. He knows his place but he chafes nonetheless, disdainful of arrogant French colonials, and of those Vietnamese who have forced him to flee Vietnam. He is even disdainful of the self-pitying complaints of his one friend in Vietnam, a Medical Doctor, too proud to be employed as a Veterinarian (the dim fate of a Vietnamese doctor laboring for the French), who instead works as a chauffeur for the French. His friend, burdened with self-induced servitude, is hopelessly in love with a gorgeous French-Vietnamese secretary whose whims are the purpose of his life. She, of course, does not reciprocate to a mere chauffeur, but uses him mercilessly, tantalizes him and aggravates his misery.
All of Binh's observations, complaints and stories are told with a rich descriptive prose that keenly relates the substance of his life, the grittiness of his impoverished home, the tenderness of his mother, his implacable father, and the persistent frustration and ambivalence of vibrant, intelligent, and ambitious people who are forced to bend to colonial masters remarkable mostly for their mediocrity, racism and selfishness.
One might think a novel that layers alienation upon alienation would be grim, but Troung is too good a writer for that. Binh never welters in his own sense of persecution and loneliness. He rides above all that, a tough and compelling character, confident in his own culinary artistry, endowed by Troung with a sardonic humor that propels his story onward.
"The Book of Salt" is a delicious novel by an author with a brilliant future. Don't just read it, savor it. Every word is a confection, every sentence a meal.
Customer Reviews:
Uh. . . .......2005-08-18
I absolutely loved The Children of Promise series by Dean Hughes, but I could not get past Troubled Waters in this series. I got maybe half way through, buy couldn't read anymore because of the way that one certain character is completely fawned over. I'm sorry, but just because someone may be beautiful in outward appearance does not make them a "beautiful" person and it also does mean that every Tom, Dick or Harry on the street is going to fall at their feet. I enjoy other books by Hughes, but I really hesitate at this one.
Where's the next one?!.......2003-01-29
This book is great. I am struggling (still) with finding good books to read, but I finished this one in about 5 days and I even work full time and have stuff going on every night. Great touching story and I can't wait for the next one!!
Average customer rating:
- My Kinda Town
- A Simple Bridge - With Intricate Underpinnings
- Annisquam unveiled
- An incredible read!
- "If all else fails, we should be ready to secede."
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The Siege of Salt Cove: A Novel
Anthony Weller
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War
ASIN: 0393327086 |
Book Description
"A gloriously strange book, both whimsical and brooding."—Jeremy Jackson, People
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has decided to replace Salt Cove's signature wooden bridge with a concrete monstrosity. The authorities are unreasoning and unyielding. The town decides on secession. Jessica Stoddard is a quirky seventy-two-year-old who is determined to keep a record of the event for posterity. She has a passion for the truth, but her account is not entirely reliable, because she also has a passion for the rebellion's ringleader who is...well, a much younger man.
Toby Auberon is a lawyer and a drop-out. He has returned after years in Rio to perfect his mysterious invention in the solitude of the lighthouse. He is drawn, unwillingly, into the dispute when the bureaucracy switches tactics from bullying to armed occupation.
Powerful, poignant, deeply funny, and enriched by the villagers' diverse voices, this is a contemporary farce about a town that dares to rebel against its own government, and to fight back when attacked.
Customer Reviews:
My Kinda Town.......2005-09-23
What a great read - meet all the characters of Salt Cove and have a wonderful time....
A Simple Bridge - With Intricate Underpinnings.......2004-12-23
You would not think a simple story about an old bridge and a big city bent on tearing it down would make for compelling drama. But then, there's nothing predictable about The Siege of Salt Cove. The characters come alive, and the story draws you in, and pretty soon you can't put the book down. It's both a comical and poignant tale. But it's the distinct voices of the characters that really stay with you. You feel you know them, and as you turn the final page, it's awfully hard to see them go.
Annisquam unveiled.......2004-11-19
This is a wonderful fictional study of a lovely real district of Gloucester, MA, where you can visit the wooden bridge and hike around the rocky shoreline and the quaint village. The characters are singular and their viewpoints are represented with a wonderful mix of humor and pathos. Particularly moving is Jessica's internal struggle to supress her longings for a man who is not in her age range but turns out to be quite suitable for her on many levels. Suspense is well maintained throughout and the ending is very satisfying. I just loved it!
An incredible read!.......2004-10-25
This was one of the most delightful and well written novels I have read in a long time. Usually novels written in the format of a different person's perspective for every chapter are disjointed; this novel is magnified by it. Some of the best writing I've discovered in a long time (best to sip this one slowly as every page is special!) along with an incredible plot. Kudos to Weller for nearly a perfect novel.
