A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

AS Byatt and Femininity in the Modern Fairytale

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the djinn in the nightingales eye - as byattLately I’ve been drawn to fairytales and myths. Perhaps I am trying to recover an ebbing capacity for storytelling in my suddenly busy life, and perhaps I’m looking to get lost in the wonder of stories the way I did when I was a kid. Perhaps I’m missing afternoons at Louisa’s with Bob and Jack and their emphasis on the mythic journey. When I stumbled on AS Byatt’s The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, I thought I wanted to read it because it spoke to the Arabian Nights, but what I fell in love with was the overall fairytale quality of the book and its five stories and what they told me about being a woman.

The Eldest Princess

In “The Story of the Eldest Princess,” the girl who goes on the quest to renew her kingdom is not the most beautiful of the sisters, she is the eldest. Sometimes it feels like our stories are only about the fairest of them all with the idea that everyone else is background. In this story, birth order is more important and princess status is not synonymous with beauty. The princess is not a victim of her fate and is rewarded for trusting her instincts. What I most liked is how the relationship between the crone and the princess spoke to a continuity of femininity and female knowledge that is too easy to ignore.

“There is always an old woman ahead of you on a journey, and there is always an old woman behind you too, and they are not always the same.” – AS Byatt, The Eldest Princess

The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye

There are many things to love about this story and how it portrays women. From the honest lustiness of Gillian (without the silly virgin tremble) to the unveiling of the desires of the Middle Eastern female. What I most loved was Gillian’s frank appreciation of her womanhood. When she is confronted with the opportunity to have anything she wants, she most wants to return to her body when she last liked it and that age is thirty-five. Perhaps this is vanity on my part as I am nearing that age and spend more time than I should worried about my “faults,” but I liked how the idea of a perfect female body is the body of a woman and not a girl. The djinn echoes this assessment. Though I do worry about the days after thirty-five and I hope I will continue to love my body as it follows the natural course.

“All love-making is shape-shifting—the male expands like a tree, like a pillar, the female has intimations of infinity in the spaces which narrow inside her” – AS Byatt, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye

This book helped me appreciate myself as a woman. I loved that both the princess and Gillian are storytellers as I am. I hope my own stories will help future generations of women love themselves and to experience the infinite possibilities available inside the life the Fates assign.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The Absurdity of Obstacles: Gogol’s Russia in Diary of a Madman and Other Stories

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Nikolai Gogol portrays the rigid social and governmental institutions in Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. By setting characters up to functioning inside the system to the point of absurdity or to function in opposition to the system, the reader can see the societal norms that may otherwise be invisible.

In the story “How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich,” Gogol presents two landowner friends. They quarrel over the sale of a gun and ultimately Ivan N. calls Ivan I. a goose. The dispute seems silly to the reader, but Ivan I. takes it to such heart that the action of the story unfolds from this slight insult. Because Ivan N. asks, “‘What’s so slanderous about it and why are you waving your arms about?’” the reader can feel justified in the assumption that Ivan I. is overreacting and even laugh at the image of this “goose” flapping his arms. The two Ivans bring complaints against each other in court and eventually in a deliciously funny scene Ivan I.’s pig eats Ivan N.’s paperwork. Ivan I. is declared guilty of stealing the document (a capital offense) because he owns the pig. At first it seems as though the mayor who is delivering this news is quite serious, he later settles for the idea that the pig be killed and asks for a share in any sausages that might result which makes the punishment seem arbitrary and highlights the relationship the characters have with the rigid mores around them. The characters live within strict societal rules and are willing to enforce them, but they also circumvent them when necessary. This brings about an “us against them” mentality even when the characters (mayors, judges) ostensibly would be a part of the institution and therefore a part of “them.”

Gogol also pokes fun at the rigid expectations of his society in “The Madman.” In this story, the humor in the rigidity lies in how internalized the social norms are. It rapidly becomes obvious that the protagonist Axenty is insane but he never strays from the accepted social manners of his day. Axenty is in love with the boss’s daughter and becomes convinced that a dog is interfering with his prospects, so he knocks on the door of the house and demands of the maid that he be admitted to talk with the dog. If he were to chase the dog down the street or abuse it or even call the humane society, Axenty would be living in a different society. But in his society, propriety demands that one present themselves to the maid and request an audience in order to settle a dispute. Axenty’s madness also seeks redress in the reading the dog’s letters. The humor lies in the fact that this man has so internalized his culture, he is attempting to use proper etiquette when dealing with a dog.

In “The Overcoat,” Akaky is a poor government worker who is content in the rote mediocrity of his life as a copyist. He scrapes together enough cash to have a new overcoat made. The new overcoat is an object of great pride for him and his coworkers throw a party and invite him and his overcoat to the party. On the way home, the overcoat is stolen and Akaky’s quest for redress begins. At first he works within the system as he meekly asks for audiences to explain his situation but the bureaucracy shuffles him along without satisfactory result. Eventually Akaky stands up for himself at the urging of his fellow clerks and demands to see the Superintendent, but he is thwarted because the man turns the questioning around on Akaky. The clerks in his office give him advice on how to work around the systemic constraints and Akaky is eventually persuaded to seek the help of an Important Person who again abuses Akaky because he has not followed proper procedure. Akaky dies of an illness brought on by not having a proper coat and he begins haunting the area where his coat was stolen. Only when freed from his earthly constraints is Akaky able to sift through the rigidity of social and bureaucratic norms and he steals the Important Person’s overcoat.

