Annabel

Annabel  by Kathleen Winters

“Have you read  Annabel?” is the question I keep overhearing this summer.  Written by a Montrealer, set in Labrador and about male/female roles as exemplified by hermaphrodism, this book has qualities to interest a large audience.  There is also the wisdom and sensitivity of the author, her love and knowledge of life in Labrador, her understanding of children and teenagers, her quest for the best in people, her full characterizations and her interesting questions about the dichotomy and harmony of the sexes which make this book the read of the season.

This is the second book that I have read about hermaphrodism and I found it more reflective, focused and sensitive than Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.  Annabel  makes us think about the sublimated side in all of us, our sex role models and expectations, and provokes the question of whether there is a middle way which would incorporate the best traits of both sexes.

Annabel is a first novel and some of its bones do show through.  The symbolism of bridges becomes laboured after a while and the friend and teacher, Thomasina, is too evidently a deus ex machina figure.  I find that she comes in and out of the action too fortuitously and impermanently and her role becomes plot-turning rather than characterization.

I was also disappointed that Winter was unable to sustain the character of Jacinta.  She is a strong figure early in the narrative and embraces the fullness and opportunities of her child’s potential.  But Winters does not seem able to find a niche for her as Thomasina and Treadway become more influential in plot development.

Winter’s interest shifts to the complexities of Treadway who is a master of woodland lore and an auto-didact of considerable depth.  His character experiences the most growth as he denies, struggles, and finally accepts and supports his son’s sexual duality.

Winter’s prose is a delight to read.  She tells her story with details that are restrained and evocative and have the ring of truth.  As Jacinta’s marriage falters under the stress of Wayne’s challenges, we read: (p.163) “Jacinta swept the floors and wiped the counters, then got a bucket of red-hot water with Pine-Sol in it and a mop, and scoured the kitchen floor and hallway.  She dumped the water down the toilet and filled the bucket again, then put rubber gloves on and took a rag and a scrubbing brush and got down on her knees on an old flat cushion and washed every speck of dirt out of the corners and of the baseboards, then she washed down the stairs by hand, and polished the toaster and the fridge, and washed the fingerprints off the walls near all the light switches and off the doors near the doorknobs and off the telephone.  She went outside and then came in again to smell with a fresh nose how clean the house smelled, and then she got in bed beside sleeping Treadway and thought how good it would be when he went on his trapline, how there would be fewer footprints to clean.”

Another time, the lonely Jacinta explains why she enjoys listening to the radio: (p.93)  “I know it’s not real company, but the radio is something.  It’s a comforting voice that lets you know you’re not alone in the world.  I need that.”

We hear more truth from Treadway as he tries to give his son some fatherly advice:(p.103) “ Boys, in Labrador, Wayne, are like a wolf pack.  We’ve got to be like members of the dog family.  We’ve got to know what each other is doing.  That’s how you survive.”

Winter’s descriptions are sharply observed and cleverly incorporated into the narrative by including the characters’ response to them.  When Wayne moves, on his own, to St. John’s, NFLD, we read: (p.316) “He could smell the ocean in a different way than he had smelled it in Labrador.  Sewage ran into the harbour here, and there was a lot of it, with gulls circling over the outlet down below Caine’s Grocery, and you could smell it.  There were also smells of seaweed, and fish and chips and vinegar from a van on the street.  The houses were much brighter yellows, reds and greens than in Labrador, and they were tall and narrow and stuck together.  The houses looked bright but stern, and the air was so clear the colours shouted out loud at him, and he felt weary from the force of all the corners and the sharp lines of the clapboard.”

Winter ends her book optimistically with the hope that Wayne will find his niche in academia where study and ideas and open-mindedness are more important than sexual divisions.  And she gives her character that greatest of gifts: a true friend.  She leaves her readers with a new appreciation of the distant land of Labrador, some memorable characters, and a story that is fresh, challenging and a delight to read.

Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge

By Elizabeth Strout

This is the story of an aging woman who realizes at the end of her life that she has made a lot of mistakes, ruined important relationships, wasted a lot of opportunities and generally made a mess of things.

But when her life is in ruins around her, she is offered a last opportunity for happiness and she takes it.  It is a tragic story with a twist of hope at the end.

I found it disturbing to read because if any of us reflect on our lives we know that we have made mistakes and squandered opportunities and closed doors.  The theme is pertinent to us all, but especially those of us whose lives are more than half over with opportunities that will never come round again.

This is a sobering book, made all the more poignant by the deft, original and light-handed presentation.  It is really a collection of short stories set (except for one) in a small village on the coast of Maine.  Olive is a character in each story, although not always the central one.  We catch glimpses of her from many different perspectives as she lives out her life in the village.  We see her through the eyes of many people, in many situations over a long stretch of years.  Each story stands alone and yet also reveals the complexities of Olive’s character.  We learn about her weaknesses and her considerable strengths and we learn about the dynamic between her and her son, Christopher.

Although insightful and compassionate, the stories are sad, about disappointed parents, stale love, bodies that have turned to fat and flab, loss, and early death.  The heartbreak of the world is present in this small fishing village and its residents shoulder their sorrows and carry on.

The one relationship that remains a little mysterious is Olive’s marriage to the affable, well-respected Henry.  As with so many long-term marriages, it is hard to see what drew the couple together in the first place and what has sustained the relationship since.  Henry did have a fling with another woman, but something, decency, habit, timidity, love, drew him back to Olive.  But then, Olive also had an affair which ended tragically.  Henry seems quiescent in the relationship, but Olive is haunted by his remark, “In all the years we’ve been married, all the years, I don’t believe you’ve ever once apologized.  For anything.”

