Susi Rajah

Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

In this book there are two interwoven stories told by two narrators. One is told by a character with the same name as the author (I picture this character as the hobbit, Frodo, mostly because Frodo plays him in the movie version of the novel, which is also great). This story covers the weird adventures of the former inhabitants of Trachimbrod, a village in the Ukraine. If this storyline is too weird for you, or even if you skip it entirely, the book should still be read for the other storyline. This is the story of the modern-day search for the village of Trachimbrod, undertaken by the Jonathan Safran  Foer character (an American) with the help of Alex, his Ukrainian translator, Alex's grandfather, who is the official driver of the expedition (and who insists he is blind and brings along his "seeing-eye bitch", a dog named Sammy Davis Junior, Junior). This story is narrated by the guide, Alex, who uses English in a magnificent way (I fell in love with him immediately) and, ultimately, tells a very funny and moving tale. If you don't read the book, see the film, as your life will not be complete until you have spent time with Alex.

Obviously, the author must be some kind of genius, especially considering that, in his author photo, he looks as if he'll hit puberty any day now.

Meet Alex and see him dance:

Watch: Vegetarianism in the Ukraine.

See the trailer for the film version of Everything is Illuminated.

3:10 to Yuma, La Vie En Rose

Whenever my husband gets the opportunity to choose the film we are going to see (that is, whenever I let him), we see a film like this one. One I'd never dream of paying to see if left to my own devices, and one in which men beat up on and kill other men over and over again.

But this particular movie was quite remarkable. It was very entertaining and that's remarkable considering that the entire plot is this: Christian Bale has to take Russell Crowe to the train station so that Russell Crowe can catch the train to Yuma. Even more remarkable is that this is a remake, so Hollywood has used this plot twice. Which means the "man taking other man to the train station to catch a train" plot has worked twice. In this case it works mostly because Christian Bale and Russell Crowe are both dressed as cowboys and get to ride horses and shoot a lot of people.

My viewing of this film was somewhat affected by the subway, which must have been directly underneath the theater. The first time a train went by, I fleetingly thought it was an over-baked sound-mixing attempt to add portent to the scene, but once my seat vibrated, I figured out where the noise was coming from. Several more trains added to the drama. And a mouse scurried down the aisle, making a beeline for my right foot, before veering off at the last possible second, adding to the film's suspense. But this was not the reason I didn't really follow Edith Piaf's life story in the film. That was due to the way the film continually jumped randomly back and forth to different parts of her life. Despite a great performance by the lead actress, scenes of early twentieth century street life in Paris that made you want to be poor in Paris in the early twentieth century, and Piaf's singing, I left not really understanding anything more about Edith Piaf than when I went in.

So much so that I suspected that maybe the subtitles had been translated badly, and were missing the key pieces of exposition that would have made it all make sense. The rest of audience were practically all French. I know this because all the conversations in the bathroom after the movie were in French. So I gleaned nothing from them either.

Water for Elephants, Bel Canto, Brave New World, Stardust

Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
I had to read this to find out why it was so popular. The reason is simple. It's an adult version of all those "running away to join the circus" stories we read as kids. It has a lot more realism than the G-Rated versions. People don't become trapeze artists with just a couple of weeks of training, dangerous animals are actually dangerous, clowns aren't comedians in make-up, and there is dirt everywhere. But otherwise, it delivers everything that the kid's stories did, a fascinating account of life under the big top, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. That is, the elephant wins.
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
This is a story of what happens when a group of terrorists captures a house, where international guests are gathered at a party to hear an opera star sing, and holds them hostage for a while. Relationships develop between the captors and captives, between the captives, and this is very disturbing as any relationship that begins with people waving guns around can only end in tears (and people getting shot). It was so strangely disturbing that after reading it, I had to read something incredibly fluffy, in this case an Instyle magazine (I actually read it, I didn't just look at the pictures) to feel normal again.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

I somehow escaped reading Brave New World until now, which is more remarkable than it sounds as I've wanted to read it since I was a teenager and I've had access to libraries and bookshops my entire adult life. It is even more remarkable that the genetic hierarchy in the drug-sedated society in the book is so similar to the wealth hierarchy in our television-sedated society.

Stardust - Neil Gaiman
I read this because I wanted to see the film and if a film is based on a book, I like to also read the book, and in this case I particularly wanted to read the story that attracted such a great cast to the film. Stardust, like Water for Elephants, is a grown-up fairytale, only it's much more honest about it. It is written in fairytale language and there are actual fairies in it. Fairies and witches and ghosts and curses and charms, people wanting to cut other people's hearts out, a love story, all the good stuff. (N.B. The part that Robert De Niro has so much fun playing in the film is barely in the book, but the others are all there.)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Because I didn't grow up here, I didn't read a lot of the books that people in the US read while they were growing up. I read other books. My friends know I'm anxious to fill the American literature void in my being, and to that end one of them sent me A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

For me, it's Anne of Green Gables meets Angela's Ashes. By that I mean even though it describes all the details of a poor, Irish-Catholic upbringing, it doesn't get down and dirty in them. It keeps a kind of Little Women positivity about the situation but does it without completely losing realism.

The main character is the young-but-wise, funny and introverted Francie. The book begins with her at age 11 and leaves her at age 17. That's exactly the same amount of time we spend with Harry Potter, only the fear that cannot be named in this book is that of never escaping poverty. Through Francie we endure the indignities of having no money in Brooklyn at the turn of the last century. And we see that once again, in spite of feminism not really being invented yet (the first wave had only just begun waving), it was women who were supporting and holding their families together against poverty and poor marriage choices.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn provides further proof that although people do not want to experience a poverty-stricken childhood, or the early end of a charming but tragically alcoholic father, or being on the losing team in the class war, they love to read about someone else's experience of these things.