Also recommended: The Last Convertible - A Man in Full - Boy's Life - Mila 18 - Plum Island - The Charm School - Rookery Blues - Shipping News - Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Pillars of the Earth - Ladder of Years - Summer of Night - Salem Falls
"If all else fails, we should be ready to secede.".......2004-06-01
When the Massachusetts Department of Public Works decides that the picturesque, wooden footbridge linking the village of Salt Cove to the mainland of Leicester is unsafe and will be summarily torn down, the three hundred full-time residents are outraged. And when they see the proposal for the new bridge, a concrete monstrosity strong enough for fire trucks and wide enough for two-way vehicular traffic, they vote for all-out rebellion. Stalwart, unbending Yankees with family histories rooted in the rocky soil of Salt Cove, they are not about to let outsiders tell them that they will benefit from this concrete assault on their aesthetic sensibilities. The idea of two-way vehicular traffic is even less appealing, as it will bring outsiders into the village. With New England determination and some hard-headedness, they decide to take on the state and wage a mini-war in an attempt to break a state-imposed siege of the village.
Recording the events is Jessica Stoddard, a 73-year-old spinster and life-long resident of Salt Cove. Fiesty and independent, Jessica fears no one and tolerates no nonsense. Directing the rebellion is a quiet man in his early forties named Toby Auberon, a relative newcomer to the village, regarded as a hippie, who has leased the now-automated lighthouse and, until now, has kept his legal background a secret. Jessica, Toby, and an additional thirty (or more) characters narrate their own versions of the events in Salt Cove, each of these beautifully realized voices unique and easily recognizable, and many of them hilarious. Quirky imagery combines with these singlar voices to create especially memorable pictures of people and events.
Told with tongue in cheek and a good deal of mild satire, this is a loving picture of village life by an author who respects his characters and sees them in the context of a wider world. And however implausible the developing love story may seem between Jessica and the much younger Toby, Weller makes us understand and appreciate its sweetness, especially in contrast to the outside events. As the government escalates the siege to include Humvees, National Guard tanks, underwater demolition experts, the FBI, and SWAT teams, Salt Cove counters with its tireless citizens, a crazy militia unit from Missouri, a missile found in a fishing net, and plastique explosives. The inevitable bloodshed is a jarring event, a harsh blow which comes just when the reader is loving the characters and smiling at their actions. Full of New England eccentrics who willingly risk all, the novel realistically depicts governmental insensitivity to locally important landmarks but ultimately leaves the reader smiling. (4.5 stars) Mary Whipple
Average customer rating:
- ASTOUNDING..........
- Worth a Look
- A Time-traveling poltergist!
- Amazingly Original, Breathtakingly Beautiful
- The Salt Roads is amazing.
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The Salt Roads
Nalo Hopkinson
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
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ASIN: 0446677132 |
Amazon.com
In beautiful prose, Nalo Hopkinson's The Salt Roads tells how Ezili, the African goddess of love, becomes entangled in the lives of three women. Grief-powered prayers draw Ezili into the physical world, where she finds herself trapped by her lost memories and by the spiritual effects of the widespread evil of slavery. Her consciousness alternates among the bodies/minds of several women throughout time, but she resides mostly in three women: Mer, an Afro-Caribbean slave woman/midwife; Jeanne Duval, Afro-French lover of decadent Paris poet Charles Baudelaire; and Meritet, the Greek-Nubian slave/prostitute known to history as St. Mary of Egypt.
Ezili becomes entangled with Mer because the midwife's prayers helped draw her into the mortal world. The novel presents a reasonable, though undeveloped, connection between Meritet/St. Mary, the Virgin Mary, and the goddesses of Africa. However, it's not clear why Ezili becomes entangled with Jeanne Duval. This is because The Salt Roads is sketchy, its three storylines compressed; the novel reads more like three novellas incompletely braided. This is a shame, because each mortal character's life could have made a fine, full, fascinating novel by itself.
John W. Campbell Award winner Nalo Hopkinson's first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her second novel, the New York Times Notable Book Midnight Robber, was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and James Tiptree Jr. Awards. The Salt Roads is her third novel. --Cynthia Ward
Book Description
In beautiful prose, Nalo Hopkinson's The Salt Roads tells how Ezili, the African goddess of love, becomes entangled in the lives of three women. Grief-powered prayers draw Ezili into the physical world, where she finds herself trapped by her lost memories and by the spiritual effects of the widespread evil of slavery. Her consciousness alternates among the bodies/minds of several women throughout time, but she resides mostly in three women: Mer, an Afro-Caribbean slave woman/midwife; Jeanne Duval, Afro-French lover of decadent Paris poet Charles Baudelaire; and Meritet, the Greek-Nubian slave/prostitute known to history as St. Mary of Egypt.Ezili becomes entangled with Mer because the midwife's prayers helped draw her into the mortal world. The novel presents a reasonable, though undeveloped, connection between Meritet/St. Mary, the Virgin Mary, and the goddesses of Africa. However, it's not clear why Ezili becomes entangled with Jeanne Duval. This is because The Salt Roads is sketchy, its three storylines compressed; the novel reads more like three novellas incompletely braided. This is a shame, because each mortal character's life could have made a fine, full, fascinating novel by itself. John W. Campbell Award winner Nalo Hopkinson's first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her second novel, the New York Times Notable Book Midnight Robber, was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and James Tiptree Jr. Awards. The Salt Roads is her third novel. --Cynthia Ward
Customer Reviews:
ASTOUNDING.................2006-06-25
I am a 22 year old college student and I chose this book because I was tired of reading all of the street fiction out there. From the first page of this book, Nalo captures me. I am entagled in a story about Ezili, the African goddess of love. She emerges in the lives of three women: Mer, a slave healer who was also a lesbian, Jeanne, a mulatto woman who was the mistress of poet Charles Bedulaire, and Meritet, a Greek slave/prositute. Each of these women had their own battles to fight. Mer, was sent on a mission to see why the salt roads were blocked from the African Gods. Jeanne was given a disease by her lover than untimately diabled her, and Meritet was given self-awareness and the sense to hear people's thoughts. Nalo's poetic prose was what made the book SO good........I couldn't stop reading it. I can't wait until her new book comes out and I'm going to purchase all of her other novels. READ IT!! You won't be disappointed.