Olive is a maddening woman, but she is complex, with certain strengths and insights and sympathies.  Many people in the community dislike her, but  I could not help liking her forthright, strong opinions, her disdain for namby-pambies, and her impatient snort, “Hells Bells!”  In the stories, “ Basket of Trips” and “Starving” we see her sensitivity and generosity and wisdom in assessing people and situations.  She is impatient, independent, and always thinks she is right, but she is strong, and can be kind and sympathetic.

Elizabeth Strout won a Pulitzer Prize for this book in 2008.  I would say she merited it for the haunting character she has produced, the vivid and sympathetic depiction of a Maine coastal village and its characters, and the original and deft way she unveiled her main character, revealing her through so many perspectives, encounters, relationships and episodes which showed her complexity, failures and also her strengths.  At the end, my heart broke for the mistakes Olive had made and yet I admired her tenacity and strength to keep on going and have a final try for happiness.

The theme is that foundation of happiness, relationships:  the hit and miss of them, the things unsaid but understood, the durability and frailness of them, the inner strength that they require of us and the central, healing quality that makes them essential to us.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
By Helen Simonton

I think this is a "novel of manners," like Jane Austen's books. Nothing terribly earth-shaking occurs, and yet to the protagonist, it is everything. The concerns are about relationships and appropriate behaviour in life's various circumstances. The themes are domestic and yet universal. The setting is the English countryside, as it always has been, overlaid by as it is now.

The charm of the book lies in the character of Major Pettigrew, a 68 year old widower, most English of the English, who finds himself attracted to a Pakistani widow, the shopkeeper in the village. Major Pettigrew has many flaws and an overwhelming virtue: he is introspective and tries to do the right thing. It is impossible not to like Major Pettigrew.

The Major has pretensions to aspire above his station and an immoderate helping of self- respect. He has not kept in touch with his brother, and something has gone very wrong in the upbringing of his only child, Roger. He clings to his military title, even though he spent most of his career teaching little boys. But he is thoroughly decent, and humble enough to reflect on his situation and realize his weaknesses.

This is Simonton's first novel but it does not read like one. There is a village-full of varied and believable characters, a strong main plot, the growing love for Mrs. Ali, and several minor plots, all of which are well integrated with foreshadowing, symbolism, and satisfying conclusions and adhere well together.

One element carries through the entire book: the twin Churchill guns which were presented to the Major's grandfather as a reward for valour in India. The guns are introduced at the beginning of the book and fired at the end, as they should be. They represent the Major's false pride and one is lost at the end as he confirms his true values to himself. The lost gun represented covetousness and had stained his relationship with his brother. The family pride which the guns represented had led to a debacle at a village dance which had almost lost him his chance to find happiness with Mrs. Ali. In the process of losing the gun, the Major shows that he is a true hero, ready to sacrifice for his love and for the future of the country's immigrant youth.

The book has several themes of universal interest:
~ How inheritance corrupts families.
We see how the older son was thoughtless as he accepted his birthright, and the resentment of his younger brother, Bertie and his family resented. We also have the younger generation, Roger and Bertie's daughter, Jemima, ready to inherit before the older generation have gone.
~ The urge of communities to define themselves by excluding outsiders.
We also consider who is an outsider. Although he has lived all his life in the same village, the Major has kept his tastes and values independent. His open mind makes him an outsider in his own community.
~What family really means and what are family obligations.
When family is unreasonable like Roger and Jemima, how far should we support them? How vulnerable should we be when children hurt us? We feel for the Major when Roger is so unredeemingly selfish.

~What we might really be prepared to give up for our principles.
The Major knows that a showdown is looming between the Lord who has a plan to turn his property into a housing estate, and the villagers who are opposed to development. He knows that he is going to have to give up the esteem which he has with the lord and support the villagers.
~Parents and their adult children.
Roger feels a grudging responsibility, highly tinged with irritability, towards his father. The Major has to cope with disappointment in the character failures of his only child.
~The agelessness of love.
At one point, the Major is tempted to settle down with the village spinster, but then he realizes that passion is worth sacrifice.

The plot centers around the growing love between the Major and Mrs. Ali, and the complications of a cross-cultural romance in rural England. The irony is that Mrs. Ali was born in England, and is more learned in English history and literature than the other people in the village. She also has family obligations, and in them we do see cultural differences. Much of the plot concerns a young Pakistani couple torn apart by family authority. Neither of these young people are particularly attractive, and I did not find myself very interested in the resolution of their problems, pivotal as they were to the novel's climax.

Another subplot centres around the Major's involvement in a shooting party where he hopes to show off his guns. The party is spoiled by demonstrators and the whole plot demonstrates the emerging new values in England, with the difficulties of the old landowners to adapt to changing times and tax structures.

Another subplot is the relationship between Roger and his girlfriend. It's deterioration shows the wretchedness and insensitivity of the Major's son, and the necessity for the Major to find his own happiness where he can.

Other action centers around the golf club with its pettiness and snobbery. The Major gets involved in the planning for a dance with an Indian theme. It is a fisticuff disaster and the Major realizes that he has been drawn into it by his pride in his famous ancestor, his love for the guns and his insensitivity to cultural differences.

Although it has a light touch, the book has been carefully structured. The narration of the first tea party which the Major has with Mrs. Ali illustrates Simonton's craft. They admire the view from the bottom of the garden and she says that it has been the same for a thousand years. Later in the book, when the proposal to build on the land arises, the groundwork has been laid for us to appreciate the impact on the community. At the same tea party, during a conversation about escapism, the Major imagines being with Mrs. Ali at the cottage of his friend, the Colonel. Of course, when the couple later flee Mrs. Ali's brother-in-law, that is where thy end up. As Mrs. Ali leaves the tea party, the talk turns to plans for the upcoming dance, and the Major reflects to himself that Daisy Green, the troublesome rector's wife, "might represent a greater menace to the Mughal empire that the conquering Rajput princes and the East India Company combined." Later, Daisy proves to be a considerable menace in her own community.

