Book Description
The Saint of Incipient Insanities is the comic and heartbreaking story of a group of twenty-something friends, and their never-ending quest for fulfillment.
Omer, Abed and Piyu are roommates, foreigners all recently arrived in the United States. Omer, from Istanbul, is a Ph.D. student in political science who adapts quickly to his new home, and falls in love with the bisexual, suicidal, intellectual chocolate maker Gail. Gail is American yet feels utterly displaced in her homeland and moves from one obsession to another in an effort to find solid ground. Abed pursues a degree in biotechnology, worries about Omer's unruly ways, his mother's unexpected visit, and stereotypes of Arabs in America; he struggles to maintain a connection with his girlfriend back home in Morocco. Piyu is a Spaniard, who is studying to be a dentist in spite of his fear of sharp objects, and is baffled by the many relatives of his Mexican-American girlfriend, Algre, and in many ways by Algre herself.
Keenly insightful and sharply humorous, The Saint of Incipient Insanities is a vibrant exploration of love, friendship, culture, nationality, exile and belonging.
Customer Reviews:
Thoroughly Enjoyable.......2006-08-29
The characters are wry and humorous, the plot interweaving, the details very telling... One of the best fiction books I've read in a long time.
Twisting prose and a multi-cultural poem.......2006-08-05
In this novel the author, Elif Shafak, writes a lovely multi-cultural, multi-character, multi-language ode to immigrants and to the American, and to the graduate school, experience. We meet her characters through their own private, and sometimes excruciating, nurosises. Bulemia, depression, neurotic behavior, alchoholism all feature in the novel, but help us see the human sides of her characters rather than define them.
The book follows six main characters as they live their lives in Boston and try to define themselves through their inherited and new cultural biases. Funny at times and heartbreaking at others, the novel is a psychological journal into foreign lands.
The most striking feature of the book is the use of language and for those who enjoy not just a good story, but the inventive use of rich and flowing language, this will be an enjoyable read.
If you like this book, read also, "My Mother and the Turk" a book with a similar tone about a third generation Armenian-American family's remembered, and forgotten, past.
Something not lost in transliteration.......2006-08-01
Another great novel from Elif Shafak, "The Saint of Incipient Insanities" is, at its core, about identity. Like Shafak's other work, it's the little things that makes it work so well--countless small details about cultural quirks, cuisines, and customs that make the characters come alive.
For me, one high point came early in the book, when Shafak talks about the disorientation of seeing one's name stripped of diacrtics (sp?) and other pronunciation marks. It's a pretty obvious metaphor for the cultural homogenization that you'll find in a melting pot like the US, but it also says something on a deeper, more personal level.
It's more of a character study than a plot-driven page-turner, but you'll probably find yourself unable to put the book down, and, like the characters, caught somewhere between East and West.
The prose is often elegant, and always penetrating. I don't want to give away too many details and spoil the book, but I've got to stress how effective it is at presenting a range of complex, original characters trying to live in a difficult world.
It's another great work from Shafak, a talented writer in any language.
Abysmal English.......2005-06-06
Stiff unnatural English, hints of the camera eye of Robbe Grillet, boring treatises on diacritical marks standing in for the losses of the poor dear immigrant shades of Salman Rushdie without credit.
It reads like an intelligent high school student with a college level dictionary of English writing away.
Every line of tin dialogue is modified with a fancy descriptive verb standing in for "said."
How did this book get published in English? What language was it translated from? Who translated it like this?
Amazon.com
The year is 1955 and a young Korean man has just arrived at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Chang Ahn has been dropped off at night in the middle of nowhere and left to make his way to the campus on his own: "This was the petrified figure that Mrs. Reston, the vice vice chancellor's housekeeper, found at the door to the vice vice chancellor's house.... You would not have known that the motionless person had just walked two miles straight uphill with a steady and terrified step." It soon becomes apparent that Chang, called Chuck, suffers from more than just fear of the dark. During the Korean War, he was first a translator for the United States and later a prisoner in a Communist internment camp. Even in the U.S. "he could not accept the lack of precaution as a sign that he was safe." On his first day in Sewanee, Chuck meets Katherine, a young woman who lives in town and is the secret lover of a professor who was once a classmate of her father's--and the man who first seduced her when she was 14.
