Book Description
A thrilling page-turner from start to finish, The Covenant is not only a mesmerizing tale with finely drawn characters, it is a story of truth and integrity, a multi-generational novel of love, friendship and duty. This is a must read book.Faye Kellerman, author of Street Dreams This is the story behind the headlinesthe reality of our times, where terrorists reign and average citizens engage in a passionate and terrifying struggle to preserve life. Living in Jerusalem, Elise Margulies fears for the lives of her husband and daughter constantly. Then the day comes when her worst fears are realized. Dr. Jonathan Margulies is driving his young daughter home from her ballet recital. Hours later, his bullet-ridden car is found empty on the side of the road. Elise, in the last stages of a difficult pregnancy, desperately calls her grandmother Leah in America for help and unknowingly revives a decades-old oath. Over five terror- and hope-filled days, the ties that bind two generations form a powerful alliance against contemporary evil. With this moving novel about tragedy and redemption, Naomi Ragen is at her most powerful and engrossing.
Customer Reviews:
Required Reading for News Watchers.......2007-04-29
The most useful part of this book, which is written by a columnist living in Jerusalem, is the extent to which it describes the distortion of facts by the media. It does not merely allege such distortion, but shows how it occurs, and why, in ways that have been substantiated in real life. You can actually see it for yourself, when you compare the news from the original sources to what you see edited in and out. We are on the receiving end of this manipulation every day. Or, as a small example, open up the newspaper and read an article critical of a public figure, and watch the way in which the facial expression of the public figure is smiling when it should be somber, for example. And then realize that the paper has a stack of file photos, and picked just that one. Not the one where the subject of the article has the facial expression he wore during the interview, or during the events. So they might be talking about starving children and use a file photo of the politician that shows him smiling or laughing. That picture might be six months old.
I will not get into the plot of The Covenant, which other reviewers have already covered, except to say that it involves wishful thinking. Terrorists have been abducting Israelis for years, and no one ever finds them again. The barbarity of terrorist attacks has been swallowed up by false "tit-for-tat" coverage that attempts to justify anything. The United States saw a fragment of this after 9/11, when journalists would chatter with righteous indignation at the suggestion that the perpetrators were "evil," and would go into the ways in which our foreign policy was to blame (so, in order to make our foreign policy more appetizing, it should be sanctified by people who believe in using babies as human shields, and in intentionally killing civilians? Isn't this like taking Dennis "BTK Killer" Rader and putting him on the state legislature?). This is a digression with a point: There are no secret societies with hidden, far-reaching influence working to save the innocents in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria. That is what makes Israelis so brave. The terrorists have Reuters and AP as their own PR companies, and world opinion turns against them because of it.
On the other hand, writing the story without those four brave Holocaust survivors perhaps would have made the truth too unbearable. Easier to blame the victims as, in fact, some so-called intellectuals have tried to blame the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre (with lies such as that they didn't fight back because they "forgot the lesson of Flight 93;" they bullied Cho; that they lacked discipline and courage...). There really is an impulse to blame the victim in order to displace our own sense of helplessness. So perhaps having this book have so much hope is the only way for people to accept the bitter truths within it.
Anyone who consumes news from any source should read this. And then go to The Second Draft and other sites for proof.
Best Book in Long Time.......2007-01-31
THE COVENANT is, without a doubt, the best book I have read in a long, long time! The mystery aspect of it, mentioned often in other reviews, takes a very distant back seat to the amazing commentary on religion and terrorism about which Ragen writes so knowingly and empathetically. This definitely is a book I would recommend to anyone; there is a message for all of us in this story!
Point of View Rather Than Opinion.......2007-01-18
The Covenant is a novel full of incendiary material. In the post 9/11 world, we have all had to take sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the Arab/Israeli conflict which is at the heart of this novel.
No matter which side you are on, living through the lives of the characters in The Covenant can open your eyes. Ragen doesn't try to convince, doesn't argue points, doesn't indulge in diatribes or polemics. She simply shows you what the entire situation looks like from several different points of view.
When I started to learn fiction writing in my early teens, I learned that a writer sets an imaginary camera on the main character's shoulder and lets the reader view the entire situation through that camera lens.
The reader knows only what the character knows, and thus can enter into that character's emotional life through the character's point of view.
The Covenant uses many points of view which dilutes and disturbs the emotional bonding with the characters, but also promotes objectivity about the total situation. This is an example of excellent craftsmanship at its shining best.
Ragen does character sketch essays for each of the main characters so marvelous that they sneak up on you and suddenly you're wrung out with overwhelming emotion.
The novel amasses an astounding breadth and depth of facts that shower down upon you as you read. All those facts are juxtaposed and arranged with the spare clarity of a Japanese Brush Painting.
You don't have to judge whether the facts are true or not. You are riding on the shoulder of a character for whom that fact is true, and you can learn something about what it feels like for that fact to be true.
Only a novel can deliver an emotional reality with such clarity.
I recommend this book for beginning writers to study in depth.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
[...]
The Covenant.......2007-01-12
Am 100% pleased with the delivery of my book and have so thoroughly enjoyed reading it from cover to cover...sure is a heck of a lot easier ordering from Amazon.com than running down to Barnes and Noble or Borders to order a book. Many thanks for a job well done.