This book is a fine light summer read. But it is more than that. It is thought-provoking and intelligent, with universal themes, a thrill of romance, a picturesque setting and a fully-developed character, Major Pettigrew, who in the end makes his last stand for the things he believes in, including living life to the full.







Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
By Helen Simonton

I think this is a "novel of manners," like Jane Austen's books. Nothing terribly earth-shaking occurs, and yet to the protagonist, it is everything. The concerns are about relationships and appropriate behaviour in life's various circumstances. The themes are domestic and yet universal. The setting is the English countryside, as it always has been, overlaid by as it is now.

The charm of the book lies in the character of Major Pettigrew, a 68 year old widower, most English of the English, who finds himself attracted to a Pakistani widow, the shopkeeper in the village. Major Pettigrew has many flaws and an overwhelming virtue: he is introspective and tries to do the right thing. It is impossible not to like Major Pettigrew.

The Major has pretensions to aspire above his station and an immoderate helping of self- respect. He has not kept in touch with his brother, and something has gone very wrong in the upbringing of his only child, Roger. He clings to his military title, even though he spent most of his career teaching little boys. But he is thoroughly decent, and humble enough to reflect on his situation and realize his weaknesses.

This is Simonton's first novel but it does not read like one. There is a village-full of varied and believable characters, a strong main plot, the growing love for Mrs. Ali, and several minor plots, all of which are well integrated with foreshadowing, symbolism, and satisfying conclusions and adhere well together.

One element carries through the entire book: the twin Churchill guns which were presented to the Major's grandfather as a reward for valour in India. The guns are introduced at the beginning of the book and fired at the end, as they should be. They represent the Major's false pride and one is lost at the end as he confirms his true values to himself. The lost gun represented covetousness and had stained his relationship with his brother. The family pride which the guns represented had led to a debacle at a village dance which had almost lost him his chance to find happiness with Mrs. Ali. In the process of losing the gun, the Major shows that he is a true hero, ready to sacrifice for his love and for the future of the country's immigrant youth.

The book has several themes of universal interest:
~ How inheritance corrupts families.
We see how the older son was thoughtless as he accepted his birthright, and the resentment of his younger brother, Bertie and his family resented. We also have the younger generation, Roger and Bertie's daughter, Jemima, ready to inherit before the older generation have gone.
~ The urge of communities to define themselves by excluding outsiders.
We also consider who is an outsider. Although he has lived all his life in the same village, the Major has kept his tastes and values independent. His open mind makes him an outsider in his own community.
~What family really means and what are family obligations.
When family is unreasonable like Roger and Jemima, how far should we support them? How vulnerable should we be when children hurt us? We feel for the Major when Roger is so unredeemingly selfish.

~What we might really be prepared to give up for our principles.
The Major knows that a showdown is looming between the Lord who has a plan to turn his property into a housing estate, and the villagers who are opposed to development. He knows that he is going to have to give up the esteem which he has with the lord and support the villagers.
~Parents and their adult children.
Roger feels a grudging responsibility, highly tinged with irritability, towards his father. The Major has to cope with disappointment in the character failures of his only child.
~The agelessness of love.
At one point, the Major is tempted to settle down with the village spinster, but then he realizes that passion is worth sacrifice.

The plot centers around the growing love between the Major and Mrs. Ali, and the complications of a cross-cultural romance in rural England. The irony is that Mrs. Ali was born in England, and is more learned in English history and literature than the other people in the village. She also has family obligations, and in them we do see cultural differences. Much of the plot concerns a young Pakistani couple torn apart by family authority. Neither of these young people are particularly attractive, and I did not find myself very interested in the resolution of their problems, pivotal as they were to the novel's climax.

Another subplot centres around the Major's involvement in a shooting party where he hopes to show off his guns. The party is spoiled by demonstrators and the whole plot demonstrates the emerging new values in England, with the difficulties of the old landowners to adapt to changing times and tax structures.

Another subplot is the relationship between Roger and his girlfriend. It's deterioration shows the wretchedness and insensitivity of the Major's son, and the necessity for the Major to find his own happiness where he can.

Other action centers around the golf club with its pettiness and snobbery. The Major gets involved in the planning for a dance with an Indian theme. It is a fisticuff disaster and the Major realizes that he has been drawn into it by his pride in his famous ancestor, his love for the guns and his insensitivity to cultural differences.

Although it has a light touch, the book has been carefully structured. The narration of the first tea party which the Major has with Mrs. Ali illustrates Simonton's craft. They admire the view from the bottom of the garden and she says that it has been the same for a thousand years. Later in the book, when the proposal to build on the land arises, the groundwork has been laid for us to appreciate the impact on the community. At the same tea party, during a conversation about escapism, the Major imagines being with Mrs. Ali at the cottage of his friend, the Colonel. Of course, when the couple later flee Mrs. Ali's brother-in-law, that is where thy end up. As Mrs. Ali leaves the tea party, the talk turns to plans for the upcoming dance, and the Major reflects to himself that Daisy Green, the troublesome rector's wife, "might represent a greater menace to the Mughal empire that the conquering Rajput princes and the East India Company combined." Later, Daisy proves to be a considerable menace in her own community.

This book is a fine light summer read. But it is more than that. It is thought-provoking and intelligent, with universal themes, a thrill of romance, a picturesque setting and a fully-developed character, Major Pettigrew, who in the end makes his last stand for the things he believes in, including living life to the full.