The American South in 1955 is hardly an ideal locale to start an interracial romance, yet Katherine and Chuck are drawn to each other almost from the start. What begins as friendship gradually becomes something more, yet it takes a surprise proposal from Katherine's lover and a summer spent apart to make them face their true feelings. Susan Choi writes this first novel with assurance, weaving Chuck's terrible experiences of war and Katherine's own troubled past into a heartfelt tale of love that demonstrates real talent. Choi is definitely a writer to keep your eye on. --Margaret Prior
Book Description
Highly acclaimed by critics,
The Foreign Student is the story of a young Korean man, scarred by war, and the deeply troubled daughter of a wealthy Southern American family. In 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the Tennessee mountains. Chuck is shy, speaks English haltingly, and on the subject of his earlier life in Korea he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine, a beautiful and solitary young woman who, like Chuck, is haunted by some dark episode in her past. Without quite knowing why, these two outsiders are drawn together, each sensing in the other the possibility of salvation. Moving between the American South and South Korea, between an adolescent girl's sexual awakening and a young man's nightmarish memories of war,
The Foreign Student is a powerful and emotionally gripping work of fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Very Good.......2007-03-16
This novel, I thought, was quite good. In addition to belivable backgrounds for both the characters and the story itself, the romance was well written too. The pressures these two people are under is written in such a way as to make you truly indetify with them.
The information the reader learns about the Korean War is also fantastic. For American readers some of this information will come as a shock as this war is not as well known about as the two wars that bracketed it (WW2 & Vietnam).
I wasn't going to say this, but after reading many of these reviews, I feel I must say something. I think a lot of the negative response to the relationship in this book has to do with it's specific components. Sadly it seems, too many people still can't picture an Asian male in a relationship with a Caucasian female. More's the pity.
Strangely Elusive..........2005-12-19
Choi's debut novel is more engrossed in creating beautiful and artistic sentences than telling a story with believable characters and a coherent plot. I think the telling of it has great potential, but Choi never takes it to the apex of its possibilities. The story revolves around an "unlikely love affair", an interracial courtship ritual that revolves around an exasperating character escaping war torn Korea and an attractive Southern belle in the 1950s. As a reader I found it baffling how someone as dry and two-dimensional as the Korean Chang could be the subject of *anyone's* affection. He speaks little and may be endowed with existentialist fatalism but not much more. Chang is cowardly, faulty, mostly afraid, and above all, difficult to identify with, at least from this reader's point of view, making Katherine's choice to fall in love with him even more incredible, which resigns me to believe that some stories can only be told in fiction and forgotten.
Some first-novel flaws -- but worth a read.......2004-07-08
While this novel has a lot to recommend, I felt that the two storylines (Katherine's and Chang's) didn't fit together cohesively. As one other reviewer noted, I didn't feel that there was a strong enough or believable enough reason why these two people would be so deeply attracted to each other. Thus their coming together seemed like simply a plot contrivance -- as though Choi had two really interesting storylines on different subjects that she was developing separately, but didn't have enough on each to sustain a full novel, so she awkwardly tied them together. Yes, both Chang and Katherine are outcasts, in a way, but that just wasn't enough -- particularly as Chang's story becomes increasingly grim. I could see how Katherine's attraction to Chang might have stemmed from her character (Choi makes a point of saying, in one section, that Katherine feels like love should be completely illogical, that she should fall in love with someone that no one else would approve of or understand), but I couldn't see how Chang's relationship with Katherine connected with his previous, horrifying experiences in the war, except on a superficial level. What does he need from Katherine? His life has been about guilt and betrayal; is Choi trying to stretch the point that in embracing Katherine, he is finally embracing his guilt? It's certainly possible to think up similar kinds of connections and themes, but they seemed flimsy and forced to me.
Finally, I found the writing somewhat tedious at times (even while it was intelligent and lucid throughout). The somewhat journalistic passages about the Korean War didn't bother me as much as it seems to have bothered other reviewers (in fact, I found them helpful and informative); rather, it was the long passages of exposition, wherein a character would ponder his/her thoughts and feelings in depth, that I found unnecessarily slow and overwritten.
Despite all this (overly long, I'll admit) criticism, I believe that many readers will find this book a worthwhile read. Choi writes with intelligence and a strong sense of character; I have no doubt that more fine books will come from her.
good if uneven writing.......2003-03-30
Susan Choi writes well. But alas, she doesn't know much about Korea. I quickly noticed this as I am from Korea. I think that's the most glaring flaw of this book--the war part in Korea is written so woodenly, it's almost painful to read. I could see that Choi wrote down the mere facts from what she dug up from her research. And also it goes on too long without giving the reader a clear picutre or map of the situation in general, so it was all so very vuague to me.
The best character in this book was Edison. The relationship between him and Katherine is very well depicted. In fact, come to think of it, it was almost like reading two books in one.
If Choi sticks to the world she knows mor intimately, which seems to me western rather than eastern, American rather than Korean, she would produce something wonderful with her talent.
A Novel That Stops Time.......2002-05-11
I usually dislike reading KA fiction because it gets irritating when authors write about Korea but describe the country with skewed, distorted myths about it's culture and history and auto-Orientalist themes that cater to the mainstream.
Not so with this novel. I found myself completely lost in the story, not even caring about the "authenticity" issue because Choi does what all great writers do: she re-imagines and re-creates a palpable "real" universe that stops time. The fictional world transcends almost everything else I've read by Korean Americans, making you believe the characters, the location, the feelings. In short, it is a beautifully written novel and my personal favorite of all the Asian American novels I've read.