Worth a Look.......2004-11-23
I absolutely loved Ms. Hopkinson's debut novel, BROWN GIRL IN THE RING, so I was really hopeful about this ambitious novel.
THE SALT ROADS is a non-linear story in four parts. The narrative switches back and forth between women of color from all over the world. The characters are Mer, a Haitian healer on a plantation; Jeanne, a mixed race woman in Baudelaire's France; Thais, an Egyptian hooker in Greece; and Ezili, the goddess figure that loosely ties the narratives together.
SALT ROADS tells their tales of love and lost. While the premise is engaging, I was never really aborbed with it and didn't find any of the characters (except for Mer) engaging. Self-absorbed Jeanne, for example, is particularly unsympathetic and distant.
Hopkinson's strength is in her poetic use of language. Her scenes and dialog are lush and sensual but the story itself left me hanging. Most of the characters are so isolated that it's difficult to see how they truly interact with their surroundings.
In the end, I think I might have enjoyed the novel more had
Ezili been a more dominant character.
A Time-traveling poltergist!.......2004-11-03
The Salt Roads is the third novel by science fiction writer, Nalo Hopkinson; however, this novel is really more of a historical fantasy. Hopkinson combines elements of voodoo, mythology and Christianity to weave a very interesting story that shares a common symbolic thread -- salt -- the salt in tears, in sweat, in blood and even in the sea.
With the unfortunate burial of a stillborn infant, the goddess Ezili is evoked from the prayers of three Caribbean slave women to their individual gods. Ezili is the goddess of sex and love. She possesses the ability to occupy the minds and bodies of three different women during various periods of time. With her birth and inhabitation of these women, Ezili offers the strength to love and hope for a better life.
In eighteenth century Saint Dominique, Mer, a Caribbean slave women, has the gift of healing. She is content with her life as a slave and spending time with her female lover until she receives a visit from the spirit Lasiren, who gives her a message to save the slaves on the plantation. Ezili gives her the strength she needs to take on the responsibility. She faces several challenges with a sorceror named Makandal who is starting a slave revolt on the plantation. Her relationship with her lover is threatened when her lover's husband returns to the plantation with an invitation for Tipingee to leave with him.
In nineteenth century Paris, Jeanne Duval, a dancer and the lover of poet Charles Baudelaire, is seeking true love and security. Because she is of African descent, she can never be more than Charles' mistress because he is too cowardly to stand up to his overbearing mother who controls all of his money. Theirs is a twisted love affair that leaves Jeanne unsatisfied. Jeanne is the first body that the spirit Ezili possesses. In Jeanne, Ezili learns and grows. When Jeanne is inattentive or asleep that Ezili is free to travel through space and time. The spirit of Ezili gives Jeanne the strength to find true love even after falling victim to a devastating illness.
In fourth century Alexandria, Meritet is a nubian prostitute. Meritet is inspired by the tales of Jerusalem and decides to travel there. She takes along her friend Judah, a male prostitute, and they use their bodies as payment for their fare to Jerusalem. Once they arrive in Jerusalem, Judah seems to prosper while Meritet is faced with misfortune. After the spirit of Ezili possess her, Meritet is changed from a prostitute to a saint, a founder of a religion.
The Salt Roads is a very good book. It is not a quick read and does not follow a logical storyline; it's fantasy, so the elements would not make sense to a logical thinker. The book can also be pretty graphic and extremely gross at some points. Overall, it was an excellent read. I applaud Nalo Hopkinson on this effort.
Reviewed by Paula Henderson of Loose Leaves Book Review
Amazingly Original, Breathtakingly Beautiful.......2004-10-14
Mer, a healer and midwife, is an African slave on a sugar plantation on Saint Domingue (renamed Haiti in 1804). Jeanne Duval is an Afro-French dancer and courtesan living in Paris, and the mistress of 19th-century poet Charles Baudelaire. Meritet is a Greek-Nubian prostitute in fourth-century Egypt, better known to the world as Saint Mary. Something connects these three women across the span of time--something larger than any of these women could ever suspect.
