The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

By Junot Diaz. Riverhead Books (Penguin). Published in 2007.

A number of friends and family members recommend books for me to read. With a few of them I take particular note: this is a good indication that I'm not going to like the book. But one person in my life who recommends a book two to three times a year - and almost always one I am initially suspect of because it is not something I would pick out myself - is my son Merrick.

I never would have read Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game), Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World) or Yann Martell (Life of Pi - though I probably would have got to that one eventually) - to name just a few.

Honestly, I really wasn't interested in a novel that deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic under the brutal Trujillo regime - I can watch the news if I want to be depressed was my first thought - but Merrick recommended it - and Diaz's first novel did garner a few little awards like the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critic's Circle Award. But on the issue of awards, that's not necessarily a dealmaker for me; after all, there's more than a few Oscar-winning movies none of us liked. So it came back to Merrick's recommendation. I ordered it, promptly put it on the stack of books by my bed - where it dropped as low as the bottom third (usually the sure sign it's never going to be opened) - and read other stuff for six months before finally picking Oscar up. Reluctantly. Did I mention this book deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic under the the brutal Trujillo regime - AND includes footnotes with historical context and explanations throughout the novel?

Are you feeling as unenthused about Oscar as I was yet? I can go on!

But what a pleasure The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was to read. The jumbled but poetic wordsmything (along with those interesting and slightly disconcerting but somehow fitting footnotes) mark Diaz, the author, as an interesting blend of stream of conscious thought and carefully constructed and intellectual analysis of the world through the eyes of his characters and his out-of-story interjections as self-aware author. (I guess pulling that off is part of the reason he is a professor at MIT. I'm pretty sure he's a very smart guy.) The novel is a subtle and nuanced winding road with an occasional roadblock that delivers a direct, to-the-point, academic, sledge hammer observation on life.

Our hero, Oscar, is born in poverty in the DR - though his grandfather was a wealthy and famous physician in that nation whose unforgivable crime against the state was to hide a beautiful daughter from the lecherous Trujillo - and moves to a rundown, hardscrabble community in New Jersey that is bordered by a dump on one side and a six lane highway on another. There is a fleeting period of Oscar's life when he is the most handsome boy in his neighborhood and school and his mom and great aunt are convinced he is destined to be an international pop star - perhaps as big as Porfirio Rubirosa. But that is a short lived fantasy on their part as Oscar becomes a fat little boy who is the object of ridicule and relentless teasing from classmates. It doesn't help that Oscar's mother is distant and harsh to the point of cruelty - she would probably be reported to health and human services today - with he and his sister. (There's a reason this savage beauty is the way she is that can only be explained by the ravages of the curse described in the next paragraph of this review.) But Oscar is a survivor and escapes into a world of sci-fi and fantasy - he is a bonafide literature and gaming nerd - that allows him to be and dream anything but what he is. Speaking of dreams, Oscar has only two compelling visions in life:  first is to become the Domincan version of J.R.R. Tolkien; and second is to find true love, something he he feels he glimpsed in the golden age of his pre-adolescent youth when he seemed to be on his way to becoming the next Pofirio Rubirosa. Oscar writes novels by nightstand light and falls madly in love on a constant basis - always and inevitably to experience the anguish of heartbreak. Sometimes before the object of his affection even knew he was in love with her.

I should have started where the book starts and mentioned that Oscar is primarily about an evil spirit - the Dominican word is fuku - that has cursed Oscar's family from the moment Trujillo (master of or mastered by evil spirits?) heard rumors of the beautiful daughter of Oscar's grandfather. The evil spirit has destroyed or stolen anything good the family has had or might have experienced - from lands and wealth to beauty and health. (Oscar believes the original fuku landed at San Juan with Christopher Columbus: the Ground Zero of the curse.) So Oscar's family's story is that of a precipitous fall from grace to one of dysfunctional but heroic struggle against the weight of a brutal personal history. The ultimate question I got from the book is this: if you are cursed is there any point in fighting it? Isn't that what a curse is - something you can't fight? Or is there something one can do? How does a lost, downtrodden, forgotten, broken family - and a not-so-little boy who suffers from depression and inertia - stand up to all that an evil spirit - one that is still alive in human form through Trujillo's heirs - and all that it can send at them?

On a visit to see family in the DR it is the frightened, cowardly, non-threatening and non-physically-imposing, ostracized, outcast, loner Oscar that dons the armor of a knight from one of his fantasy novels and choose to face and slay the fuku beast on behalf of his family once and for all - and win the heart of his one and only true love while doing it.

Does his story end in the most improbably of victories - like Frodo Baggins in Oscar's author-hero's Lord of the Rings trilogy - or does his family's fuku prevail and claim yet another victim? If you're in the mood to read a book that deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic during the brutal Trujillo reign, you will discover the answer!

Sad. Humorous. Fanciful. Brutal. Optimistic. Fatalistic. Jumbled. Linear. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has it all.

The Pillars of the Earth

Ken Follett. Penguin. Published in 1989.

My first exposure to Follett was in the early 80s with a trio of spy thrillers, Eye of the Needle, Triple, and The Key to Rebecca. I like the spy genre and though I didn't think Follett had the nuanced political and psychological depth of a LeCarre or Deighton, he delivered intrigue, twists, and turns at a Frederick Forsythe (Day of the Jackel) level. Smart, action-packed escapist reading!