Gogol portrays a world where both internal and external constraints are very rigid. There are some characters (like the clerks in Akaky’s office) who are able to work around the system, but the protagonists aren’t. Watching these characters unable to break free from their norms can be frustrating, but by portraying both the humor and tragedy of these characters, Gogol is able to speak to the condition of the society he was writing about. Writing about existing normative constraints can be difficult because readers not of the society may not understand the norms of that society and readers from within that society do not always recognize those norms as something worth talking about. Every society has norms and every character must act within them or thwart them. By writing about characters who are prisoners to their norms to the point of absurdity, Gogol is able to create a commentary on his society that speaks both to his countrymen and to outsiders.

In my own writing I am very interested in the way societies function and how that affects individual behavior. What I can see from Gogol is that without commenting on the norms the reader may not understand them. Gogol either sets up some opposition force to the norms (Akaky trying to talk to the Important Person) or has a character follow the norms to the letter (Axenty seeking proper introductions to a dog or holding a pig accountable for a crime).

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Diary of a Madman and Other Stories from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Regarding the Bosnian War with Susan Sontag

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Dubrovnik
Most of the roofs in Dubrovnik are bright red–a sign that they have been recently replaced.

Of the Bosnian War, I remember only images on CNN of the bombing of Sarajevo. My excuse is that I was a teenager, though I lived for a year in Eastern Europe during the height of the war and should have been more aware. I later studied it in Political Science, but I could never find an entry point to start to relate to it on a human rather than academic scale. Even Dubravka Ugrešić’s The Ministry of Pain felt abstract despite her incredible depiction of the war’ effects on one person. Reading more relatable books by Ismet Prcic and Saša Stanišić in preparation for our trip humanized the war, but the former Yugoslavia still seemed like a far off place. As Susan Sontag writes in Regarding the Pain of Others, “The memory of war…is mostly local.”

Flying from Paris to Zagreb, I wondered at the large, orderly collections of dark rectangles on the ground. They were too small to be cars. As the plane descended, I realized they were all near churches and that they must be graves. They looked so fresh and plentiful. I started to feel leaden.

regarding the pain of others - susan sontagI tried to forget about the graves as we flew to Dubrovnik and entered the beautiful, walled old Town. For a couple of days I was a right good tourist exploring the sights and spending money. But I kept looking for signs of the war. The guidebook said the only evidence we would see of the bombing of Dubrovnik was the new red tile roofs. It wasn’t until walked the walls that I saw that most of the roofs were the bright red of new tile. Almost no building was left untouched. I wanted to think that there were other reasons for some of the new roofs, but there were so many of them…I was curious and I wanted to know more, but I didn’t know who to ask and I didn’t want to be rude. I wanted to see the place for more than its war experiences, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

On our final day in Dubrovnik, we turned from sunny Stradun street with its masses of tourists down a narrow side street and stepped into War Photo Limited. There were three main exhibits that day: Blood & Honey by Ron Haviv, Srebrenica Genocide 11/07/95 by Tarik Samarah, and Bosnians by Paul Lowe. Wandering though those exhibits, I saw images of the aftermath of the Bosnian War: mass graves, survivors being DNA tested to identify corpses, and bones that no one bothered to bury. Sontag had seen these photos. She wrote broadly about images from the Bosnian War and specifically about Ron Haviv’s image of a Serb kicking a Muslim woman’s corpse.

There are images that recur in conflict and thus war photography—starving people and mass graves are all too common. Sontag writes “shock can become familiar” and this exhibit contained some images familiar from conflicts past, including images of dolls as a metaphor for the loss of innocence. I had seen images like these from World War II and Viet Nam but they didn’t speak to the unique character of the conflict and I wished I could have learned more from them. In contrast, one of the more affecting images was of a decomposing corpse and the Koran that had fallen from his hand. The image spoke specifically to this one conflict and to the young man who was torn from his home and who was likely praying when he was murdered. I thought of the families detailed in Prcic and Stanišić’s books who had been forced out of their homes and then murdered. One of my favorite photographs showed people congregating for water outside bombed out buildings. I thought of Prcic’s hero and the lengths he went to in order to shower to impress a girl and how Prcic found a way to marry the perfect detail in a story with something that spoke to the larger condition.

When I saw an image of an American law enforcement agent searching a field for graves, I found my connection to this story. Madeleine Albright wrote in her autobiography about her disappointment with the way the US handled the Bosnian War—with how long it took us to get involved. I don’t advocate for widespread US intervention, but I do think the world community has a moral imperative to intervene when civilians are being killed. When genocide is being committed. After all the time I spent reading about the Holocaust as a child, I thought it couldn’t happen again, that we knew better. Part of what I was experiencing in Croatia was disbelief that it did. In Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria, and so many more places.