When three Caribbean slave women, led by Mer, come together to bury one of the women's stillborn son, their powerful grief and prayers call the attention of Ezili, an African-Caribbean goddess. Using the unused life force of the dead child, Ezili moves back and forth across time, possessing and working her will through various bodies.
Jeanne is one of the goddess' most frequent vehicles--mainly because Ezili finds herself inexplicably tethered to the beautiful French dancer. She is free to inhabit other bodies only when Jeanne, slowly dying of syphilis, is in a deep dream state. Ezili plants the seeds of revolution in Saint Domingue through Mer, and sends Meritet on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
What all these women have in common is salt--in all its various forms. Whether the salt of tears, the salt of the ocean, or the salt of sweat, the goddess travels the Salt Roads to accomplish her goal. The question is "What is her goal?" Not even Ezili fully understands at first, but as she grows more powerful, and comes to know the many aspects of herself, all is revealed--both to her and the reader.
Author Nalo Hopkinson beautifully weaves her stories together in a broken narrative, jumping back and forth through time and between characters. Some readers may have a little difficulty finding the rhythm of her storytelling, but the reward for their perseverance is great. Hopkinson writes in a flowing, sensual, sometimes poetic, style, but her rich use of history keeps the book grounded in realism. While the stories of the three women are often heartbreaking, Hopkinson skillfully breaks up the sometimes heavy narrative with light touches of humor sprinkled throughout--the way a good chef uses salt.
Ultimately uplifting and filled with hope, The Salt Roads is a beautiful book-one that stays with you long after you close the cover. The Salt Roads is the winner of the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Novel.
The Salt Roads is amazing. .......2004-09-16
No one writes like Nalo Hopkinson and she does not write to the market. She writes what she writes and I'm glad she wrote The Salt Roads. It is extraordinary. It isn't always an easy book to read because life was not always easy for these women.
Average customer rating:
- Misunderstood
- Modern Arabic Epic Novel
- 'A man could not tie his fate to a camel'
- Classic of modern Arabic literature
- A sorrowful repeat of history
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Cities of Salt
Abdelrahman Munif
Manufacturer: Vintage
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The Yacoubian Building: A Novel
ASIN: 039475526X
Release Date: 1989-07-17 |
Book Description
Banned in Saudia Arabia, this is a blistering look at Arab and American hypocrisy following the discovery of oil in a poor oasis community.
Customer Reviews:
Misunderstood.......2007-09-13
The first volume is the most interesting of the trilogy. It tells the story of two villages and their people in an arab country and how they were destroyed by technology and the lust for oil of the Americans. It somehow begins upside-down. The third volume is the beginning of the end and the first one is about the "result". I recommend the book because it is a "fictionary" example of the modern arab countries that have been developed because of the oil industry - and a critic view to the Saudi regime. After all, this book is banned in Saudi Arabia and not without a cause.
Modern Arabic Epic Novel .......2007-08-19
This novel was published in Arabic in 1984 and in English in 1987. It's only the first section of a five-book Arabic-language work that totals some 2,500 pages, covers seven decades and is said to be the longest novel in modern Arabic literature. The second and third sections have been published separately as The Trench and Variations on Night and Day. It appears that the fourth and fifth sections haven't been published yet in English.
This first book covers the period roughly from the 1930s to 1950s. It begins with the pious, poor inhabitants of an oasis in the desert whose peace and social harmony are disrupted by the discovery of oil by American researchers who've been invited into the country. Six hundred pages later, it ends following a mass strike over injustice in the coastal city that's grown up around the pipeline to the interior. In between, it shows the impact of modernization brought about by the development of oil, from the locals' point of view. And the resentment caused by the presence of non-Muslims, the increasing materialism and loss of spiritual and communal values, and a backward, paternalistic local government that ignores the attendant social problems.
The technologically superior Americans, despite their practical competence and professed good intentions, are depicted in this book ultimately as the real villains, because of their foreignness, utter lack of understanding of the inhabitants' world, and the negative effects of the modernization they've set in motion.
A recurring pattern in the novel is that none of the parties involved comprehend the factors behind events that tie them all together, and none make an effort to understand the other. (One individual who's something of an exception disappears into the desert early in the novel.) For the most part, the locals don't grasp clearly the significance of what the Americans are doing. The latter make no effort to comprehend the locals and their motivations or actions, unless they perceive a threat to the benefits of oil. And the local ruler spends much of his time away from both in his newly constructed palace, obsessed with the workings of dazzling imports like the telescope, stethoscope, radio, automobile and telephone.
The author, who was also an oil economist and political activist, is considered a pioneer of writing that reflected social, economic and political developments in the modern Arab world. A member/associate of the socialist, pan-Arab nationalist Ba'ath Party until the early 1980s, he wrote partly to counter official history, which he believed up to that point had served mainly the interests of the West and the ruling governments and ignored ordinary people's experience.
He based a number of occurrences in the novel on real events in Saudi Arabia, although the country in his novel goes unnamed. There are differences from reality, though: the local ruler in the book is depicted as a buffoon rather than a strong, independent leader in his own right. And there's nothing in the book like a fundamentalist movement that gained power with the state and rising oil revenues, as did the Wahhabis.