That having been said, I am happy to attest that Choi does indeed write about the truth of the Korean War that goes against the conventional American myths about this unknown conflict. Choi does not hesitate to go into little known aspects of the war such as S. Korean President Syngman Rhee's execution of political prisoners and the Cheju/Yosu rebellions which took 100,000 lives even before the Korean War erupted in June 1950. Moreover, Choi depicts the Orientalist, racist experiences for Chang, a foreigner in America's South, and subtly links it to America's damaging foreign policies that warped Korea. She even resurrects a devastatingly convincing portrait of Gen. Hodge, the commander of the US military government in S. Korea--you can practically hear him breathing and speaking. This novel is startling in its audacity to depict America's occluded responsibility for the war that probably even challenges what most Koreans over 50 believe. As a former fact-checker for the New Yorker magazine, I suspect that she used her skills to do meticulous research into the origins of the Korean War. Having lived in Korea (and in Chicago, where her description of Clark and Belmont is right on) I am surpised by her accuracy and the "truth" of her details. I've read an article where Choi downplays the "authenticity" issue of her novel, and emphasizes that it is fiction. She's right, of course, but I am simply delighted that she has rendered a beautiful story that will not only impress the common reader, but satisfy those familiar with Korean history. Her research only heightens the pleasure of reading this gem of a novel.
Amazon.com
Without preamble, Mary Gordon takes the reader straight to the heart of the matter in Pearl. On Christmas night, in 1998, Maria Meyers gets a call from the State Department. Maria, a New York liberal, keeps the illusion of control of her surroundings, and the news she gets is confusing, annoying, and frightening. Confusing because she doesn't understand why Pearl, 20 years old and Maria's only child, has done what she has done, annoying because there has been no forewarning, and frightening because Pearl might die. Maria is definitely not in control here, a condition that makes her vastly uncomfortable. The caller tells Maria that Pearl has chained herself to the flagpole at the American Embassy in Dublin, where she has gone to study the Irish language. Her action is the culmination of six weeks of starvation. She is very ill, dehydrated, and near death. She has left three letters on the sidewalk: one meant for the media, one for her mother, and one for their dearest and oldest family friend, Joseph Kasperman.
The media letter says "...I am giving my life in witness to the death of Stephen Donegan and to the goodness and importance of his life. Second, to show my support, my admiration for the Peace Agreement, and those who have worked toward it. Third, to mark the human will to harm." Pearl believes that, due to a careless remark said in anger, she is responsible for Stephen's death. She has been consorting with members of the Real IRA, those hardliners who will make no accommodation to stop the violence. Pearl breaks with them over an act which places Stephen, a hapless, slow-witted boy, in the hands of the law. Her primary philosophical concern is her conviction that the "human will to harm," is pernicious and pervasive. She wants to opt out of any further possibility of harming anyone.
On this convoluted thread, Mary Gordon marches forward with a stunning exploration of revisited themes, such as Catholic-Jewish heritage, trouble with fathers, and the nature of personal responsibility. A stylistic note: Gordon employs an omniscient narrator to make comments, in the nature of "Gentle Reader" asides. It is sometimes irritating, but a small price to pay for Gordon's careful deconstruction of everyone's thoughts and actions as Maria and Joseph arrive in Dublin, where Maria confronts Mick, the American angel of the Real IRA, Finbar, Pearl's lover, and Pearl's doctors. She is used to directing traffic and is thwarted on all sides by people whose agendas are vastly different from hers. Joseph is a shadowy figure, more acted upon than acting, and when he does decide to stand up he makes a ludicrous error. Gordon has forged an entirely satisfactory and plausible ending for a precarious set of circumstances. The book is thought-provoking, asking and inspiring the reader to take a position on issues as old as time and as new as the headlines. --Valerie Ryan
Book Description
On Christmas night of 1998, Maria Meyers learns that her twenty-year-old daughter, Pearl, has chained herself outside the American embassy in Dublin, where she intends to starve herself to death. Although Maria was once a student radical and still proudly lives by her beliefs, gentle, book-loving Pearl has never been interested in politics–nor in the Catholicism her mother rejected years before. What, then, is driving her to martyr herself?
Shaken by this mystery, Maria and her childhood friend (and Pearl’s surrogate father), Joseph Kasperman, both rush to Pearl’s side. As Mary Gordon tells the story of the bonds among them, she takes us deep into the labyrinths of maternal love, religious faith, and Ireland’s tragic history. Pearl is a grand and emotionally daring novel of ideas, told with the tension of a thriller.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Download Description
The long–awaited new novel from acclaimed writer Mary Gordon.