The Covenant.......2006-11-03
Worth reading if you are recovering from major surgery and on pain meds. I read it in these circumstances and doubt I could recommend it otherwise.
Book Description
Na-o-mi. The three syllables of this name, unusual in 1920s Japan, captivate a 28-year-old engineer, who soon becomes infatuated with the girl so named, a teenaged café waitress. Drawn to her Eurasian features and innocent demeanor, Joji is eager to whisk young Naomi away from the seamy underbelly of post—World War I Tokyo and to mold her into his ideal wife. But when the two come together to indulge their shared passion for Western culture, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from being the naïve girl of his fantasies, and his passion descends into a comically helpless masochism.
A literary masterpiece that helped to establish Junichiro Tanizaki as Japan's greatest novelist,
Naomi is both a hilarious story of one man's obsession and torment, and a brilliant evocation of a nation's cultural confusion.
Customer Reviews:
Sensual and Dramatic.......2007-01-20
A friend got me back into my Japanese obsession, and I picked up I am a Cat awhile ago; never got around to reading it. I read fabulous reviews of Naomi, however, and it seemed to have the deeply psychological feel to it - dark and forbidding, exactly what I was looking for. I keep comparing it to a Japanese Lolita.
The story is about a man named Joji, obsessed with all things Western in 1920's Japan. He finds a Eurasian-looking girl named Naomi (aha! A name both Western AND Japanese!) working in a café. Between her Western looks and name, her childish innocence, and her beauty, he becomes truly captivated. A man twice her age and with a decent amount of money, he takes her in and educates her in Western ways, tolerating her occasional cruelty and selfishness. As things get deeper and deeper (including a secret marriage) he learns to tolerate the extravagances and infidelities of a cold-hearted and cold-eyed woman (no longer a childish teen) due to his increasing sexual obsession with her.
This book was a fantastic study in obsessive love. Deeply psychological, you feel for Joji at the same time you want to slap him and tell him to send his wife packing. You can almost see the train wreck at the end of the book coming - Joji discovering the infidelity the audience knows is there, and holding their breath to see if he will stand strong or fall under. For her part, Naomi's manipulations are absolutely fantastic. Comic book authors cannot pen better villains. You truly, truly see the power that beautiful women can wield in this book.
The book was excellent - I blew through it in two days. Even with that, though, I give the book four stars. I know the spinelessness of Joji was part of the plot, but it still bothered me. A little too much.
Great Book...Made me angry!.......2007-01-04
Really good read especially as it heats up near the end.
The bend over backwards attitude of the male character made me really heated and mad... i wanted to slap the guy for doing any & everyting the girl wanted and more. So used, but he so enjoyed it.
"She would take the place of both the maid and the bird.".......2006-10-14
Naomi is a novel that will feel surprisingly familiar to the western reader. While much of the important thematic material refers to the fascination Western culture had for Japan, it is also a meditation on modernity and the challenges that it offered traditional models of family and feminine behaviour.
A 28-year old electrical engineer (Jôji) is attracted to Western styles and values and also feels the need for some additional warmth in his life. Rather than go through all the stiffness and ceremony of arranging a marriage, he instead decides to take on a poor 15-year old bar girl named Naomi as a kind of pet.
"I'd decorate the rooms, plant flowers, hang out a birdcage on the sunny veranda, and hire a maid to do the cooking and scrubbing. And if Naomi agreed to come, she'd take the place of the maid and the bird....This is roughly what I had in mind."
Jôji is attracted to Naomi because she has a western name, and also because she has an exotic appearance that makes her resemble Mary Pickford. She appeals to his sense of adventure because of this western air and she also seems safe. Rather than take a risk on an adult stranger, he can simply mold her into the sort of woman that he would prefer (think Murasaki in The Tale of Genji). Once Naomi agrees to move in with him, he encourages her to explore the modern and western side of her nature.
However, he discovers that while is a tourist playing at being adventurous, Naomi actually lives on the edge. She takes to becoming a "western girl" (shorthand for a modern girl) with a vengeance. She chooses increasingly outlandish and expensive clothes, takes up dancing, and has suspicious friendships with young boys. Jôji begins to have doubts about her character, but by then he is already madly in love with her. She increasingly takes control of his life, leading him to ruin.
The subject is a familiar one-- there is something about this notion of modernity vs tradition that seems to play itself out irresistably on the body of the lower class female character. In this case, Naomi's western self is a celebration of modernity that eventually turns into a frenzy of despair. The story bears a lot of similarity to Of Human Bondage, with some of Breton's obsessionary tone in Nadja thrown in for good measure.
The characters are almost entirely unsympathetic-- the smug would-be Pygmalion Jôji more so than the scrappy Naomi. Because the theme has been done so often since the time of writing, it may feel as though it lacks surprises for the modern reader.
Recommended-- interesting and important book which should read well whether you pick it up for the historical or literary value.
Good Book.......2006-03-23
Excellant Story based on the Japanese modern girl. I wish these short foreign novel were not so overpriced though. I had to buy this book for a class.