The Best Laid Plans

The Best Laid Plans
Terry Fallis

This book is the 2011 Canada Reads winner, the book that is recommended to be read by all Canadians in 2011. If all Canadians were to read it, there would be some changes made to the way Canadian politics operate.
The book is comedic, the tone is light, there are lots of funny lines and the plot is full of fortuitous coincidences and happy endings. It’s an easy read, and lots of fun, but it has left me thinking.
It is a satire about politics with people and situations which are all too familiar to all of us. There are brilliant engineering students who have never read a novel, be-ringed and tattooed punks, a greedy but savvy entrepreneur, a swaggering American investor, a power-loving university administrator, enraged donut-throwing voters, and a lot of people who need their grammar corrected by an engineering professor.
The setting is also familiar to me: Ottawa University, the Ottawa River, the Houses of Parliament and a retirement home. The plot is simple: In a solidly Conservative riding east of Ottawa, a bereaved and lonely university professor agrees to let his name stand on the Liberal ticket in return for a favour. The Conservative candidate is unexpectedly disgraced and the professor finds himself elected. A newcomer in parliament with no interest in running again, he follows his conscience and makes enemies in caucus but becomes a hero to the Canadian public.
Terry Fallis is an engineer by training but has sustained an involvement in politics all his life. He served on the staff of the Chretien and Turner governments for two years, was a legislative assistant for three years with the provincial Liberals in Ontario, and a government affairs consultant for seven. He has been a partner in a communications company for more than 20 years, working for corporate and governmental clients. He has seen a lot of Canadian public life, enough to make his satire relevant and informed.
The picture that he paints of the machinations behind closed doors in Ottawa is disheartening. He divides staff into two categories: idealist policy wonks and cynical political operators. There are far too many of the latter.
Angus McLintock, the idiosyncratic Scot who becomes a reluctant Liberal MNA expresses Fallis’ attitude towards political life in Canada: “Every candidate in this country should be thinkin’ first about the national interest, second about their constituents’ interests, and third about their own interests. Everyone is more concerned about their own fortunes than with the nation’s. That’s the problem with the democratic institutions in this country.” (p.56)
Fallis’ description of the muffling and discipline imposed on party caucuses is the unsettling message of this otherwise light hearted book. Once elected and in the Liberal caucus, Angus refuses to toe the party line as dictated by the ‘Leader,’ especially when told to vote against a throne speech which was inspired by Liberal values. He becomes a hero to Canadian voters who feel betrayed by the disempowerment of their local representatives.
Coincident with reading this book, I have been reading an article in MacLean’s magazine, February 28, 2011, The House of Commons is a Sham. I found that Fallis’ descriptions of the functioning of Canadian politics today is distressingly accurate. Aaron Wherry, the author of the article, writes: “… almost all votes of any importance (are) destined to break along party lines. Power has coalesced around the offices of party leaders.”
Wherry quotes Liberal MP Keith Martin who has announced that he will not seek re-election: “I’ve never seen morale so low or Parliament so dysfunctional in more than 17 years of being there…There’s an overwhelming sense of futility, disappointment and sadness among most of the MPs who are there.” Martin laments,” the fairly young, ambitious, rapidly partisan individuals who often treat MPs with utter disdain….Rabid partisanship is rewarded…Overweening and excessive party discipline has disempowered members of Parliament and forced them to pay utter homage to the leaderships of their party, instead of their true bosses, which are the people that sent them there.”
Conservative MP Michael Chong is also quoted:” I think the vast majority of MPs are interested in playing a bigger role… in having greater authority and autonomy to execute their roles.”
This is exactly the situation that Fallis is satirizing, and I’m not laughing anymore. Thank you, Canada Reads Panel, for choosing this book. Maybe it will lead to some reform in the House of Commons.