Customer Reviews:
The Communication Crisis in Pearl.......2007-06-18
Mary Gordon's Pearl is a novel written in an elegantly fascinating style. The plot might appear not that excitement-ridden, yet the content is so profound that at some points I thought I was reading a philosophical text disguised in a novel's attire. Dealing with political and ideological extremism, the novel explores a human, communicative crisis that is in urgent need of repair. The crisis is a special one in which communication has become crippled by virtue of a detachment in the characters' process of understanding and defining the world. In this crisis the parent-child connection has grown a tenuous relation. While each character thinks that they understand, ultimately they realize that their understanding is plagued by doubt that stems from the fact that they understand the world totally differently from those who supposedly share the same understanding as theirs.
The novel treats a very significant issue that of parent-child relationships. As obvious as it appears, no one of the characters is involved in a healthy parent-child relationship to the extent that the readers themselves start reflecting upon and questioning whether their family relationships are in good shape or not! This sort of reflection and questioning presumably is what Mary Gordon succeeded in, through fabricating a story that proceeds until it reaches a point where the readers find it dull, and find themselves not in the right mood to carry on turning over the novel's pages. The fact is that at this point the readers start feeling the dullness of life the characters arrive at when they realize that whatever they believe in is to be questioned, and that their answer is not The Answer.
(......)
At the end, we feel that Pearl's characters have learnt something. They have learnt to forgive, to give up their ideals for the sake of solving the communicative crisis. Though she still seems not able to figure out what her daughter needs beside love, Maria, entangled in her daughter's critical situation, rethinks her rearing of Pearl, and questions the validity of her political values that once separated her from her father. When Maria was informed that her father passed away, "she could not weep, would not, because she knew if she allowed herself to grieve she would become a mourner, which would dilute her sense of righteousness, her sense of acting in the name of justice" (90; ch. II). But at the end she asks her dead father for his forgiveness, and "weeps for the lost face of her father, the face of her child, in danger of being lost to her forever" (321; ch. III). Pearl realizes that, though one day each one will have no choice whether to stay alive, death is not a choice, and answering her question "Why is it that it's life we want?" (339; ch. III), we want life to live reality that is constituted for us, and also reality that we constitute. We live reality as it is produced and maintained, from a transmission perspective, and also we live it as we repair and transform it, from a constitutive view. This way, communication is possible, and this is how James W. Carey In Communication as Culture defines communication, stating that it is a "symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed" (23).
(For your comment, you can reach me at: bensaidmohsine@gmail.com)
An Intelligent Read.......2006-10-01
Mary Gordon has published five novels, a book of novellas, a collection of short stories, a memoir, two books of essays, and a biography of Joan of Arc. She is a recipient of the Lila Acheson Wallace Reader's Digest Award, a Guggenheim fellowship and a 1997 O. Henry Prize for best short story. Her latest novel, "Pearl," may delve into similar issues as her other works: religion, motherhood, feminism, yet it is unlike anything I have read before.
Immediately the reader learns of the crisis at the center of the book: Maria, a feminist single mother receives a call from the state department informing her that her daughter has chained herself to the flag pole outside the American Embassy in Dublin. She hasn't eaten for six weeks and her death has been planned to coincide with the celebration of the birth of Christ. We feel Maria's initial shock and helplessness as she makes plans to fly to Ireland.
What makes this novel so unique is Gordon's use of a sort of benign, cerebral narrator to tie the threads of three lives together and to clue the reader into all the nuances that led Pearl, Maria's daughter, to commit such a desperate, deliberate act of sacrifice. It's as if the reader is thrust into the action and then through skillful, yet sometimes painfully slow narration, the reader learns the why of it.
Tackling large issues such as Catholicism, Judaism, anorexia, Irish politics, martyrdom, feminism, motherhood, despair, human propensity toward violence, Gordon is fearless in illuminating all for the reader's examination.
In the letter given to Maria, Pearl writes:
"Try to call upon the values you have given me: a love of justice, a need to bear witness to the truth. I am doing this in the name of justice, in witness to the truth. I am marking a wrongful death, for which I was responsible, and other public wrongs that will lead to death and more death."
Pearl, a student of language, believes that her death will be the ultimate sentence, the viable only sentence she can offer in the name of her despair.
And in the letter given to a family friend, Joseph, the son of her Maria's father's housekeeper:
"I believe that of all people you will understand this best, will comprehend most fully the decisions I have made. A boy died because of me. Because I rendered him as nothing in my self-righteous blindness in the name of an idea. I made a thing of him. I stole his faith and hope.
I know about some things that you and my mother never told me: faith, hope, and love. I have never naturally been a person of hope. Nor, I believe, have you. I have lost my faith in the goodness of life. Replacing that belief: a belief about malignity. In the will to harm. And the dismay that this impulse is in myself."