A Fool's Love.......2005-10-19
Tanizaki's theme is obsession. Almost all of his works revolve around obsession in some way, usually a consuming devotion to something that others find revolting. Rarely does a Tanizaki character worship something beautiful, or worthy. Rarely does this obsession result in happiness.
"Naomi" ("Chijin no Ai" or "A Fool's Love") showcases these themes in a typical Tanizaki style, showing the weakness of devotion and the soullessness of beauty. His writing style is what keeps his stories from being stomach turning, and he manages to keep the reader going through the very darkest pits of self-loathing. Beautiful prose and ugly people.
In "Naomi," the aging salaryman Joji seeks to build himself a toy, a fascinating pet with bright plumage and sophistication to color and decorate his drab and mundane existence. The foundation for this masterpiece, which he will sculpt and paint, is a 15-year old bar maid named Naomi. She is a low girl, of no station or wealth, but her unusual name sets her apart from others, and he moves her into his house and begins her training.
Joji fancies himself Pygmalion, sculpting and pruning his caged bird, primping her and spoiling her. He encourages her fantasies and wraps her in Western clothes (an extreme rarity at the time) and outrageous kimonos. Her whims are his directives, and their games become more and more sexual in nature. But rather than Pygmalion, Joji finds himself in the role of Dr. Frankenstein, soon to be destroyed by his monstrous creation. Naomi grows soulless and spectacular, a hollow beauty who is fully aware of her power over Joji. She is manipulative and without morals, but Joji's investment in her is so great, and his ego so wrapped up in her, that he cannot let her go even when he discovers the horrible truth. It is a vicious whirlpool that he finds himself dragged into.
When considering "Naomi," one must understand Japan of the 1920's. A slowly emerging country, Western contacts were still rare, and the charade of Western culture was the ultimate in daring fashion. Women were assigned specific roles, and the idea of a woman choosing her male lovers was a scandalous concept. The "Modern Girl" represented by Naomi was an undefined thing, where women were attempting to create something new, with no role models and fewer inhibitions. Such was the power of this novel at the time that "Naomis" followed in its wake, and "Naomi-ism" became the word to describe their new sub-culture. Hated as she is in modern times, she was an idol to oppressed girls seeking freedom.
Sometimes a hard novel, with no heroes and no admirable characters, "Naomi" is still an important Japanese novel and a good read to boot. It launched Tanizaki's career in many ways, setting the stage for more obsession and repulsion to come.
Average customer rating:
- I could not put Naomi's book down til I finished it.
- Well written but should rate either 3 plus or 4 minus!!
- Ultimately, moving and insightful
- A clash of cultures, both of which are flawed
- Great subject, shallow characters
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Disobedience: A Novel
Naomi Alderman
Manufacturer: Touchstone
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ASIN: 0743291565 |
Amazon.com
Disobedience is Naomi Alderman's richly told, endearingly evocative tale of two women and the choices they make as they come to terms with their identities in a traditional Orthodox Jewish community. In this groundbreaking debut, Alderman puts her characters to work, forcing them to confront issues of rebellion, isolation, loneliness and self-acceptance in a place where deviating from the norm often results in cold stares and hushed whispers at the kosher butcher shop.
Ronit Krushka is a lapsed Orthodox Jew, who fled the confines of Hendon, England, and her traditional upbringing for a secular lifestyle on Manhattan's Upper West Side. When her father, the community's revered Rabbi passes away, Ronit returns home to retrieve her mother's precious Shabbat candlesticks, and to revisit her troubled past. She reconnects with Esti, a former lover, whose choices have left her unsure and unfulfilled. As Ronit and Esti navigate through the demons of their past, each woman is forced to decide what kind of life she wants to lead, and with whom she wants to share it.
Alderman alternates between a lyrical and familiar style, introducing each chapter with a page of religious commentary that relates directly to the novel. While the commentary is interesting, readers may find themselves skimming it as the plot thickens and these introductions become more like diversions from the story's main message. Still, interruptions aside, Disobedience marks an important debut, and one that extends outside the lives of these characters to personify the struggle between conformity and individualism for everyone who has felt like an outsider. --Gisele Toueg
Book Description
For Ronit Krushka, thirty-two and single, who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Orthodox Judaism is a suffocating culture she fled long ago. When she learns that her estranged father, the pre-eminent rabbi of the London Orthodox Jewish community in which she was raised, has died, she leaves behind her Friday night takeout, her troublesome romance, and her boisterous circle of friends and returns home for the first time in years.
There, amid the traditional ebb and flow of the community -- the quiet young women returning from their kosher shops and the men with their tightly clutched prayer books -- Ronit reminds herself of her dual mission: to mourn and to collect a single heirloom -- her mother's Shabbat candlesticks. But when Ronit reconnects with her complex and beloved cousin Dovid and with a forbidden childhood sweetheart, she becomes more than just a stranger in her old home -- she becomes a threat.
Driven by wit and beautifully rendered detail, Disobedience pulls back the curtain on a devout and closed world. Set at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, of personal desires and the demands of God, Disobedience is about the importance of moving on and what we lose when we do -- and it is about the tendency toward disobedience that we all have.