Sontag writes, “One should feel obliged to think about what it means to look at” war photography and I have been thinking about my motives. The exhibit did not quell my curiosity. I still examined buildings for bullet holes and wondered about the story and family behind each burned out house. In fact the exhibit made me more curious, but it also framed that curiosity. Instead of worrying about the base nature of humans, I am focusing on the history. I am learning where places like Vukovar, Tuzla and Srebrenica are on the map. I am thinking about the wonderful, friendly people we met throughout Croatia and Slovenia and about how they are like people everywhere. It’s far too easy to watch war on the TV or even to change the channel. Somewhere inside I have always been terrified that war could happen to me and I think that is the real reason I have disengaged. But the Bosnian War is no longer a war that happened somewhere to someone else. War can happen anywhere to anyone. I hope never to experience it, but I’m no longer going to pretend it couldn’t happen to me. I’m not going to let my fear be an excuse for ignoring what is happening in the world.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Regarding the Pain of Others from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The Story of Steffie Cvek’s Patchwork Life in Lend Me Your Character

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I picked up Dubravka Ugrešić’s Lend Me Your Character to work my way through the lingering jet lag from our trip to Croatia and to soak up a little more information about the human side of the Bosnian War, but sometimes you get what you need not what you ask for. Because most of the stories in the book dated from the 1980s, I got to read about pre-war Yugoslavia—something I had been craving when reading Saša Stanišić and Ismet Prcic. Though constrained by the Iron Curtain, Steffie’s life is remarkably and enjoyably ordinary.

Ugrešić has always challenged my expectations as a reader. In The Ministry of Pain, she shocked my sensibilities and created a direct pipeline to what it must feel like to be without a country and a language. In The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, she pieced unrelated fragments together to convey the experience of a fractured life. The initial novella in Lend Me Your Character is similar in construction to The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, but the tone is delightfully different.

Ugrešić calls “Steffie Cvek in the Jaws of Life” a patchwork, and that’s just what it is, figuratively and literally. Using fragments from Madame Bovary, advice from women’s magazines, and sewing instructions, Ugrešić creates the story of Steffie’s misadventures in love and life. Though Steffie is depressed, the narrative is playful enough that I was optimistic for Steffie. But it isn’t just the tone that I loved. Ugrešić manages to make feel like a collaborator not just a reader. As we stitch together the narrative, she tells me about the choices she is faced with, how she makes them, and the options she discards (including an entire section on what she could have written for one of Steffie’s love affairs). The casual, inside view of a story could feel haphazard if it wasn’t so masterfully handled.

I don’t know what’s next in this book, but I am looking forward to seeing how Ugrešić will challenge me. I do know that I have a lot to learn from her about successfully fracturing a narrative—something I look forward to using in my next book.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Lend Me Your Character from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Kira Salak and Adventures in Travel (Writing) with The White Mary

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the white mary - kira salakI read The White Mary by Kira Salak on a flight from Seattle to Paris at the start of my first trip abroad in four years. The story of a journalist on a quest for her idol who the world thinks is dead but she thinks might be alive in the deep jungles of Papua New Guinea seemed like an auspicious start to my own (much tamer) adventure: a family trip to Croatia.

I used to be a citizen of the world. I’ve visited twenty-four countries, lived on three continents, and can converse in five languages. Except that most of that was before I graduated high school. Though I have done a lot since then to become the person I want to be, I have neglected my wanderlust and let my language skills fester. I had become someone who only travels in the company of a tour director and I became afraid to step outside that bubble.

Contemplating the rigors of travel with a coffee in the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian's palace
Contemplating the rigors of travel with a coffee in the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian’s palace

In contrast, Kira Salak is a travel writer by training and it’s evident in her lush descriptions of foreign people and places. Her protagonist, Marika Vecera, is determined, culturally aware (mostly), and savvy. Things I used to believe about myself. As I read about Marika’s kidnapping in the Congo, I was worrying I wouldn’t be able to communicate well enough to order breakfast. When she was coordinating her trip to the deep interior of Papua New Guinea, I was trying to figure out if I was capable of getting bus tickets from Dubrovnik to Split. I realized how fearful I had become.

The White Mary is engaging overall and I liked reading it. The love story is a little empty—it feels like Salak was as uninvested in it as Vecera was—but I am glad I read this book and even more glad that I passed it along to a fellow traveler.

Croatia, though a fantastic trip, turned out to be much more mundane than the wilds of the South Pacific. I managed to communicate in very basic Serbo-Croatian, German and Slovenian, though most people spoke English. We were never more lost than a missed freeway exit, and I even got to take a train. I was mistaken for a local (my favorite!) once and very briefly.  I don’t think I’ll become a travel writer in the near future (unless…), but at least I now remember that the world is full of people, not scary monsters, and I can navigate the globe if I only try.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The White Mary from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.