I agree with other reviewers that this book is important for showing a widespread point of view in the Arab world concerning relations with the West and the impact of the oil economy on local values. Tragically, this view is characterized mainly by a sense of victimization and religious profanation. In those respects this book, written a quarter-century ago, can be regarded as sounding prophetic themes.
I wasn't enchanted by the style, which was deliberate in pacing, with lengthy narrations and digressions, said to be influenced by traditional oral storytelling modes, and with an ending full of magic realist visions. Or by the characters, many of whom were stand-ins for various pieties and evils. And I found it difficult to believe the depiction of the paradise on earth that was the oasis before the discovery of oil. In some ways, for example its black-or-white morality and the lack of depth to its character-symbols, this novel reminded me of Soviet proletarian works from the 1930s, with a difference being that its model society seemed placed in the romanticized past rather than the future.
'A man could not tie his fate to a camel'.......2007-03-16
Set in the 1930s, this novel explores the impact on and ultimate destruction of an oasis community when oil exploration begins in a fictional gulf emirate.
This complex and large novel unfolds over a number of years gradually revealing an aspect of change as the consequences become apparent. While the focus is on the upheaval caused by American influence in relation to oil, this set of circumstances has been repeated around the world throughout time.
I wish only that I could read it in Arabic, if only to become immersed more completely in the cultural nuances. Peter Theroux's translation is excellent and makes this novel accessible to those of us who cannot read Arabic.
Highly recommended to those readers who want to reflect, just a little, on the impact of change and the breakdown of communities in the face of 'progress'.
'Do you know your enemy?' 'My enemy knows himself'.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Classic of modern Arabic literature.......2006-12-24
Published in 1984, this classic of modern Arabic literature describes the early years of oil exploration and development of the petroleum industry in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. It is told from the point of view of the Arabs themselves, the inhabitants of desert settlements whose lives are forever transformed by the appearance of American engineers who bring to an end a way of life they have known for centuries. There are many themes in this 600+ page novel, and prominent among them is the collision of cultures as Munif's unsophisticated and superstitious characters are often appalled by the behavior of the foreigners in their midst and try unsuccessfully to understand them, often finding reason enough to regard them as infidels and any attempt to accommodate them an invitation to possession by demons.
Munif's is a rambling, episodic story with a host of characters, some central to the narrative for a while and then retreating into the background. The main character, if there is one, is the community itself, the men who work for the company or who make a living in the boom town that springs up around it. We also get to know the emir, who takes up residence there and is introduced to the West through mystifying artifacts of its technology: a telescope, a radio, a stethoscope, a telephone (it is the 1930s). While the inhabitants of the town are promised untold wealth in exchange for the surrender of their way of life, what we see in the book is a gradual decline in their quality of living, and key characters disappear into the desert, grow ill and die, or are killed. At the end, one of these deaths precipitates a labor dispute that Munif leaves largely unresolved, as a sign of an Arab-American future marked by continued troubles.
It's a fascinating novel, translated by Peter Theroux, that reveals in fact very little about the crude oil industry itself. Instead, we come to know in considerable detail the values, beliefs, and life experience of its Arab characters and the fabric of daily life that holds them together. Often at odds with each other and struggling in their differences to preserve a sense of identity in a rapidly changing environment, they represent a social world that is Dickensian in its diversity. But besides that one comparison, it is a book almost unlike any other, and well worth reading for the window it opens onto a revealing view of modern Arab history.
A sorrowful repeat of history.......2005-07-22
Cities of salt is a historical fiction book set in an unnamed Arab country during the first half of the 20th century. It describes the changes in the place, a semi-arid desert, and its local Muslim inhabitants over this time period. Specifically, it shows how the local Arab communities are changed for the worse by the intrusion of Western individuals, Western corporations, and Western society as embodied by the oil corporations.
This society begins as an egalitarian community based on family ties and extended kinships. Everybody knows and trusts each other. Gates, land titles and other ways in which individuals divide up resources do not exist, and all is shared in common. Likewise guns and violence are almost non-existent as conflicts are solved slowly and surely by long and lengthy discussions.
Then Western geologists enter the scene and discover oil. Western oil corporations are quick to follow. To get access to the oilwells, and to ship them out via pipelines requires control of land, which of course is communally owned and used. To solve this dilemma, the corporations try to cajole and bribe the locals to give up rights to these lands. This often did not work, so the corporations resort to a tactic that was used against Native Americans and Africans in the previous four centuries. Specifically, the local tribes had nominal leaders. The corporate representatives would bribe these leaders with modern marvels such as the telephone, repeating guns, television, ice, etc... Slowly these local leaders would switch loyalties from their own tribes to the Westerners. Eventually, these local leaders, and their henchman, would sell out their fellow Arabs, order locals of the land needed by the oil corporations, and back up their orders with their newly acquired guns.
