Collected Miscellany

I had a very weird feeling the other day. I realized that for one of the few times in my life I agreed with the New York Times more than with National Review Online! What brought such a weird moment to pass? Reviews of The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

In my own review I rather prophetically had this to say:

In today’s often polarized and hyper-partisan environment conservatives will be tempted to simply write off Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist as just another anti-American screed masquerading as fiction. Those on the opposite end may want to label it in a similar fashion but approve of the politics. That would be a mistake. Yes, the book does contain anti-American sentiment and passages that are, to my mind, rather banal leftist complaints about the xenophobic and destructive nature of the American “empire.” But to categorize this book as simply a political rant dressed-up as art is to deny both its aesthetic merit and the cultural insights it might offer.

Ann Marlowe soon took up the challenge at NRO with her Buying Anti-American. Marlowe’s review is one long extended rant; she seems genuinely offended by the book. Here are some representative quotes:

– As a novel, RF is tripe — anti-American agitprop clumsily masquerading as a work of art. People who are buying RF are sending their money to someone who is aggressively anti-American.

– On a purely literary level, RF is a dreadful book.

– But Hamid has obviously seen that there is greater mileage in playing the “Muslim rage” card and donning the mantle of Islamic minstrelism than in becoming a fine novelist. If I had any sympathy for him, I’d mourn his lack of respect for himself. As it is, I’m appalled at his lack of respect for his audience, his narrator, his narrator’s American listener, his co-religionists who suffered under the Taliban and under Saddam, and for the victims of the World Trade Center attack.

Some of Marlowe’s criticism are fair, but I think in many ways she misses the point.

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Pacific Alamo by John Wukovits highlights an area of World War II that has rarely been covered – the Battle for Wake Island and the fate of those who survived the battle. Wukovits brings his wonderful narrative style to this subject.

The book covers the battle – which began on December 11, 1941 – extensively through the eyes of the military men and civilians who fought to defend the island against the Japanese. The Japanese tried to take the island with a small force, but suffered heavy losses. After bombing the island for three weeks, the Japanese finally took the island with a total of 700 casualties compared to 100 casualties for the Americans. After surrendering, the Americans were taken to various locations around the Japanese Empire where they were brutally treated and sometimes murdered.

Wukovits does an excellent job of reciting the battle and the fate of the Americans who fought in it. Wukovits weaves together the personal accounts of the military men, civilians, and Japanese. In addition, he briefly explains how the events that occurred on Wake influenced the war in general – many Americans saw the Wake defenders’ defiance as a rallying cry.

In short, the book is wonderfully written about a group of men who captured the hearts of America.

One of my favorite young adult series is the Sisters Grimm Fairy Tale Detectives series by Michael Buckley. They are everything I enjoy about YA fiction: creative, funny, nicely packaged and beautifully illustrated.

My wife and I read through the first three books in the series very quickly so we were eagerly anticipating the release of the fourth book, Once Upon a Crime, this month. It didn’t disappoint. It was a great continuation of this entertaining series.

If you will recall from the last book, Puck had his wings ripped off by the Jaberwocky and the Grimms were planing to take him back to the faeries to see if they could heal his wounds. Well, it turns out the faeries are located in New York City – central park to be exact. The plan is to drop Puck off and head back home, but when someone murders King Oberon chaos breaks out and the Grimms are enlisted to help find the murderer.

The subplot involves Sabrina wrestling with learning about a side of her mother that she didn’t know existed. All of the violence, danger and instability, however, has her wishing she could just give up and be a normal girl. As you can probably guess this isn’t very likely any time soon. Grandma Relda respecters her wishes, but there is the small matter of getting out of New York alive to deal with first.

Buckley weaves in another batch of fairy tale characters that aren’t quite what you grew up with – now hanging out in the Big Apple – with the usual adventurous twists and turns, Grimm family squabbles, and the required climatic showdown with a terrifying monster. We learn more about the mysterious Scarlet Hand, and what happened to Sabrina and Daphne’s parents, but there are still enough questions to keep the series going. It is all good clean imaginative fun.

So if you enjoy young adult fiction, or have kids – “tween” I think is the age group – who are looking for reading material, be sure to check out The Sisters Grimm; to use a cliche they are fun for the whole family.

I recently finished Candace Robb’s fourth book in her Owen Archer Mystery Series entitled The King’s Bishop. As with her previous books, she does an excellent job in bringing Medieval England to life.