Pearl has come to martyr herself not only out of profound guilt, but because she has lost her ability to see humanity in anything but the most dire of terms. To see any of characteristics other than the will to harm. The narrative offers examples of the most shocking genocides experienced in history: the Holocaust; Rwanda; Bosnia; Cambodia. And other equally horrific examples of violence on the smaller scale all brought to the page so that the reader may understand Pearl's despair. Fortunately, Gordon has also included forgiveness and redemption in the mix making the experience of reading the book a more fully realized contemplation on human nature.
At times the exposition feels slow, but by the end it won me over and I have come to see that slowness as one of its many good qualities. It allows the reader time to digest difficult, often painful, issues at a pace conducive to thought. This is not a novel to be devoured but rather savored. And a novel not to be missed.
I didn't, but some will need toothpicks..........2006-09-16
My feelings about the novel vary. There are aspects of it that I truly enjoyed, and aspects that I found weighty or hmmm... slow.
"Slow" is a death-knell of a word, in book reviews, so I want to qualify my use of the word here, because truly, Pearl is a book well worth reading, but one should maybe know a few things ahead of time.
Like, for instance, that the first few pages are a bit misleadingly promising.
By that I mean that they contain more real action in them than is to be found in the next 200! Admittedly, the book [I think] really gets the reader involved in its end pages, but these parenthetical highpoints bracket an immense amount of musings upon family, religion, and politics. A lot of nostalgic montage. Stuff that may call for toothpicks to hold open the eyes of some readers.
Secondly, the author has employed an all-knowing [God-like], yet totally unknown [to the reader] in the final analysis, narrator. In some ways it seems disappointing that we are never really shown who is telling the story. At one point, the narrator pops out from behind his or her curtain, and says, "Think of me this way: midwife, present at the birth. Or perhaps this: godfather, present at the christening."
Well... I don't know. I think I would like to know which it is!
Maybe for some, this would be OK. But for me, I found myself unduly preoccupied with wanting to know who this narrator is.
Deconstructionist DeconSHMUCKtionist!
But thirdly, and positively now, I am a reader that enjoys good [detailed, onion-peeling] character development, and I think we have that here, in this book.
Here's the gist of the story itself.
A New York Christmas night [not dark and stormy, that we know of...] the year, 1998. Maria Meyers returns from a party to find a phone message from the State Department, advising her to contact them. She learns that her 20 year old daughter Pearl, studying language at a university in Ireland, has brought herself to the brink of death by starvation and then chained herself to the flagpole of the U.S. Embassy. Motive currently unknown.
Maria is appropriately horrified. This is out of character for Pearl. A mother's worst news! "She packs her bag." [p.9].
Then she calls Joseph, an old family friend in Rome who thinks of Pearl as a daughter, and the two of them set off immediately for Dublin from their separate locations.
"Do you think she'll die?" Maria asks.
"No, I don't think she will die," he says. "You won't let her."
The thing is, Maria herself is someone who is well-acquainted with protest, with activism. Sort of a flower-child of the `60's, she marched and demonstrated and ranted as did so many others of that generation, in the turbulent days of Vietnam, Kent State, and the assassination of JFK.
Now her own daughter is staging this protest... willing to lay down her life in a cause that Maria does not understand.
The bulk of the book explores why Pearl is doing what she is doing... and we learn along with Maria [actually, long before Maria, thanks to our narrator who is way ahead of the airplanes] the cause of Pearl's angst with life. She is sacrificing her life to "bear witness" to the death of a young boy, an event for which she feels partially responsible, as well as to make a political statement for the peace process in Ireland.
Martyrs, hunger-strikers, suicide bombers, terrorists. These deliberate self-orchestrations of death are something we are all familiar with. Like, if you own a TV, you are familiar with it. And so the novel raises [I think] a lot of important issues, and asks profound questions of its readers, and of its characters.
Is there anything truly worth dying for?
Is there anything worth living for?
Is it always desirable to live?
The strength of this novel [for me] is found in the portrayal of the changes wrought within Maria, Joseph and Pearl as they grapple with these universal questions. At one point, it is put this way: "Why is it that it's life we want?" [p.341].
I found it compelling. Rich in its philosophical musings. I will always choose this, if the option is the BANG-SMASH-POW of pointless plot. I guess it's my inner-Dostoyevsky, coming up for air!
Mary Gordon is successful at making me believe that for some people, the conclusion "Life is worth living" is not easily arrived at!
Recommended by Bookpuddle with a rating of 3 puddles out of a possible 5, and with the proviso that you remember that I am Dostoyevsky reincarnate!
Is Pearl under a bushel or is she allowed to shine?.......2006-08-04
The first word that comes to mind regarding this book is 'message.' Gordon's message is crystal clear and timeless; during certain events in an individual's life forgiveness becomes as necessary as food and water. And lack of forgiveness can kill.
Perhaps the bleak nature of the setting and the cold and colorless passages in which the characters find themselves best represent the world's tired spiritual reality and civilization's rampant hostility. I just wish these things were not quite so triumphant in all of the characters--including Pearl's mother, the rational presence at the heart of the storm. Regardless of this or maybe because of it, the book makes a fearless statement about our times.