Customer Reviews:
I could not put Naomi's book down til I finished it........2007-09-23
Naomi's book answered many questions about my own sexuality. From my background comes homosexuality and bisexuality. Not by me but from members of my own family. I have had many questions about my own sexuality that Naomi's book answered for me. I appreciate Naomi for her willingness to write a novel exposing the issues of these things that most people are not willing to talk about. It takes courage to speak out and I give Naomi much credit for stepping out of the norm.
Well written but should rate either 3 plus or 4 minus!!.......2007-07-21
I found this to be an engrossing read. It explained some areas of "orthodoxy" that were unknown to me. I really liked the way in which the author explained "silence." Found the characters [except those like Hartog, etal.] rather likable -- enough so that I cared about them, as well as what would happen in their lives. I really liked Esti & that she had spoken to Ronit's father -- that's all I can say without spoiling the book. It validates/reinforces the importance of our choices, and the impact of same in our lives, as well as in the lives of others. There was, at least for me, something missing. There is potential here & I would consider reading more of this author's work. This is an engrossing read which should satisfy many.
Ultimately, moving and insightful.......2007-06-25
Two childhood friends/lovers: one comes to terms with an Orthodox Jewish community which is rigid in its views, one rebels against it. The novel has its limitations, but ultimately succeeds in being moving and insightful. While Alderman does not paint a very nice or balanced picture of the community at large, she clearly appreciates the positives in the Orthodox Jewish tradition. She is also able to make meaningful a marriage in which the physical aspect is lacking. The rebel is a flawed character who still retains our sympathy and interest, although we need to dismiss as the author's error one incident: where the rebel is almost ready to "rat" on her friend just to get back at her chief antagonist in the community, and never seems to acknowledge the evil of such a deed. I found the rebel's vindictive streak refreshing, not normally found in a work of this type.
Alderman fails, in my view, in her introductory chapters on the rebel's life in New York. Even the prose in those chapters is frequently not up to par, and the emphasis on the relationship with her married lover is there for lack of something better .
A clash of cultures, both of which are flawed.......2007-05-27
This novel is the story of Ronit Krushka, the rebellious 32-year-old daughter of an Orthodox rabbi in Hendon, an insular Jewish neighborhood in London. The death of Ronit's father forces her to come home for a short time from New York and from her nonobservant life style, and it forces her to confront her past and decide exactly who she is and who she wants to be.
Alderman, who grew up in Hendon, succeeds in portraying both the fervently religious lifestyle and the secular lifestyle without exaggerating or caricaturing either. Hendon can be stifling, but it can also enfold its inhabitants in a warm embrace, and for Ronit it is home. New York City is exciting, free, and tolerant, but city dwellers lack roots and lack a firm basis in ethics and morality. (Ronit is the only one of her circle of friends who knows what's in the Ten Commandments!) At the end of the novel, all the main characters seem to be moving away from either extreme and making their peace with a life replete with contradictions.
Another theme is silence and speech. British Jews are doubly silent -- both because they are far more insecure in their place in society than American Jews, and because they are, after all, British and keep a stiff upper lip. Ronit's father was a master of silence, yet in an important lecture, he points out that God created the world with speech. Yet speech, in the form of lashon ha-ra (the Jewish concept of slander or gossip) can be terribly harmful.
Ronit's New York world is a noisy, speech-filled world, yet much of the speech is meaningless or harmful. Esti, Ronit's former lover, is always quiet, so much so that she is considered odd even in the Hendon synagogue. The denouement of the book is a reconciliation of the ideals of speech and of speechlessness.
Great subject, shallow characters.......2007-02-20
I was very excited to read this book about London Orthodox Jews and their lifestyles. I did discover some interesting traditions but I found the characters too sketchy. They needed to be fleshed out so I would believe their plights. Ronit, the main character, fled to New York leaving her London orthodox community for a life as a lesbian without the disapproval of her father, the Rav. However, we find Ronit in one of the first scenes having an affair with a married man!
When the Rav dies after a long illness, Ronit returns to London for the shiva. The story of Esti (a married lesbian) unfolds. Esti appears to have pined away for Ronit for years and years. This old relationship appears not to have affected Ronit the same way but as the story progresses, Ronit is once again drawn to Esti. Esti is married to a weak rabbi, Dovid, (who is next in line to be the Rav). Dovid suffers from debilitating migraines. I wasn't sure how the reader was to interpret the migraines but Dovid experiences this exquisite pain in diverse situations, holy and marital. Ronit is also obsessed with finding her mother's candlesticks. Her mother died when she was four and Ronit truly was cheated out of loving parents. The Rav was a cold, inflexible father but he was a smart man who seemed to understand his daughter.
The end of the book was comical when Esti, who never conversed with the other congregrants, addressed the congregation about her lesbianism and how people should understand. Dovid stood by her like a nebbish and his lack of assertiveness was never more apparent. Why would they want him to be the Rav? The most interesting character was the head of the congregation who was trying to buy off Ronit so she would leave before the hesped and go back to New York. Instead, she arrived at this tribute in some type of orthodox disguise and she later left with the candlesticks and some revenge.
Book Description
In the foothills of Pasadena, Mas Arai is just another Japanese-American gardener, his lawnmower blades clean and sharp, his truck carefully tuned. But while Mas keeps lawns neatly trimmed, his own life has gone to seed. His wife is dead. And his livelihood is falling into the hands of the men he once hired by the day. For Mas, a life of sin is catching up to him. And now bachi—the spirit of retribution—is knocking on his door.