From the book cover:

It is 1367, and the Pope and King Edward III of England are in disagreement over pluralism, a practice that allows one man to hold many state and church offices at the same time. The Pope does not want to dilute his authority by allowing church leaders to hold government offices, which would oblige them to obey and report to King Edward. Naturally, subverting the Pope’s authority doesn’t bother King Edward at all, and he wishes to make one of the richest pluralists, William of Wykeham, the next Bishop of Winchester.
To undermine the Pope’s position, King Edward sends a mission, led by one-eyed soldier-sleuth Owen Archer, to convince the powerful abbots of Fountains and Rievaulx to support his nomination of William of Wykeham. When the mission is disrupted by murder, politics turn personal and Owen’s fourth case becomes his toughest yet: He must prove his friend Ned Townley innocent of murder.

Robb understands the political climate during Edwardian England – as the King aged, more people jockeyed for power. Robb perfectly captures the mistrust and jealousies of those at court. She interweaves court intrigue with life in greater England – particularly when it comes to Owen and his wife Lucie.

Robb continues to develop the main characters in the series – primarily Owen, Lucie, and Archbishop Thoresby. It is interesting to see the change in the characters as the stories unravel in each book. For instance, Thoresby becomes more humble and less ambitious as he ages and realizes that there are more important things in life other than power.

Robb does not tie up all the loose ends of the book – she continues them in some respects. I am mainly referring to the antics of Alice Perrers (the King’s mistress) and her political jousting with Archbishop Thoresby. I don’t think this is a fault – it more accurately portrays real life.

In order to get a better handle on The Reluctant Fundamentalist author Moshin Hamid, I read his first novel Moth Smoke. Reading this first novel makes it clear that Hamid has talent and that he enjoys experimenting with his writing – no straightforward narratives for him.

Moth Smoke also deals with his native Pakistan but with a more internal focus. Here is the publishers description:

When Daru Shezad is fired from his banking job in Lahore, he begins a decline that plummets the length of this sharply drawn, subversive tale. Before long, he can’t pay his bills, and he loses his toehold among Pakistan’s cell-phone-toting elite. Daru descends into drugs and dissolution, and, for good measure, he falls in love with the wife of his childhood friend and rival, Ozi—the beautiful, restless Mumtaz.

Desperate to reverse his fortunes, Daru embarks on a career in crime, taking as his partner Murad Badshah, the notorious rickshaw driver, populist, and pirate. When a long-planned heist goes awry, Daru finds himself on trial for a murder he may or may not have committed. The uncertainty of his fate mirrors that of Pakistan itself, hyped on the prospect of becoming a nuclear player even as corruption drains its political will.

As seems to be my habit these days, I read Moth Smoke a while back and never got my thoughts down. As a result I am having a hard time writing anything particularly thoughtful. So allow me to point out some reviews that I think capture the books strengths and flaws.

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I was intrigued by Jospeh Boyden’s Three Day Road when it was first released but never ending up reading it. When I recently stumbled upon it in the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble I decided to rectify my mistake. I am glad I did. It is a powerful novel about the horrors of war, the complex loyalties and emotions of friendship, and the bonds of family.

The story follows Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack, Cree Indians who enlist in the Canadian army and are sent to fight in the trenches of Belgium and France during World War I. Xavier has returned from the war having lost a leg and become addicted to morphine. His aunt picks him up at the train depot and they are traveling by canoe back to the her home in the bush. As they float down the river Xavier reflects on his war experiences and Niska tells her nephew her own history to fill the silence.

Niska raised Xavier after his mother succumbed to alcohol and trained him from a very young age in the old ways. He became a highly skilled hunter and tracker. Seeking companionship Xavier become friends with another boy at the orphanage named Elijah and the younger boy eventually joins the family in the bush. Xavier mentors Elijah and the younger boy learns to hunt as almost as well as his older friend.

Unlike Xavier who was never fully immersed in the English of the town’s Catholic school, Elijah has a knack for language and is as nimble with words as he is on the hunt. Elijah also has a strong desire for adventure and looks to make a name for himself. It is largely this passion that leads to their enlistment in the Army. Believing that the war will be a quick one they hope to experience new things, prove their valor, and return home soon.

Their hunting and tracking skills prove transferable to the rigors of being a soldier and the army puts them to work as scouts and snipers. The war, however, turns out to be anything but quick and the two young men become trapped in the horrors of trench warfare. It is their reaction to this horror that eventually divides them. Xavier and Elijah have a natural and mostly harmless sibling type rivalry as they hunt and trap in the bush, but the stress and tension of war soon exacerbate this rivalry to the breaking point.

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