Stones into Schools

Stones into Schools
Greg Mortenson

After enjoying Three Cups of Tea, I was expecting to be disappointed by the sequel, but I was pleasantly surprised for several reasons. Greg Mortenson’s second book about the schools for girls which he is building in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan is full of new information and continues to be imbued with his enthusiasm for his project. It is about the amount of work needed to keep an NGO functioning, the enthusiasm for learning in Third World Countries, the challenges of society and terrain in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the capacity for Afghanis and Pakistanis to forge ahead with projects if they are only given the right opportunity. It is an adventure story, with wild rides, unlikely heroes and achievements that defy the odds. The story is told with sympathy and admiration and shows what can be achieved with trust and commitment. It is an interesting book.
I learned a lot about the earthquake in Azad Kashmir in 2005, the history of the nomadic tribespeople in Northern Afghanistan, transportation challenges, banking difficulties, and the erosion of skills and education among Afghans who have spent their lives in combat and refugee camps. I also learned about what can be accomplished by one man with a purpose.
I found it interesting that the two project managers of the Central Asia Institute, Sarfraz Khan in Pakistan and Wakil Karimi in Afghanistan are not people with diplomas and pedigree, but honest, zealous men with vision, connections, ingenuity, and knowledge of local communities.
A really key factor in the success of building and maintaining CAI schools is the trust established with the local communities. The CAI never start a project unless invited by the local head men and supported by the community. This is a key approach, and is unfortunately a novel one. In early April there was a story in my local newspaper about the challenges the Canadian armed forces are having as they establish schools in Afghanistan. They find that they are facing opposition from local leaders, a problem the CAI never has.
I enjoyed putting the maps together with the text and understanding the challenges and the beauty of this mountainous area where people survive in the fertile and sheltered valleys, but are separated and isolated by those magnificent ranges: the Pamir, the Karakorum, and the Hindu Kush.
Clearly, the book was put together to heighten awareness of Mortenson’s project among potential supporters. He is now largely entrusting the work in Pakistan and Afghanistan to local organizers and directing his energy to fund-raising. He is courting middle America with his stories of cooperation from the US military and telling us stories that we like to hear.
We are meant to learn about The Central Asia Institute and its objectives and challenges and there are many appendices to guide us. I really appreciated the many maps, the list of Who’s Who, the glossary of terms and the index. The didactic purpose is underlined with the lists at the end: “Investing in Girl’s Education Yields Huge Returns,” “Take Action,” and “Key Ingredients in Successfully Building Girls’ Schools.”
It concerned me that so much of the success of the CAI depends on its founder, Greg Mortenson. The Institute has a board of directors, all women, I notice, but the bulk of the publicity, fundraising and organisation of the overseas projects depends on Mortenson. He pushes himself very hard, and if something should happen to him, I am afraid the whole worthwhile venture would fall apart. He does a tremendous amount of public speaking and traveling, and has already had a few burnouts.
I could not understand how such a busy man would have time to write this book, important as it is to the fundraising efforts of the CAI to keep interest high by keeping the story before the public. I found my answer in the long list of ‘Thanks.’ Mortenson writes: “Two dedicated writers put in literally thousands of hours to help me bring Stones into Schools into the world. Mike Bryan worked nearly every day for an entire year to research and lay the groundwork. Kevin Fedarko helped find the most compelling way to construct this narrative and put in marathon efforts over one hundred consecutive 16-hour days.” Both traveled to the Wakhan and Baltistan. This book was written by a committee who worked well together.
I did not see the recent CBS programme debunking Mortenson and his work, but it makes me very angry. CBS sent reporters to distant places in Central Asia, not to help the local people but to investigate this man and his organization which have done so much to promote literacy and give girls the hope of a future. Who is going to step in and support education in Central Asia when CBS has knocked out Mortenson’s fund-raising campaign? Does CBS have a plan to fund these schools out of the money it makes discrediting Mortenson? At the end of his book, Mortenson apologises to his family for his long and frequent absences from home and regrets that while he has been helping children far away, he has missed seeing his own children grow up. Is the CBS programme his reward for this sacrifice? I think there are enough genuine cases of crime and mismanagement to keep CBS ‘investigators’ busy without having them attack a man who has committed his life to providing marginalized girls with an education!