Overall, the egalitarian, communal society that existed was transformed into a dictatorship propped up by Western oil interests. A ruling class was created that was distinct from and unrepresentative of the people at large. Oil, and the control of its acquisition, transportation, and distribution, replaced people and communal consensus as the source of power. And this is how many of the modern Arab nations came into being. All in all this is a great book, probably the best fiction book to read to understand the thinking of Al Qaeda and roots of Arab anger at America. The cloest way to describe it is the Arab world's version of America's Grapes of Wrath; the destruction of a communal and family-based way of life by modern corporations.
Book Description
Anna Stockton was a bright, imaginative child exulting in a rare freedom in the mountains of North Carolina who grew into a young woman possessed of romantic yearnings and a great love of books. Hungering to make a new kind of life for herself, she marries John Bayley,a man twice widowed, and begins a family amid a difficult and fiery union. Set in the fictional hamlet of Faith, North Carolina, Salt weaves together the lives of Anna's family and friends in a remarkably moving novel of exultation and despair, of grief and ghosts.
Customer Reviews:
Poetic and satisfying read.......2007-07-17
I am hooked on North Carolina authors, especially ones that take place in the western NC mountains. This book tops Cold Mountain, Thirteen Moons and Gap Creek. Anna's life is definitely one of hardship, especially being married to John as a step-mother to his children. She is a wonderful woman very interested in dancing and music and her husband tries to suppress her desire for anything other than square dancing. "Dancing in the round" with another woman was sinful in John's eye. The way Anna handles her life is remarkable and she is a lady to be admired. I can imagine my great-grandmother living in the same lifestyle.
Salt by Isabel Zuber.......2006-11-14
Very interesting book. Speaks to the rise and fall of prosperity and how we set our priorities as viewed through the lives of the characters!? Historical fiction.
Salt worth savoring.......2006-01-27
This is a beautiful book. I've started so many bestsellers lately and stopped halfway through them, disappointed in both the book and myself for my lack of persistance. I was starting to be afraid that I had lost the knack of reading. SALT restored my faith in my own ability to become immersed in a book and in the fact that there are still books which can totally entrance, amaze, delight, and humble the reader. SALT is the story of a woman who I would have dearly loved to have known. She had a life that was far from satisfying and yet she found beauty almost everywhere she looked and was a blessing to everyone around her. Thank you, Isabel Zuber, for this beautiful blessing of a book!
A haunting story that leaves you unfulfilled.......2005-01-09
A novel beautifully written, very lyrical but yet a bit depressing. I found it very educational to read of life that depended on the land, however, it took me to a place that I thought was a very sad time for women to live in.
When life moved at a slower pace..........2004-12-31
An interesting story that follows a woman throughout her lifetime. There was something very powerful about this novel that I can't quite put my finger on. It brings a longing for simple pleasures and the closeness of family. Fans of Fannie Flagg should enjoy this novel.
Average customer rating:
- Not much of a book about not much at all
- Boring, disappointing book
- A masterful characterization
- Searching for the Other Half
- Can you go home again?
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Salt Dancers: A Novel
Ursula Hegi
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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Floating in My Mother's Palm
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The Vision of Emma Blau : A Novel
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Intrusions
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Sacred Time: A Novel
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Stones from the River
ASIN: 0684802090 |
Amazon.com
Ursula Hegi follows her masterful and critically acclaimed novel Stones from the River with a dramatic contemporary tale of one woman's journey back to her childhood through layers of memory, fear, longing, and love. Unmarried and pregnant at forty-one, Julia returns home to a father she hasn't seen in twenty-three years, and to the memories of secrecy, betrayal, abuse and abandonment that haunt her still. Haunting and lyrical, beautiful and harrowing,
Salt Dancers fulfills the promise of Hegi's earlier work.
Book Description
Salt Dancers is at once a brilliant portrait of an
American family, a story of the secrets families
guard, and a moving account of one woman's
journey back to a past filled with elusive memories
and suppressed rage. Why did Julia's mother
disappear one day without so much as a word? How did
a loving father who taught her such a beautiful thing
as the salt dance become such a terrifying and abusive
presence? These are the questions which Julia
must confront when she returns to Spokane,
Washington, after an absence of twenty-three years.
Salt Dancers, a superbly written novel, is a poignant
and truthful chronicle of self-discovery and the
power of resurrection.
Customer Reviews:
Not much of a book about not much at all.......2004-12-09
Very disappointing. Doesn't rate with Hegi's other books.
Boring, disappointing book.......2002-01-23
I can hardly believe this is the same writer of Stones from the River and Floating in my Mother's Palm.
The story is boring (standard story about a disfunctional family survivor - what every other contemporary American book is about), and not particularly well written either.
After reading a wonderfully written, profound book like Stones from the River, so deep and thought provoking, the self-absorbed navel-gazing main character of Salt Dancers is unbearable.
What a let down...