It's just that one hungers for the occasional absence of cynicism to combat the darkness.
Incorrect Information.......2006-05-30
I'm only about 30 pages into the book and already I've found information that's incorrect. The author states that bobby Sands was 28 when he died....he was only 27. Not sure I want to finish ready a book that has information that is so easy to verify incorrect....
Customer Reviews:
"Don't I need to see all my mistakes so I can improve?".......2007-08-18
An excellent novel that gives deep insights into dfficulties experienced by a young girl who escaped Vietnam in the final days of the war. She enters a California university and faces many things that are new and different from what her life had been. One of her professors ,who was a Veteran of that same war,goes through great mental difficulties in dealing with the university establishment in his efforts to really help his students and get his own life back to normal.
The structure of the book is unlike any I have ever come across.There are no chapters at all.All the prose is in the form of journal entries of the student and her professor . There is no necessity to show which person's journal is being quoted.Tina,the student's journal entries are dated by day,month and date (Sunday,November 24) while the professor's are given numerials (11/26/85). This is very inovative and works surprisingly well.
The story is so well constructed and written that it is surprisingly easily understood and flows so well it is difficult to put down. That is not to suggest that the topics and emotions are simple;they are anything but. What the author has done so well is to put it all into a novel in a way that the reader has no difficulty in understanding the thoughts and emotions that these two people experienced.
This may be William Hart's first novel,but with the skills he has shown us with this one;I suspect and hope for many more from him in the future.
There are many little things that I found different in this story. Tina's dealings with other people,particularly roomates,present her as a very mature person for her age.No matter what difficultu she comes up against;she never falls for the "poor me" victim,syndome.She just takes a breather and pushes forward.Another little item is Tina's use of the word "wander".One never is in doubt of what she means.
If you were to read this book with a plain cover;it would be interesting to think what sort of picture would be appropriate.The picture on the cover is supurb and I just love looking at it .It will get a prominent spot on my bookshelf.
Aside from the story itself;I couldn't help but think of some of my own experiences in university.At the time it seemed that the professors just "appeared" at the lectern,gave their lecture,and then we all filed out. We were all more interested in the subject and our interests in passing the course and didn't give a whole lot of thought to the professor and his interests and problems. This book will make you think that "professors are people to".
There is another little thing that intrigued me on page 174.A method to numerically evaluate the quality of writing.I don't know if it is really used;but many years ago in a "Better Writing" course I learned about "The Fog Index" It was a way to evaluate numerically how easy a piece of prose was to understand. It worked and is given for many of the books listed on Amazon.The method of calculating it can be found on the net by searching "Fog Index"
"Close to Home".......2002-06-18
This story hit, "Close to Home", for I am a Vietnam Vet and a member of a minority. It is for these reasons that I was very sympathetic, understanding, and emotionally drawn to the people in this story. William Hart has written a short, but powerful story that packs quite a punch.
It's a solid and touching story of the relationship between a teacher and his student, that could become romantic but does not quite reach that point. It's 1985, and a Vietnamese student, Tina Le, has signed up for an English Secondary Language (ESL) course at a Los Angeles college. John Goddard is her writing teacher and a Vietnam Vet, who is still experiencing flashbacks of the war. The story is told in alternating journal entries, so that we are exposed to the views of both characters daily lives. This creates a very personal and intimate method of telling the story. I think it brings us closer to the characters real feelings. The story unfolds as the English Department decides to flunk out the many Asian Students. Tina Le, a math major, has a talent for writing stories. She writes a heartfelt story on the suffering of her family back in Vietnam during the war. Goddard recognizes her literary talent and tries to reward her by having the story published. Soon Goddard finds out the university administrator plans to fail the overabundance of ethnic minority students, including Tina Le. Once Goddard finds out Tina Le has failed the course unfairly he strongly brings his objections to the university administrator, and soon finds himself fired from his job. After filing a grievance, they are given a hearing, and what follows is a courtroom like drama, where both Tina Le, who testifies for Goddard, and Goddard fight to save his job. During this time, Tina Le's and Goddard's relationship deepens, to the point where it could become romantic. Of course, this creates even more problems for both of them.
This is a short and easy read, and an impressive debut by a writer that is a force to be followed in the future. I especially enjoyed and related to his Vietnam experiences and the emotional and caring feelings he had for his ethnic and Vietnamese students. This is a book that's hard to put down, and a story that should touch almost any heart. Highly Recommended!
Joe Hanssen
4 1/2* Journals of Pain and Healing.......2002-06-06
This is a superb novel about Vietnam War veteran John Goddard and his ESL pupil, Vietnamese refugee Tien Le, as each confront past war traumas and current problems with the English Department's grading policies at a fictional California State University.