Bombay Anna

Bombay Anna
By Susan Morgan

This is a thought-provoking, well-researched biography with several interesting themes. It is set in Bombay, Singapore, Siam, Britain, the US and Canada and recounts the life of Anna Leonowens, (1831-1915) the one-time governess of the children of King Mongkut, the king of Siam.
The book opens with Anna’s ancestors in Bombay and paints a startling picture of the harshness of life in India for low-ranking employees of the East India Company. Even more sobering is the revelation that this life was an improvement over conditions in England at the time. We realize that our middle-class comfort is an invention of the twentieth century.
The first two chapters are so full of research and references that I found it hard to become engaged with the thread of the story. Once Anna is born, the story and characters are easier to follow, and later, as we read about Anna’s marvellous accomplishments, knowledge of her background makes her achievements all the more remarkable. But in the first two chapters I had the impression that Morgan was having difficulty marshalling her extensive research.
Anna was born into poverty. Until her father died and her mother remarried a slightly richer stepfather, home was a small curtained-off section in an army barracks. Life in Bombay was tough, but life in England at the time was tougher. Anna received a better education in Bombay than she would have had in England where the strong class structure would have meant she would be a farm labourer. Classism in England leads us to an interesting reflection on the caste system in India which the British disdained.
Morgan has done so much research that she clearly became engrossed and passionate, developing strong opinions as her knowledge grew. She has no respect for British colonialism and snobbery, and the class system that prevented talent from developing. She despised the British opium trade in China. Nor does she respect the American double standard which condemned slavery in Thailand while waging a civil war at home over the same issue. She has no time for missionaries who do not respect the values and traditions of other world religions. She has great admiration for Anna who used her strength of character and formidable intelligence to create a life filled with achievements and adventure. In fact, her bias towards Anna allows her to excuse some questionable behaviour. To achieve what she did, Anna had to have been a tough character, but Morgan never condemns her.
In recounting Anna’s early life, Morgan focuses on its cultural richness rather than its economic poverty. Morgan is looking for the source of Anna’s later achievements and she finds them in the diversity of cultures that made up the population at the lowest stratum of the Indo-European community in Bombay. Anna grew up on an equal basis with Hindus, Moslems and Christians, and learned to speak and read Sanskrit and Marathi as well as English. The lack of racial prejudice that she learned at an early age helped her to adapt to the many places where she lived throughout her life and especially endeared her to the Siamese. It was interesting to read that her great-nephew was also able to turn his background to his advantage. He also assumed a new name: Boris Karloff.
The story of Anna’s five years as governess to the 60 children and the harem of the King of Siam is known by all. But what was not known at the time was that the “British lady” in Singapore who received this posting was actually a mixed- blood army brat from Bombay. After her husband died, Anna moved her young family to Singapore, opened a little school, and completely reinvented herself. She cut off all contact with her family back in India, including her sister, cultivated her relationship with her husband’s family in Britain, and her children and grandchildren grew up believing her to have cultured British origins.
Anna’s reinvention of herself is one of the interesting themes of the book. Yes, she was duplicitous, but in a world where everything except her own intelligence was stacked against her, can she be blamed for making her own way? Anna was a survivor, and Morgan clearly supports her. Anna’s response to her sister seems unnatural, but if she was to maintain her new persona, she had to make a clean break with her past. Morgan is interested in the effect that such a reinvention has on one’s new life and discusses others who have similarly made their own name. It is an interesting question and we see how, once the first break is made, other barriers can also fall away. The idea is compelling: that of taking control of one’s life and completely reinventing it, building on one’s own knowledge and talent and not accepting artificial limitations.
Morgan’s research revealed Anna to her as a real person. I think that the reason Morgan forgives and rationalizes some of Anna’s actions is that she came to like her as a friend. We judge people by their friendships, and Anna evidently made many loyal friends with smart and influential people who found her to be a lively and intelligent conversationalist with exciting experiences and aspirations. Because of her own background, she must have been refreshingly non-judgmental and able to mix with people of many different beliefs and circumstances. Her friends ranged from harem women to her husband’s British relations, her daughter’s British headmistress, the literary set in New England, and a missionary couple in Siam. Her opinions were strong, but she seems to have been able to focus on the positive qualities of those she called friends. In Siam, for instance, she became lifelong friends with an American missionary doctor and his wife, although she disapproved of missionary activity. She says, (p.126) “Many have missed seeing what is true and wise in the doctrine of Buddha because they preferred to observe it from the standpoint and in the attitude of an antagonist rather than an enquirer.” This attitude set her apart from much of the ex-pat community in Siam, yet she was able to overlook differences of opinion when she met people that she connected with on other levels, probably focusing on what was good about them rather than their differences.
Anna seems to have made friends easily, and Morgan does not give the impression that she used them. But the advantages of having influential friends is another interesting theme in this book. From her initial referral to the King of Siam to the publishing of her books and the commencement of her lecture circuit, Anna was helped by the recommendations of well-connected friends. Margaret Langdon, Anna’s first biographer, also benefitted from her connections. And the practice continued: the man who made the costumes for The King and I was a friend of Margaret’s husband, Ken Langdon!
Morgan’s extensive research gave her insight into Anna’s thinking, giving her perceptions based on knowledge and reflection. For instance, she sees that Anna fit into the culture of the Siamese court because she was in the same situation as the palace women: they were all bringing up children without a male partner. Morgan makes interesting reflections on Anna’s personal growth while she was in Siam. She sees that Anna came to respect her own intellect as she saw it being respected there. For the first time, Anna experienced power and this enlarged her horizons. When she left Siam, Anna was ready for a new adventure.
Morgan’s research extended to another theme: slavery. The period of Anna’s service to King Mongkut coincided with the American Civil War. Morgan read contemporary Asian newspapers and discovered that interest was high in this distant war. Morgan knows that Anna and her friends would have been following the news, and judging from Anna’s later published condemnation of slavery, Morgan can imagine the tenor of Anna’s conversations at the time. Many of the American missionaries in Siam came from the South, and there must have been contradictions in their teaching. Slavery was then practised in Siam and many of the palace women owned slaves. Morgan also discovered that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was printed in instalments in the Singapore newspaper in 1852-53. Anna was a lifetime admirer of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Morgan discovered where she must have first read her work. It was interesting for me to read that the US Civil War was followed with such interest as far away as South-East Asia. Another interesting suggestion was the connection between the institution of the harem, and Thailand’s present-day sex trade.
As Morgan herself wrote, “For a biographer there is nothing simple about telling Anna’s life.” The biggest controversy surrounding Anna is the inaccurate and sensational picture she painted of King Mongkut and the Siamese court in her two books: The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870) and The Romance of the Harem.(1873) Her critics say that she slandered the king. The books were banned in Siam, and years later, Mongkut’s successor, whom Anna had taught, asked her why she had written lies about his father. Morgan admits that the accounts are, “embellished and embroidered,” but never lays blame. She writes, (P130) “Leonowens’ two books about what she saw inside the royal harem are without question heavily fictionalized.” She admits, (p133) “The general claim that Leonowens’ accounts ….are slander.” and asks, “Why did Anna so often give us the fabulous, yet use actual historical people and label the whole combination real?’

In defence, Morgan historically contextualizes by pointing out that Anna’s critics were men, and that among Western men at the time, King Mongkut was admired because of his skilful diplomacy that had managed to keep Siam out of the grasp of colonial powers. Morgan says that we have no records of what went on in court, so we shouldn’t be too harsh. We are given Anna’s answer that she was being faithful to the women in the harem who were her close friends, rather than King Mongkut whom she saw as a tyrant and exploiter of women . Anna wanted to present the Siamese harem women to Americans as great heroines and dedicated her first book to them.
Personally, I think that Morgan is too sympathetic to Anna with statements like: ( P.131) “The claim of The Romance of the Harem is that it is offering ‘the truth,’ which is not the same as factual reportage.” I think that Anna’s motivation for her fictionalization lies in the influence of her new literati friends in New England who filled her head with literary trends then in vogue. The popular American genre at the time was called, ‘truthful romance.’ It held that, “the writer could, and often should, transform the mere facts, should ‘mingle the marvellous’ in order to present the truth.” The most famous of these writers was Nathaniel Hawthorne who said, “A romance may present the truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer’s own choosing or creation.” I think that Anna sympathized strongly with the ladies she met in the Siamese harem, and she was influenced by her American literary friends to adopt the new style in order to attract sympathy for her faraway friends. Morgan acknowledges this but does not give it the weight I think it deserves. The Romance of the Harem belongs in the same literary genre as The House of the Seven Gables. (Chap 12, p.177)
Morgan creates a warm character from a figure who has been dismissed as an ungrateful social climber. The many excerpts from Anna’s loving letters to her daughter help to show the caring side of her nature. Although she cut off contact with her Bombay family, she was a loving matriarch to her offspring and spent her declining years living with her daughter and helping to care for her grandchildren, often preferring them to lecture opportunities. Morgan has created a rounded complex character, presented us with an intriguing look at the social climate of the 19th century, and left us admiring the achievements of an extraordinary woman.