A masterful characterization.......2001-07-24
RETURNING HOME FOR UNDERSTANDING AFTER 23 YEARS: A haunting story about a young woman that goes back home after 23 years and an unplanned pregnancy to get answers from her past so she can feel comfortable that she will make a good mother to her child. Julia has avoided going home until now, running from her past and trying to create a life for herself independent of it. However, after one failed marriage and an unconventional relationship resulting in this pregnancy, she felt it was time to confront her demons or her father as the case may be.
ABANDONED BY HER MOTHER AND PHYSICALLY ABUSED BY HER FATHER: Julia and her younger brother were abandoned by their mother when her mother left her unsatisfying and later abusive marriage to their father. Julia's recollections of her mother are about the good times and she has built up considerable fantasies about why her mother left them. She recognizes this, but mostly is troubled by the fact that her father beat her exclusive from her brother, later as she was growing up, and she never understood why. Also her brother remained with their father after they grew up and even though he briefly attended college, returned to the family home and continued to remain living with their father. She did not understand why he too did not choose to escape.
JULIA WANTS TO UNDERSTAND WHY: Julia has returned to understand the past. This is not so easy as the past and present are not so easy to resolve to one another. Julia's father is now a frail older man that is well respected in the community. Only a few friends knew of the beatings Julia suffered at his hands. He is now and has through their correspondence over the years, very considerate of her needs. She feels this is all a sham and is determined to resolve her childhood traumas.
USULA HEGI, DOES A MASTERFUL JOB OF BRINGING THE CHARACTERS TO LIFE: Ursula Hegi, does once again a masterful job of creating the musings of the main character's mind, weaving past present and other thoughts that crowd Julia's mind as she lives from day to day. You understand what Julia does and why she believes this. You can see how her mind works and what is important to her. Ms. Hegi did this masterfully in both "Stones from the River", "Floating in my Mother's palm" and "Unexpected pleasures" as well.
Searching for the Other Half.......2001-04-21
The search for one's mother never stops, even when your mother is always with you,(for who can ever really know their mother) but when she just one day disappears, the heartbreak and longing that follow are incomparable. When Julia was only nine years old, her mother just vanished, never to return. She and her brother, Travis, were left with a father who loved them, but also drank too much and occasionally, took out his despair on Julia in the form of beatings and rage. Although she left as soon as life would permit, she was forever filled with the hate left from those years and the abuse she sustained from her father and her brother's lack of help. When she returns at age 41, pregnant, her thoughts are full of what kind of mother she will be as she encounters her father, now old and slow, for the first time in twenty years. Memories come and go, but slowly she realizes that some of those memories are good. The universal fact that all people are selective in their memories is reflected in Julia's realization that her childhood was not all bad, and that her father's selective memory had blocked out all those times of anger and rage against her until he had simply lost them. This is a novel of redemption, not only for Julia but for her brother as well. That her father is somewhat redeemed in her mind and the realization that she does love him are in fact, the anchoring point of the novel. The reclamation of their mother is a secondary and restoring event that brings the lives of brother and sister--and mother--to welcome fruition and peace. Julia finds as she leaves her mother, that she can be a good mother herself as she treasures the hope that her own mother will be part of her future life. Ultimately a life affirming book, Salt Dancers examines family and personal issues that haunt many people and it forces the reader to reevaluate their own memories.
Can you go home again?.......2000-07-04
At 40, Julia is pregnant and unmarried. And knowing that her father is aging rapidly, she decides to return home and put to rest some of the demons which have plagued her for the past 23 years. Running away from a home which provided her with difficulty while growing up, it is as if Julia must now come to terms with this before she can become a parent herself.
Salt Dancers focuses on various themes often discussed today which in the able hands of Ms. Hegi become painfully fresh and new. Themes such as forgiveness, emotional and physical abuse, abandonment, closure and finally moving on.
Although Hegi is best known for her book Stones from the River, I have found all of her titles compelling, especially this one.
Customer Reviews:
How Many Roads: A Novel.......2004-09-25
Once again, I was completely captivated by Dean Hughes and his continuation of the Thomas family story. His history and insights in the turbulant times of the 60's opened my eyes to the many trials people faced.
Amazon.com
What a terrific book this is! It begins with an opening of mythic import where Guineau John, ancestor of black people, tucks two corncobs under his arms and flies home to Africa. His descendants, too heavy to fly because they have eaten salt, remain on the island of Trinidad, the novel's setting. The book is peopled with memorable characters, such as Alford George, an awkward, ungainly boy who does not speak till he is 6, spends his days reading, and grows up to be a schoolteacher and then politician. One of Lovelace's central concerns, expressed early in the first chapter, is how to deal with freedom after centuries of oppression. But this is no humorless polemic; it is a living, breathing novel, peopled with recognizable characters wrestling with all-too-human dilemmas.
Book Description
A West Indian novel of "generous, torrential prose"(New York Times Book Review), winner of the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize.
One hundred years after Emancipation, the diverse people of Trinidad—African, Asian, and European—have not settled into the New World. In Salt, an unforgettable cast of men and women strive with wit and passion to make sense of life in an evolving homeland.