Hart presents a dual-first person narrative in the protagonists' journals, and this is where his mastery shows. Unlike other first-person novels (or dialogue in 3rd person), Hart gives John and Tina (her chosen Anglicized name) authentic voices true to their strengths and, most importantly, limitations. The bounds on their perceptions and emotional responses ring true: Goddard's cynical and sometimes sweeping moralizing tone, for example, seems appropriate for a man tuned into the "black and white" rather than the gray shades: "Then there's Memorial Day...here the underlying theme is human sacrifice by auto crash, as thundering engines and screaming gears are echoed a millionfold on the nation's highways." Though the book effectively attacks the ESL practices and the self-righteous administrators who impose them, Hart restrains from using his characters' voices as a proxy for his own; they do not suddenly become eloquent or insightful so that Hart can make a point.
The book's pace, character development, and alternating narratives show great balance. Hart is patient with his characters, letting them reveal explosive bits of the past in wider and wider circles as they approach their Vietnam experiences. Mr. Goddard initially confronts the past indirectly, seeking answers in the lives of other war survivors: Ulysses, the prototypical soldier and war refugee, humorist/Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce, and in his own farcical but somewhat detached Vietnam novel. However, this intellectualizing does not abate his continuing symptoms strongly indicative of PTSD (e.g., nightmares, flashbacks, isolation, anger). Goddard (as well as Tina Le) gradually faces the past through his journal entries (and ultimately through some briefly mentioned therapy at a VA Medical Center and a Vet Center.)
Hart doesn't stereotype the hurting vet, he shows us Goddard's intelligence, compassion, and a cynical idealism that serve him well in his battles against the discrimination of the English Department. Similarly, Tien "Tina" Le is a well-rounded character, showing doubt, strength, and maturity. The writing, with very few exceptions, is excellent: "...the polyglot students of CSUM are quiet but tough...a leatherlike durability cured to absorb 10,000 blows without a flinch or whisper." Goddard also injects a somewhat mordant levity to the book:" Once our squad did a body count after a wall-to-wall carpet [bombing] our leader called...We confirmed 32 kills, although all the pieces could have come from-And I believe did come from-one unlucky water buffalo." Excellent. However, I did think that Rayneece, Tina Le's roommate, sometimes seems a bit "pasted" onto the story. But no matter, this is a great book.
What could have been a confining format becomes instead an insightful and exciting scope in to the protagonists' inner and outer lives. I can't help but compare "Never Fade Away" to Alice Walker's great "The Color Purple," though Walker's work covers deeper ground. Hart, like Walker, allows the characters to tell the story, and the overlapping perspectives give us a whole greater than its parts. He has found a true voice for each narrator. I recommend this book very highly, and look forward to more work from this outstanding writer.
Debut Novel.......2002-06-04
"Never Fade Away", is William Hart's first novel. Dr. Hart has been a teacher of basic writing and (ESL) English As A Second Language at Los Angeles Universities, so how close this novel is to his experiences makes the moniker of novel less than absolute. His own experience clearly adds a great deal of credibility to the work, and this makes a strong message even more disturbing. The message that he shares is one that has gained in importance as events last fall have brought this country's immigration policies in to question. There are fine lines between prudent immigration law, xenophobia, and racism. As congress is getting itself prepared to crucify various governmental agencies hoping to score points for this November's elections the theme of this book only increases in relevance.
There have been disturbing books recently, and one specifically that spent a good deal of time on the bestseller list. They are opportunistic cheap self-promotion screeds that play on fear and ignorance and offer nothing of value. The people who read these books and those that write them are hardly Native Americans. Unless one is a full-blooded Native American, all of us have immigrated here or are the descendents of immigrants. For those who thought the Witch Hunts of McCarthy were a thing of the past, wait for these hearings. They have already been carefully scheduled so that the initial hearings are closed to the public, congress will adjourn to craft their campaign speeches laced with accusations that are indefensible, and then return for public hearings in September, and we all will be the worse for it.
The book takes the form of journal entries of a teacher and one of his students. This student and all others like her must pass a certain proficiency level in written English to stay in school regardless of their performance overall. It is reasonable to expect people that wish to make their home in The United States to have the abilities to write and speak competently. It is not appropriate to use these educational hurdles as institutional racism. And this is the environment that the book's teacher and his students struggle against. If the tests in reality are as described in the book a substantial number of us who have been hear for generations would fail.
Many may ridicule that last sentence, but I offer this. Recently national testing for history was done in our schools and when given the list of the primary combatants in WWII less than half of High School students provided the correct multiple-choice answer. The winner and third place occupant of the recent National Geographic Geography competition were both home-schooled.
"Never Fade Away", has other elements that were hard for me to justify. I don't know if I am being fair, or if the primary issue is just so volatile. For me some of the flashbacks and personal history seemed a bit awkward, but others may find these facets appropriate.