It begins when a stranger comes around, asking questions about a nurseryman who once lived in Hiroshima, a man known as Joji Haneda. By the end of the summer, Joji will be dead and Mas’s own life will be in danger. For while Mas was building a life on the edge of the American dream, he has kept powerful secrets: about three friends long ago, about two lives entwined, and about what really happened when the bomb fell on Hiroshima in August 1945.
A spellbinding mystery played out from war-torn Japan to the rich tidewaters of L.A.’s multicultural landscape, this stunning debut novel weaves a powerful tale of family, loyalty, and the price of both survival and forgiveness.
Download Description
In the foothills of Pasadena, Mas Arai is just another Japanese-American gardener, his lawnmower blades clean and sharp, his truck carefully tuned. But while Mas keeps lawns neatly trimmed, his own life has gone to seed. His wife is dead. And his livelihood is falling into the hands of the men he once hired by the day. For Mas, a life of sin is catching up to him. And now bachi—the spirit of retribution—is knocking on his door.
It begins when a stranger comes around, asking questions about a nurseryman who once lived in Hiroshima, a man known as Joji Haneda. By the end of the summer, Joji will be dead and Mas's own life will be in danger. For while Mas was building a life on the edge of the American dream, he has kept powerful secrets: about three friends long ago, about two lives entwined, and about what really happened when the bomb fell on Hiroshima in August 1945.
A spellbinding mystery played out from war-torn Japan to the rich tidewaters of L.A.'s multicultural landscape, this stunning debut novel weaves a powerful tale of family, loyalty, and the price of both survival and forgiveness.
"[A] seamless and shyly powerful first novel... Peppered with pungent cultural details, crisp prose and credible, fresh descriptions of the effects of the A-bomb, this perfectly balanced gem deserves a wide readership."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY STARRED REVIEW
"Naomi Hirahara's story of forgotten men who share an unforgettable past sweeps the reader into a world most of us know little about. Luckily, our guide is Mas Arai, a complete original, and Hirahara's sure and generous voice brings him vividly to life."
S. J. ROZAN, EDGAR AWARD WINNING OF
WINTER AND NIGHT
"Naomi Hirahara is a bright new voice on the mystery scene. Summer of the Big Bachi presents an intriguing puzzle written with a true insider's eye for Japanese-American life"
DALE FURUTANI, ANTHONY AWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF DEATH IN LITTLE TOKYO
"A novel about social change wrapped inside a mystery, Summer of the Big Bachi toggles deftly between past and present and reveals the hopes and compromises that lurk on the fringes of the American Dream."
DENISE HAMILTON, EDGAR AWARD NOMINATED AUTHOR OF LAST LULLABY
Customer Reviews:
Excellent read.......2007-10-04
For anyone with an interest in the family relationships between Japanese in America and those in Japan during WW II, a must read. The history is accurate, settings are excellent and the ensuing story is spell-binding.
The mystery is well spun as the various characters are examined - good suspense.
There are enough unravelled family threads for another book - which I have already purchased and will read it soon.
Coleen from Kent, Wa
Good Mystery with little known Japanese-American history as backdrop.......2006-07-11
Being a Japanese-American (sansei from the Midwest), I really felt that the characters rang true - no "model minority" stereotypes. Just ordinary people, some good, some bad, caught up in a situation (the mystery) that doesn't get fully explained until the end. If you're looking for a hard-boiled mystery, this might not be your cup of tea. The characters and their background is what stands out. The protoganist is a kibei (American-born but raised in Japan - most speak accented English) who lived through the A-bomb blast in Hiroshima. The mystery involves events that occurred back then.
This book was a quick and enjoyable read and I look forward to her next book.
Sins of the Past.......2006-05-11
For fifty years, Japanese American Mas Arai has built a life for himself and his family in Pasadena. Since he works as a gardener, it hasn't been a comfortable life, but they have survived. Now he is a widower and his daughter has moved to New York. Mas is enjoying the quiet his life has become.
All that is shattered one June afternoon. Mas enters one of his favorite haunts, Tanaka's Lawnmower Shop, to find a stranger asking around about Joji Haneda. The man claims to be a private investigator. Mas tells him nothing, but the encounter shakes him to his core.
Mas hasn't had any contact with Joji in years. Now the owner of a nursery in Ventura, the two men used to be friends. But that was in Hiroshima during World War II. And the two share a secret from the dropping of the atomic bomb that Mas would prefer to stay hidden.
Still, the encounter makes Mas start working on looking Joji up himself. Unfortunately, he isn't the only one. A young reporter with wild hair from Japan is also asking around. And someone doesn't want Mas poking around any more. Why the sudden interest in Joji?
I have heard great things about the novel. Much of the praise is well deserved. The book paints an interesting picture of the Japanese American sub-culture as well as life in Japan during World War II. History buffs will certainly enjoy that aspect of the book.
While not the traditional murder and three suspects I normally read, the book is well plotted. The story starts strongly and moves along rapidly to its climax. Only the last few pages of wrap up drag a little. Still this is a minor complaint.