Comments about my post: Little Bee

Comment from Joan:

I really enjoyed your blog on this book - really summed up well our discussion of the afternoon and added more insights. I do agree with all that you said with the following exception.
I actually found that Cleave's writing was more elegant, succinct, and sophisticated in the "Questions and Answers with the Author" found on Google. I was much more impressed with him and his book after reading what he had to say by way of explanations, and with how he answered many of the questions. In the book, I often found his writing inconsistent and befuddling.

In the Q & A's, he made 2 very good points - there was a "disproportionate emphasis on the decisions we make in the split second". Also he said "Little Bee is a novel about where our individuality lies - which layers of identity are us, and which are a mere camouflage." Personally, for me, that is one of the main themes of the book (the first one being the exposure, as you mentioned, of the UK immigration policy and its system - definitely incongruous to each other!!)

As I brought up at our meeting, Cleaves used Charlie as a metaphor for his theme of searching for identity. Little Bee suddenly realized when she watched Charlie shed his chosen identity that there was something more important than herself: all of the little children playing with each other. Finally, it no longer really mattered what happened to her, the important thing was the future - for her country- which looked much brighter when she saw these little children playing together.

Response from Esther:

Thanks for your comment, Joan.

As I think about your excellent point, that the theme of searching for identity is such a large part of the book, I still think that Little Bee's acceptance of the fate before her at the end of the book is not consistent with her character as Cleaves developed it. The enormity of the problem of her personal security eclipsed and motivated her only search for identity which was to integrate into British society. Did you think she was searching for identity, apart from her desire to flee from her past? There was so much emphasis on her search for potential ways of killing herself, should harm befall her, that I don't think it was right for her character to accept her fate so philosophically at the end when it was clear that the men were coming to get her.

Little Bee

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
March 15, 2011

Today we had a good discussion about this book at our book club, and I want to make some notes about our response.
A quick summary would be to say that we all enjoyed this book, even though we felt it has several flaws.
Why did we enjoy it?
~It brings an important message about the plight of refugees trying to enter 1st-world countries and made us wonder what refugee centres are like in Canada. Our interest was aroused in the topic.
~ We found it moving and the characterisation memorable if not always convincing.
~We enjoyed Cleave’s elegant writing style.
~We sympathised with Little Bee and her situation.
~We enjoyed the complexity of the character, Sarah.
~We found the themes interesting. The treatment of refugees is the main theme, but we also discussed some other themes in the book:
~Globalization and how open borders apply to money and ideas but not to people. The current unrest in autocratic Arabic countries is an example of the new face of globalization.
~Personal accountability and the responsibility of the British characters to the situation of the Nigerian girl.
Our discussion ranged over several aspects of the book. We talked about the dual narrative which was distracting for some and decided that as the book is the story of two worlds, it was appropriate to hear it from two points of view.
We talked about Cleave’s challenge in adopting female voices to tell his story, remembered other books we had read in which a male author spoke through women, and decided that he had done a convincing job.
We found the character of Sarah interesting and found many scenes in which she displayed an impulsivity that we decided was her driving personality trait.
We felt there is a lot of coincidence in the plot, especially the contrived setting of the ending, on the same beach where the story started.
We found that the character of Little Bee, while very sympathetic, was not consistent. We found it surprising that she was able to manipulate Lawrence and behave so appropriately at the daycare centre and yet lose her cool with the policeman and use such inappropriate language with the taxi driver. She berated herself for not calling the police when Andrew was hanging himself and yet she did not know how to call them when Charlie went missing. We found the whole theme of her responsibility in Andrew’s death was unconvincing as we felt that she made strong efforts to save him within the limits of her ability.
Some members had read about the author and we were pleased to find out that he had researched his topic thoroughly and spent a summer working in a British refugee facility.
We agreed that the novel is a good organ for publicizing human rights issues that remain statistics when they are reported in a news format.
We discussed the difference between novels that depict gratuitous violence such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the horrific violence in the rape and murder scene of Little Bee’s sister, which was terrible to read but yet necessary to understand the danger of the character’s situation.
We were surprised by the internet reviewers who described the book’s ending as hopeful. We were unanimously certain that Little Bee was captured by the soldiers and would be tortured and killed. We found the book to be ultimately depressing because all efforts to save Little Bee failed. Furthermore, we were disappointed with the author who at the end shifted his theme from atrocities and the plight of the weak and intertribal warfare in Africa to focus on a future when black and white children would play together. The conclusion did not arise from the previous concerns of the novel and left the readers unsatisfied.
For all the faults that we found in characterisation and plot, we hated to pick the book apart because we all enjoyed reading it, found it moving, enjoyed the prose, and would recommend it to others.