I enjoy the work of new authors, as there are so many names that seem to have a production line for their work. Small publishers have brought to readers new writers that may not be as polished as familiar names, and for that I thank them. Too much of contemporary fiction is occupied by different takes on tired themes, so make the leap occasionally to writers you know nothing of, and you will often be rewarded.
required reading.......2002-05-29
NEVER FADE AWAY should be required reading for teachers at any level, especially those (which is now nearly all teachers) with students for whom English is a second language. It shows poignantly the frustrations and downright heroism of an immigrant student and of a teacher who risks his job to help her in defiance of a college administration that uses absurd standardized tests for academic cleansing.
Furthermore, this is a fine novel. Using a double epistolary form, alternating narratives by teacher and student, it evokes brilliantly the complementary perspectives of its two main characters. It keeps us intimately involved in their thoughts and feelings while it presents the social and political tangles in which they are wound. I literally did not put it down, reading it in a single sitting, something I have not done since reading Nabokov's PNIN many years ago.
I recommend it most highly.
Book Description
Noemie has left her home in France to study abroad. In Onion City there are new friends, new environments, and new loves. There are also new dreams. And not ordinary dreams. Vivid visions of life in a different time and in a different place, but more than that, of a different existence. In Noemie's sleep she's not a woman, but a horse. A noble creature aiding a sick little girl. But how does this effect Noemie's own journey?
Customer Reviews:
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?.......2006-06-17
We are on the cusp of a new era. An era in which children's librarians like myself must wade through pools of graphic novel dreck to find those few shining books to add to our library collections. Teen librarians have it SO much easier. I mean, try naming ten fabulous children's graphic novels off the top of your head. Go on. Name 'em. Fortunately, publishers are sensing this immediate need and they are acting accordingly. Now we have books like Raina Telgemeier's, "The Baby-sitter's Club: Kristy's Great Idea" and Jennifer Holm's, "Babymouse" filling our shelves. Less flashy, but no less impressive, is Hope Larson's quiet and mysterious, "Gray Horses". If I were to call any cartoonist the Marjane Satrapi of children's GNs, Ms. Larson would earn herself the title. High praise. Good book.
Noemie is new to America. Coming straight from Dijon, France she's living on her own and attending college here in the U.S. for the first time. Initially shy, Noemie quickly captures the attentions of two other people. One is Anna, Noemie's neighbor and classmate. The two quickly become fast friends. The other person is a mysterious boy who takes pictures of Noemie when she's not looking. Noemie would probably spend a lot of her time worrying about this boy if it weren't for the dreams she has at night. Each night she dreams of a girl who's attempting to ride a horse as far from her mother as possible. As Noemie learns more about her home and draws some connections between herself and her horse, she begins to unravel the mystery of a young girl who left behind a part of her herself long long ago.
So is this book children's? Obviously the heroine is college aged. Would kids be able to find anything a young adult like Noemie did exciting? Certainly. "Gray Horses" is remarkable partly because its story is interesting to kids of all ages. Also, the dream story definitely involves a child and not a young woman, so the mystery is perfect for children of all ages. Now obviously your average "Captain Underpants" reader is not necessarily going to be able to follow and enjoy "Gray Horses". But for those girls who love Paul Danziger, Phyllis Naylor Reynolds, and want a GN equivalent, this is the book for them. Noemie's tale itself is very low-key. Concerned parents won't find a drop of sex, violence, or even off-color language here. Two of the characters take a slug from a flask, but who's to say what's in it? This is just a beautifully drawn story with a measured mystery.
Larson is clever with her storytelling. Since Noemie is French it wouldn't make any sense at all for her to think her own personal thoughts in English. For that reason she is subtitled much of the time. The real French words and phrases pop up throughout her speech while their English equivalents hover not far below. And the illustrations in this book as a whole are beautifully put together. Larson weaves together a horse motif throughout the pictures that's easy enough to miss if you're not looking for it. Her particular style is more rounded and adept than many of the graphic novelists working in children's literature these days. And just as a side note to all you librarians out there, the binding job on this book is heads and tails better than that cheap manga you keep having to replace. Thumbs up to Oni Press for their stronger glue!
So if you're in the mood for some high quality graphic novels that are child appropriate and written with more than a little pep, "Gray Horses" may certainly be for you. As good a tale as any of the children's books being written today and a lovely example of everything that's great about graphic novels. A GN book worth fighting for.
Book Description
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Why choose "Novels for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Novels for Students."
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- The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century
- The Stanislaski Brothers (Two Complete Novels: Mikhail and Alex)
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- The Things They Carried
- The Ultimate Gift (The Ultimate Series #1)
- The Ultimate Gift (The Ultimate Series #1)
- The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize it and How to Respond
- The Way of Agape: Understanding God's Love (The Kings High Way Series)
- The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry
- Three Kingdoms: Chinese Classics (Classic Novel in 4-Volumes)
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