Mas is a well drawn character. It was easy to picture this Hiroshima survivor as a real person. While he had some obvious faults, he was still likeable. I kept reading because I cared about what happened to him. The story is told third person from his point of view, and the narration takes on a haunting noir quality right from the start.
So why the three stars? Because it was almost impossible to get into the book. The conversations were peppered with Japanese words. I could usually figure them out from the context, but sometimes I couldn't. Additionally, in an effort to make the dialog have an authentic dialect, the words were often purposefully misspelled. Not only did they not help me picture how the characters talked, but I had a very hard time following what they were saying sometimes. Finally, the characters names were foreign. While this seems obvious, several of the characters names were so similar I had a hard time keeping them straight. I realize this last one is more my problem then the authors, still all three of these kept me from getting truly engrossed in the tale. Instead of inviting me into a culture I know nothing about, they served to make me feel like an outsider. Honestly, I almost put the book down at one point.
I'm glad I persisted. This book has an interesting tale with believable characters worth reading about. The flaws are strong enough to make me only give it a hesitant recommendation, however.
Strangers in a Strange Land.......2006-02-22
Naomi Hirahara is a talented writer and a gifted storyteller. She draws you into a world you might think you knew but that feels foreign from the viewpoint of the main characters. Japanese gardeners have been so commonplace, yet very uncommon in American society. To see this country through their eyes is very humbling. This story makes you realize what courage and hard work it takes to make it here as someone perceived as "different." The author lets us glimpse the interesting personalities of her characters and how these protagonists figure out ways to survive together. The story is suspenseful with full character development. And the praise one feels for the main characters evolves through subtle description. At the end of the story your heart is touched by poignant acts of friendship and gentle charm.
Good first try.......2005-09-01
This is the first mystery novel by Naomi Hirahara, featuring Mas Arai, a Japanese American gardener in Southern California. Mas is a kibei, i.e. an American-born Japanese who returned to Japan and spent most of his formative years there. Mas bears the terrible trauma of WW2 in Japan and particularly of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, where his family had relocated. Fifty years later, Mas has little to show for himself. He's a lonely and bitter man, that has survived his wife and is estranged from his only daughter, while his gardening business is wilting. The novel's mystery is connected to his traumatic Hiroshima past, but it is more interesting for the range of characters Hirahara can command (Hiroshima survivors, No-No boys, Sansei civil-rights lawyers), and for the still little-known history of the Japanese American community, than for its suspense. It's a good first try. We'll just have to wait and see what she writes next.
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Brigadoon, Vol. 1
Nozomi Watase ,
Steven Hoffman ,
Naomi Kokubo ,
Hajime Yadate , and
Yoshitomo Yonetani
Manufacturer: TokyoPop
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ASIN: 1591823773 |
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- A winning protagonist . . . .
- strong investigative tale
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Snakeskin Shamisen
Naomi Hirahara
Manufacturer: Delta
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Similar Items:
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Summer of the Big Bachi
-
Gasa-Gasa Girl
-
The Janissary Tree: A Novel
-
The Open Curtain
-
The Goodbye Kiss
ASIN: 0385339615
Release Date: 2006-04-25 |
Book Description
From
Summer of the Big Bachi to
Gasa-Gasa Girl, Naomi Hirahara’s acclaimed novels have featured one of mystery fiction’s most unique heroes: Mas Arai, a curmudgeonly L.A. gardener, Hiroshima survivor, and inveterate gambler.
Few things get Mas more excited than gambling, so when he hears about a $500,000 win–from a novelty slot machine!–he’s torn between admiration and derision. But the stakes are quickly raised when the winner, a friend of Mas’s pal G. I. Hasuike, is found stabbed to death just days later. The last thing Mas wants to do is stick his nose in someone else’s business, but at G.I.’s prodding he reluctantly agrees to follow the trail of a battered snakeskin shamisen (a traditional Okinawan musical instrument) left at the scene of the crime…and suddenly finds himself caught up in a dark mystery that reaches from the islands of Okinawa to the streets of L.A.–a world of heartbreaking memories, deception, and murder.
Download Description
chapter one
Mas Arai didn't think much of slot machines, not to mention one with a fake can of Spam mounted on top of it. Mas was a poker and blackjack man, and he had been for most of his seventy-odd years. Slots were for suckers. For heavy hakujin women in oversized T-shirts and silly earrings. And as far as he was concerned, Spam was strictly for eating--a fat, shimmering slice resting on a rectangle of sticky rice and tied together with a band of nori, dried seaweed. That's how most of the Japanese he knew in L.A. ate it.
His late wife, Chizuko, hadn't been a fan. She was straight from Japan, while Mas had bounced back and forth from row crops in his native California to the rice fields of Hiroshima. Chizuko had disapproved of Spam, and instead attempted to push natto--fermented soybeans, sticky as melted glue and rancid smelling as a baby's behind--onto their unsuspecting neighbors. Only Mrs. Jones, a large black woman with a middle as wide as one of the tires on Mas's Ford gardening truck, had taken up Chizuko's offer. After she'd opened her mouth wide, placing the web of natto on her tongue and swallowing the sticky and stinky beans, Mas had half-expected her to rise from their kitchen table and head for the bathroom. But instead she'd smiled sweetly as if holding on to a secret. "Like okra," she'd said. "Only chewier."