Shantaram

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Nine hundred and thirty three pages, and I loved them all. Prior to writing my own review, I did a little web surfing and discovered that on amazon.com there are 438 reviews, 312 of them five-star! It’s clearly the kind of book that people respond to. Roberts has his own website, and Wikipedia has a plot summary and list of characters (quite an achievement.) With so much already said, I will just mention some of the reasons why I kept on reading.
I loved the way Roberts creates the setting, Bombay. The city should really be added to the list of characters. Clearly, Roberts himself loves the city in all its many aspects. Having had my heart broken in A Fine Balance, I loved reading about the joy that people can find when living in the direst conditions. Reduced to the worst poverty imaginable, Roberts’ slum-dwellers possess pride and loyalty, creativity, patience, self-respect, a sense of community and a commitment to their fellows. Roberts celebrates their strengths rather than focusing on their neediness.
I loved the characters because each one had his own complexity. Each one had a bit of wisdom to offer, had strengths and weaknesses, was dealing with a clouded past and was fighting his own way to happiness.
I loved the questions posed by these characters. Karla, the main love interest, felt loyalty to the mafia boss who had rescued her from a nervous breakdown and yet wanted to break free from him. Permanently scarred by her murder of a man who abused her, her emotions are permanently numbed, she is unable to feel for anybody and uses people without compunction. We understand her trauma, condemn her manipulativeness and hope for her redemption.
Khaderbai, the mafia boss is another complex character. He is capable of great love, he supports his followers, he is wise and continues to search for truth with a spiritual teacher, he is principled in his refusal to deal in drugs and prostitution, and yet he believes that the end justifies the means and orders the murder of a loyal follower in order to consolidate the power of his empire and takes advantage of the loyalty of his followers by taking them on a dangerous mission to Afghanistan in order to fulfill a personal promise.
Abdullah is a dangerous killer, but is capable of fierce loyalty.
I loved the pacing of the book. Each chapter was action-packed but book-ended with philosophical reflections, interspersed with poetic descriptions and punctuated with episodes which described life in the slums, techniques of passport forgery, the atmosphere in popular bars or gyms, the deliberations of the mafia council, Bollywood productions, and on and on. The appeal of the book is not purely narrative. There is much to ponder, and many images to conjure. The pace is comfortable, and after a few chapters, one is happy to put down the book and think about it for awhile.
There is a lot to learn from this book. The descriptions of prison conditions and slavery in brothels was alarming. The operation of the mafia was interesting. The excursion to Afghanistan during the Russian regime gave pertinent background to the current situation in that country. And the setting of Bombay, in its many quarters and moods, gave me a new understanding of this complex and foreign city.
Many of the experiences in Roberts own life are paralleled in his book, and although it is not strictly autobiographical, the descriptions and characters have an authenticity and originality that we feel is genuine. He has taken us to a place which we will never forget, and we are wiser for having met his characters and visited his parts of the world.

Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett

At 1007 pages, this book is a doorstop, and a page turner. It took over my life for several weeks, and what pulled me in was narrative. Like his character, Jack the jongleur, Ken Follett is an excellent storyteller. The events fold neatly into each other, each one sequencing logically from the previous.
We know, for instance, that Aliena, daughter of the Earl of Shiring, is the character best suited to manage her father’s estate. Although she is a woman, this seems to be her destiny. Seamlessly, Follett creates in Richard, her brother and rightful heir, a character who excels in the skills of war but is a poor manager, and has him intervene to save his sister from an assault by her estranged husband, an intervention he is driven to make because of his memories of his inability to save her at the beginning of the novel when he was a young and spineless boy. Thus an event at the beginning of the novel is woven into the concluding narrative. But how to remove Richard from his role as earl? Follett brings back his character, William, whom we can always count on for nefarious deeds. William, who at this point is a sheriff, tries to arrest Richard for murdering Alfred, the husband, as this is the middle ages and men can legally rape their wives. Richard is weak and ineffective, but he can’t meet an untimely end because he is the loyal brother of the heroine. To the rescue comes Prior Philip, the idea man. Richard is absolved of his crime by leading a crusade to the Holy Land where he can spend the rest of his life being a hero at fighting, which he loves, and Aliena will manage the estate in his absence. A dozen years later Richard dies in the Holy Land and his nephew, Aliena’s son, tutored in estate management by his mother, inherits the title of Earl. In the meantime, Philip, an ally of Aliena’s, has been able to finish construction of his cathedral with stones from the quarry on her estate. Every event is logical and evolves naturally from preceding ones with a craft that is never overstrained.
Setting is another strength of this book. Anyone who has visited a Gothic cathedral has wondered about the genius of the architects, the development of the concept, the methods of construction and the lives of the workers. Follett has done his homework and brought the 11th century to life, with the shifting loyalties at court, the power struggle between church and state, the fragmentation of power within those entities, the relationship between England and the Continent, and the challenges of living in a country where there is civil unrest. Follett makes a strong commentary on the debilitating effects of civil war and the concomitant lack of law and order in absence of strong leadership, which extends beyond his particular setting of the war between Stephen and Maud.
Character development, however, is not Follett’s strength. He creates the characters he needs to drive his plot, gives then the strengths and weaknesses that will motivate their actions, dresses then up like paper dolls, and has words come out of their mouths like bubbles in a comic strip. He doesn’t love his characters, he needs them to tell his story. For such a long book, there are really not very many characters, and personally I got tired of the ever virtuous and sometimes introspective Prior Philip, always the problem solver in any crisis, and I wished that we could have some other villains besides Waleran Bigod and William of various estates of life. Whenever Follett needs a resolution, he turns to Philip, and when he needs some plot complication, he turns to these two “bad guys” whose motives were established at the beginning of the book and remain static throughout.
Character development is an impediment in a tale with so many complications, but I would have liked to have heard more about Jack’s reunion with his grandmother in France; seeking out his family was one of the reasons he went to the continent. Likewise, I would have liked to know what effect the revelation about Jonathan’s parentage had on him and his little sister, Martha. Follett cannot find a niche for poor little Martha, and I feel sorry that she has been neglected by him.
Nevertheless, this novel has been a bestseller since it was published in 1989 and cannot be dismissed despite its faults. It is a classic in the ‘good yarn’ genre of literature, and what’s wrong with a good tale?
Despite the predictability of some of its plot turns and the woodenness of its characters, its strength is in the story and the delighted, “Of course!” that we feel as its scenes unfold.