Customer Reviews:
Salt is a rich, lyrical multi-storied novel of the Caribbean.......1997-05-03
The novel Salt (Faber 1996) has won the 1997 Commonwealth Writer's Prize which probably comes as no surprise to the Caribbean reader, for Earl Lovelace is a highly acclaimed and tried writer from Trinidad. He is noted for a profoundly lyrical and ecstatic style which imbues the ordinary with the magic of hope. Ensconsed in the landscape of the island, the novel Salt weaves the stories of some familiar characters like Miss Myrtle and Bango with some new and yet untold stories, particularly those of Caribbean politicians hailing from a rainbow of ethnic backgrounds. These men have been given a mandate after independence to change the social structure of the island, but are shown to be ineffectual, bombastic, idealistic, confused. Lovelace' touch is as usual however compassionate. He is deeply insightful of the misfit between the aspirations of political figures and the resources of the island, which are rooted in his narrative with a connection to Africa. This is embodied in the figure of an old stickfighter Bango who knows and tells the stories of the island, but who is also shown to point a way forward with his annual multi-ethnic parade of children. Bango carries the weight of the island's past with a conviction of his own belief in the value of a community of feeling, which makes the politician's plans all the more heavy, foreign, absurd, misguided. And so, contrasting village folk with the urban politician, a characteristic distinction made in Caribbean and African literature, Lovelace writes urgently of the need to recover the past in a way which can fill the present more meaningfully, to erase the loss which came with the forced movement of peoples across the Atlantic, to even come to re-remember that there has been that loss. This central narrative is spun around another one of the relationship between women and men, and between mothers and sons. The men appear in the active dreams of the women, especially the single women. Yet the women in the everyday world are seen to support, advise, guide the men. The mutualities within these relationships as evoked in Salt is perhaps not politically correct yet is conveyed as a reality nevertheless. It is hard to capture in this short review the depth of feeling that Lovelace brings to these characters, in their small actions, their few words, and their large as life troubles. This book is therefore highly recommended to those interested in new literature of change, protest, and celebration
Average customer rating:
- Tangy and Alive
- This is a classic.
- Too perfumy.
- I was inspired!
- Breathtaking. Profound.
|
The Salt House: A Summer on the Dunes of Cape Cod
Cynthia Huntington
Manufacturer: Dartmouth
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
-
A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman
-
Cape Cod
-
The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home
-
A Walk on the Beach: Tales of Wisdom From an Unconventional Woman
ASIN: 0874519349 |
Book Description
A woman writer's lyrical memoir of a summer with her artist husband in a remote Cape Cod dune shack.
Customer Reviews:
Tangy and Alive.......2005-09-19
After meeting Cynthia at a writers' program, and finding her to be a lovely person, I decided to read her account of a summer on Cape Cod. I've always longed for such an escapade myself, so this was a vicarious experience of sorts.
"The Sand House" is a joyous and often times humorous telling of the author's days in a small cottage near the Atlantic shoreline. The book focuses on the beauty of her surroundings--the plants, the wildlife, the birds--and on the realities of life in a constricted space with a loved one. The book's title is evocative, tangy and alive, romantic yet earthy. It suits Cynthia's writing perfectly. She is a poet of prose. Her words linger and dance, like cool breezes over the surf. She conjures wonderful images and ideas. She is abstract in her thinking, yet she grabs intangible concepts and wraps them in the sweaty language which humans understand.
If you're looking for quick reading and plot-driven stories, look elsewhere. If, however, you long for tales of lazy summer days told in lyrical language, "The Salt House" is not to be missed.
This is a classic........2002-09-13
This book is destined to become a classic not only in the rich field of Cape Cod writing but in nature and memoir in general. Huntington's prose is simple and pure, evoking not only the outer landscape, but the inner landscape of a woman's mind. What a pleasure it is to be in a mind so generous, open, and curious about the world! This is a book I will read over and over.
Too perfumy........2001-12-01
You can tell that the author is also a poet because this book is very, very perfumy. Very, very detailed. A whole chapter almost on the trails that a sea gull makes. Beautifully written but very little context. Should have instead been made into a 5 page short story. Would love to meet this person and be friends with her though. She would make a great next door neighbor it seems! :) If you like Barbara Kingsolver style writing you will probably love this book but if you prefer the Memoir style writing of Joan Anderson of A Year by the Sea (also taking place on Cape Cod) this isn't the book for you.
I was inspired!.......2001-02-25
This is one of the best books I have read in a while. I have been on a nonfiction kick for a few months. As a college student I don't often have much time to devote to "reading for pleasure" but since I'm on vacation I've had a little time. Reading this book in February brought me right back to June and July. It's descriptions were wonderful and reminded me why I love the beach. The author's reflections on her relationships seem to echo my own feelings that I can't express. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the beach and enjoys being there by themself or with a loved one!
Breathtaking. Profound........2001-02-18
I cannot believe how wonderful this book is. I've read it twice, and it's even more amazing the second time around. This is one of those books you'll want to revisit again and again. I look forward to reading more of Ms. Huntington's work.
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