Mas was more of a Spam man, with some limits, of course. Spam was perfectly acceptable at potlucks of the Americanized Japanese, in particular the second generation, the Nisei, and their children, the Sansei. Mas could live with Spam being served at the coffee shop of the California Club, a favorite casino choice of Nisei families, Hawaii-born gamblers, and gardeners like Mas. Hell, he would be first in line to order Spam, eggs, and rice for breakfast or a couple of Spam sushi, referred to as Spam musubi, as a midnight snack. But once he left the confines of the coffee shop, he just wanted to fix his eyes on the clean surface of green felt tables.
Yet to get to those dollar blackjack and poker games, Mas always had to make his way through rows of slot machines. In recent years, it had only gotten worse. Instead of the standard slots, with cherries and 7s, these new machines joined the video age and took their themes from old television and game shows. Others looked more like children's games, with jumping frogs and Chinese takeout boxes and silly cartoon sounds. Too much noise. Mas just gritted down on his dentures and shook his head as he passed by.
But when he first laid eyes on a Spam slot machine, he knew that the gaming industry had gone one step too far. First it was that ridiculous lit-up giant Spam can positioned on top of the machine like an askew crown. Then there were the multiple video images of people eating and serving Spam, and then Spam itself. What did any of that have to do with gambling?
Those thoughts returned to Mas as he sat in his fake leather easy chair in his own living room after a meal of rotisserie chicken from the local discount warehouse store. He was reading the L.A. Japanese daily newspaper, The Rafu Shimpo, as he did every evening, when he saw it--a quarter-page photo of a Spam slot machine on page three. And that wasn't the worst of it: two Sansei men were clutching the slot machine as if it were a Vegas showgirl. They had leis around their necks and glassy looks on their faces. Drunk as skunks, thought Mas. He adjusted his reading glasses. One of the men in the photo, a guy with long graying hair pulled back in a ponytail, looked familiar. No, couldn't be. Mas turned on the light beside the easy chair, pounding excess dust from the lampshade. There was no doubt now; it was his best lawyer friend--well, only lawyer friend--G. I. Hasuike. Beside him was a thick-chested Sansei man in a tight T-shirt. He had a mustache and sideburns. He looked like any other Japanese America
Customer Reviews:
A winning protagonist . . . ........2007-02-03
This is the third outing for Los Angeles gardener Mas Arai and Hirahara generally maintains her high standards in delineating the characters of both the people of the Japanese-American subculture and their city. One of Mas's friends has won a half-million dollar jackpot on a slot machine -- which Mas, an inveterate horse and card player, ordinarily considers a sucker bet -- and the celebration thrown by another of his friends ends with the murder of the winner. Mas gets sucked into things against his will and soon is trying to figure out how an antique Okinawan musical instrument became involved, and what the crime might have to do with another death fifty years before. And then the Department of Homeland Security gets into the act. The plot doesn't seem quite as well thought out as in the first two books, but I enjoyed the interplay among the characters, . . . especially Mas's interest in a female African-Okinawan detective.
strong investigative tale .......2006-05-07
Hiroshima survivor gardener Mas Arai attends a gala honoring his friend attorney George "G.I." Hasuike at Mahalo Hawaiian restaurant in Torrance, California. Meanwhile the party's host Randy Yamashiro informs G.I. that he won $500K on a Spam slot machine during their recent trip to Vegas. Mas meets the fianc?e of G.I. Juanita Gushiken and finds her charming; on the other hand he immediate dislikes Randy. When Randy and G.I. almost come to blows, Mas decides to leave.
Not long afterward Juanita asks Mas for help as someone stabbed Randy to death; the prime suspect is G.I. who had plenty of motives, 500,000 of them. Mas hesitantly agrees to investigate, but though he says no to her, Juanita insists on joining him every step of the way. The only clue so far is a five-decade old battered SNAKESKIN SHAMISEN Okinawa musical instrument left near the corpse.
Mas' third wonderful appearance (see SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI and GASA-GASA GIRL) is a delightful look at a subculture today vs. the 1950s inside of a fine murder mystery with ties back to the happy days of the Eisenhower era. The reluctant hero is at his best as he makes inquiries and reflects back to just after WWII, but is also enhanced, often with humor, by the energetic female fireball Juanita. The whodunit is cleverly devised so that readers will enjoy a strong investigative tale while also obtaining appreciative insight into a subculture.
Harriet Klausner
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Novels of the Contemporary Extreme (Continuum Literary Studies)
Manufacturer: Continuum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0826490883 |
Book Description
This book investigates a new form of fiction that is currently emerging in contemporary literature across the globe. 'Novels of the extreme' - from North and South America, from Europe, the Middle East and Asia - are set in a world both similar to and different from our own: a hyper-real, often apocalyptic world progressively invaded by popular culture, permeated with technology and dominated by destruction. While their writing is commonly classified as 'hip' or 'underground' literature, authors of contemporary extreme novels have often been the center of public controversy and scandal; they, and their work, become international bestsellers. This collection of essays indentifies and describes this international phenomenon, investigating the appeal of these novels' styles and themes, the reason behind their success, and the fierce debates they provoked. Alain-Philippe Durand is Associate Professor of French, Film Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Rhode Island. Naomi Mandel is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of Rhode Island.