A Nail Through the Heart - Timothy Hallinan

This is a thriller set in Bangkok and an excellent book. And I'm not saying that just because Tim was once my excellent writing teacher. But don't just take my word for it, take this guy from Booklist's word for it:

"The author of the 1990s Simeon Grist series returns with a compelling new protagonist: American travel writer Poke Rafferty, who is out to right some serious wrongs on the predatory streets of Bangkok. While attempting to adopt a homeless girl, rescue a potentially murderous urchin known as Superman, and build a lasting relationship with the former bar girl he loves, Poke is pulled into two brutal mysteries. One involves a notorious Khmer Rouge torturer, the other a series of child-porn photos. As he doggedly plumbs these ghastly depths, Rafferty matures from a play-it-as-it-lays layabout into a man willing to meet his lover’s culture more than halfway and find his moral compass at a time when the victims can be as guilty as the murderers are innocent. The fact that the referenced pedophile photo series and Phnom Penh torture house both existed heightens the impact of a narrative that’s already deeply felt. If this opens a new series, Hallinan is off to a surefooted start with a supporting cast (including Poke’s precocious, pugnacious, almost-daughter Miaow) well worth getting to know." — Frank Sennett

The best thing about this book is that it is the first in a series of three, which means there will be two more to read.

Visit Timothy Hallinan

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Both these authors are annoyingly prolific and have produced scads and scads of books and other publications loved deeply by many, but this was my introduction to both and, so far, it's my favorite from either. And I say that even though saying that has caused ill will between myself and "true fans" (especially Gaiman fans, who tend to wear more black and be scarier than Pratchett fans). I haven't, as these fans are fond of pointing out, read the complete works of either author, and I'm unlikely to by the end of this post. All the same, this is one of my all-time favorite books.
    The person who recommended this book to me did so because she thought it had something in common with my novel (which she hadn't read). And it does. Both books contain the words "God", "Armageddon" and "Antichrist".
   Good Omens is a story made up of the events outlined in the Book of Revelation. It starts with the misplacement of the Antichrist, and just gets funnier. It is its own genre (kind of a mix of fantasy and realism and humor, but not in that order), and is equally silly and smart. If you need a Hollywood pitch, it's like Damien: The Omen II meets Life of Brian. There are notable appearances by the Four Horsepersons of the Apocolypse, a wage clerk, and all the forces of Good and Evil. If you haven't read it, I envy you for being able to read it for the first time.
   The only thing I don't understand about this book is: Why haven't they made it into a movie?   

Visit Neil Gaiman.

Visit Terry Pratchett.

Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

Over the course of this book, the author recovers from two relationship breakups by following, in order, the steps outlined in the title.

1. Eat: She eats a lot of pasta and pizza.
2. Pray: She does a lot of soul searching.
3. Love: She has a lot of sex.

This, plus spending a lot of time crying in the bathroom, sounds pretty much like any woman after a breakup (though different women can follow the steps in an entirely different order) but what's remarkable about Gilbert's journey back to a whole heart is that she takes a year off to devote herself to it, she goes through her three-step-program in Italy, India, and Indonesia respectively, and she gets a book deal to write about it. Even more remarkable is that even though the rest of us don't get a 12 month break to mend our broken hearts in a series of exotic locales, funded by an advance from our publishers, you don't resent her one bit. She is so appealing that each step of the way you want to help. You want to cook pasta for her or, at least, recommend a good Roman restaurant. You want to lend her your mantra and yoga mat (it's not like you were using them anyway). And you desperately wish you knew of a sane, sexy, secure man, who lives in Bali, so you can hook her up.

Visit Elizabeth Gilbert

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling

I was in England when the last Harry Potter came out, so my copy looks like this. It's the adult edition. That's not as exciting as it sounds. There aren’t any sex scenes. It just has a more somber jacket so that grown-up British people can read it on the tube without other grown-up British people judging them.
   A lot of people I know kicked their Potter habit. Not being able to get all the way to the end of The Order of the Phoenix is the reason often cited. Not me. I had to read to the end. Not so much to find out what happens, that — unless J. K. Rowling lost her mind and sense of story while writing it — was pretty much predictable. No, I had to read it for closure, so I could move on with my life.   
   Without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t read it, I’ll say this much. Harry’s testosterone levels, which peaked in The Order of the Phoenix, have more or less leveled out in this book so that he’s actually likeable again and able to experience a critical moment of zen in spite of being a seventeen-year-old boy. Ron and Hermione get it on, but only to a PG level — it seems imminent danger curbs libido levels, even those of seventeen-year-olds. (Funny, I always thought it had the opposite effect.) And as for nasty old Voldy, he turns out to be very much like a Bond villain, monologuing when he ought to be killing, giving everyone time to plan escapes and attacks.
    Generally speaking, most of the story got wrapped up in a very satisfying way, which basically means that everything that I wanted to happen did happen. Except that Doby’s and Kreature’s fates seemed to have been mixed up and there is no follow up on how the Dursleys end up, which was frustrating after enduring them for so long. But these are very minor quibbles.
   What did you think of the end of Harry?

Visit J. K. Rowling

(Now that Harry is over, if you haven't already, check out the Philip Pullman trilogy, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. It's amazing.)