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Breaking the Chain: Women, Theory, and French Realist Fiction (Gender & Culture)
Naomi Schor
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0231058756 |
Book Description
"This emended translation of Latin America's first indigenista novel (
Aves sin nido, 1889), written by Peruvian feminist Matto de Turner, is welcome for many reasons.... It deserves a reading now more than ever, as Latin American literature reaches its maturity, and as social struggles in the Hispanic new world continue with the intensity and irresolution of two centuries."
—Choice
"I love the native race with a tender love, and so I have observed its customs closely, enchanted by their simplicity, and, as well, the abjection into which this race is plunged by small-town despots, who, while their names may change, never fail to live up to the epithet of tyrants. They are no other than, in general, the priests, governors, caciques, and mayors." So wrote Clorinda Matto de Turner in
Aves sin nido, the first major Spanish American novel to protest the plight of native peoples.
First published in 1889,
Birds without a Nest drew fiery protests for its unsparing expose of small town officials, judicial authorities, and priests who oppressed the native peoples of Peru. Matto de Turner was excommunicated by the Catholic Church and burned in effigy. Yet her novel was strongly influential; indeed, Peruvian President Andres Avelino Caceres credited it with stimulating him to pursue needed reforms.
In 1904, the novel was published in a bowdlerized English translation with a modified ending. This edition restores the original ending and the translator's omissions. It will be important reading for all students of the indigenous cultures of South America.
Customer Reviews:
Uncle Tom's Cabin in a Peruvian context.......2007-05-09
I want to give a rave review for this book, but, unfortunately I can't. Perhaps, it's because this is a translation, but I found the text an overly condescending, pedantic, one-dimensional rip-off of Uncle Tom's Cabin, with Peru's indigenous people in need of the white Peruvians' help, reform and sympathy. Although I am a romantic, I found myself rolling my eyes repeatedly at the descriptions of Manuel's love for Margarita. It's written in a way only a (unredeemably and ridiculously) romantic woman would write about love (I'm a woman, by the way). I also found the use of physical appearance to denote personality--although this is a nineteenth century construct--disturbing.
Although Uncle Tom's Cabin presents all of these issues, Beecher Stowe does it better with multi-dimensional characters and better crafted and linked storylines. Again, this may be due to this being a translation. I think I lost some of the richness of the original, so I'm going to read the text in its original Spanish to see what I think then. Nonetheless, the English translation was disappointing.
PROS: SPOILER AHEAD: The crash
The depiction of the Killac town authorities
The ending, somewhat predictable, but nonetheless good
Interesting view of North American/South American relations
CONS: (in translation): Pedantic, condescending and schmaltzy to the core in its treatment of the protagonists.
Birds without a future.......2005-10-02
This novel by Peruvian female writer Clorinda Matto de Turner constitutes the first female narrative fictional text denouncing discrimination of female indians in Peru and perhaps Latin America. It reminds us of what Rigoberta Menchu did in the 90's regarding human right abuses in Guatemala, only that Clorinda did it one hundred years before. The novel, which lacks the stylistic traits of present female narrative, is strong in terms of content and validity as a social document.
Clorinda Matto was a brave woman, daring to represent the medieval rules that structured the lives of indian women (and men) during the 19th century and most of the twentieth century.
A seldom told story.......2001-06-21
This woman dared to tell the story of the exploitation of the Quechua people in Peru. She shows through her romance how, the state - in the hands of the hispanic -, the church and the law were united in the colonization of Peru, exploiting the native populations as much as they could, keeping the descendents of the Inca empire either captive or as slave workers. Well a surprising fact, is that this woman wrote the book around 1889 (when it was first published) a time, when a woman writter was not seen with good eyes. She was excommunicated by the bishop and The book was - of course - burnt and remain almost unknown till the late 60's when it was reedicted.
LIfe in Peru.......2000-12-03
This novel is a great example of a mixture of romanticism and naturalism. Although it is at times over-dramatic, the social injustice that Matto de Turner shows is a good historical analysis of Peru in the 19th century. The characters seem to be portrayed more as collective ideals or stereotypes, but the message is still shown that the people with power abused their stations. A must read for people interested in the history of Peru or even of social injustice in South America. Reading it in its original spanish is usually the best to get the full meaning, but it is a pretty rare book to find, so the english version is still very good.
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Sex for Beginners (For Beginners)
Errol Selkirk
Manufacturer: Writers & Readers Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0863160115 |
Customer Reviews:
A Historical Approach.......2000-02-04
Author Errol Selkirk wrote the historical perspective of sex in literature. Also prescribing different beliefs of the different times throughout history from the Dark Ages to the Information Age. Running over sex theories of Freud and Reich and loking into the works of Marquis DeSade. A fun and easy book to read, however there are some dry spots that one will come across. Reccomended to those reading the wonderful series by Writers and Readers Beginners Books.
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- The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
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- The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and and How All Men Can Help
- The Napping House
- The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition
- The Prince Kidnaps a Bride (Lost Princesses, Book 3)
- The Search For Significance: Seeing Your True Worth Through God's Eyes
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