Follett wrote The Pillars of the Earth in 1989 and I completely missed it. For 20 years. Once I've read an author a couple times and like him or her that usually doesn't happen. But it should have come as no surprise. In Pillars, Follett switched genres from international political thrillers to historical fiction with this 973 page tome. I'm sure his publisher was aghast when he brought the proposal to the table. Follett was undoubtedly told that this was a bad "self-branding" move for any author, that he would confuse and lost his core audience. I'm Exhibit One that his publisher was probably right in a business sense. But if Follett had listened, we would have missed out on a literary treat. It hasn't turned out too bad for Follett either, as Pillars is his backlist title that continues to sell the most copies every year.

So what prompted Follett to write a book that features a devout and godly monk who dreamed of building a cathedral to God's glory; the ups and downs of a couple of stone masons and their families; and some really rotten earls, barons, sherrifs, bishops and priests? Was it Follett's own act of devotion and religious fervor? In his preface he claims to be atheist despite a Plymouth Brethren upbringing. But he did have what can be described as a near religious experience on a business trip to Peterborough for the London Times. He had recently read a book on European architecture and was fascinated with Nikolaus Pevsner's description of all that went into the building of Gothic cathedrals. With an hour to spare before his train left for London, Follett took a tour of the Peterborough Cathedral and says he was instantly "enraptured." This began a personal hobby of visiting and studying cathedrals all over England and Europe.

Follett may have left modern politics behind in Pillars but not the politics of 12th Century Europe. With the death of King Henry, Stephen and Maude wage a civil war for the throne spanning decades, with a constant and ensuing political fallout for earls, cities, and counties. Even the building of a castle or cathedral became a political roller coast ride with access to lumber, stone or labor determined by which combatant won the last battle of the season and which barons and earls had the right allegiance to be rewarded or punished.

Follett shows Medieval churchmen at their superstitious and barbaric worst - and their enlightened, progressive, spiritual, and charitable best. I think he is very fair to represent the true spirituality of the Medieval - and modern - believer. He doesn't succumb to the temptation to paint crude caricatures. My own reading of Medieval history is cursory but from what little I know, Follett actually helps dispel the myth that these were simply "Dark Ages." Watching Jack - a stone mason and master builder - wrestle with how to make his cathedral roof taller but still safe and finally discover the pointed arch is a marvelous glimpse into the technological developments of the day.

Pillars is set around the building of the Kingsbridge Cathedral, but Follett takes us on a historically plausible side journey through France, over the Pyrenees, and into the Iberian Peninsula, where Medieval monks traveled to the library of Toledo, Spain, and were introduced to Euclid (his algebra and geometry play a role in the building of cathedrals), Plato, and other great writings from antiquity. Throughout the story Follett introduces the historical seeds that blossomed into the modern political mind and arena, from worker's and women's rights to the question of whether kings and nobility must answer to the law.

Toward the end of the book, Prior Philip, the stern, austere, kind, hard nosed, fair, loving hero of the story witnesses the assassination of Thomas Becket at Canterbury - carried out under the urging of his nemesis, Waleran, a bishop who made Machiavelli seem like an author of positive thinking and encouragement titles. Philip faces his ultimate test of faith, namely whether he will keep his faith in God and whether that faith in God has the efficacy to make the world a better place. As a reader, we have followed his life as orphan, monk, reformer, and builder for sixty years up to the year 1174 A.D. But the question he must face in the closing pages of Pillars is just as relevant today!

The Professor and the Madman

Simon Winchester. Harper Collins. Published in 1998.

The prompt for writing a quick review of this book is that I just started a third title by the same author, Simon Winchester, The Crack at the Edge of the World, and couldn't help but remember with fondness - yes, I used the word 'fondness' in regard to reading a book about how a dictionary was written - when I read The Professor and the Madman. Winchester is to my knowledge the developer and foremost practitioner of an immensely entertaining historical-narrative literary style whereby he lures us into turning page after page (rapidly) of a history book by telling a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story that reads like pulp fiction, and yes, which is set within a larger historical context and moment. Erik Larson followed the pattern in Devil in the White City , introducing us to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and how it changed the history of America through the lurid tale of a serial killer who was as big as Jack the Ripper before Jack found his first victim. In some parallel ways, Sebastian Junger employed this model, telling us about seemingly mundane things - the deep sea fishing industry, the physics of waves, the types of North Atlantic storms, and a little of the history of Gloucester, Massachusetts - through the sensational story of the crew of the Andrea Gail in his book The Perfect Storm, even better known for the George Clooney movie.

What is the historical setting and importance of the Professor and the Madman? The writing of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), of course. Now, without making any claims of being an academic, I must admit that topic kind of, sort of interested me anyway. I like the history of words and their definitions. But enough to read a book? I'm not sure. Even if it's less than 300 pages? Still not sure. It may never have reached the top of the stack. But even if you aren't that interested in what made the OED the finest reference work of its day - and perhaps the greatest reference ever created - the story of Dr. Charles Minor, the man who contributed thousands of entries, all painstakingly researched and neatly written from his home in Crowthorne, England, just 50 miles from Oxford, just might hook you.

What tied Minor to the OED and made his role so remarkable? Was it that he was an American creating something so peculiarly British? Nope. There was no snobbery as a sub theme. That he was a veteran of the Civil War, where he was surgeon for the troops of the North? Interesting, but not interesting enough to bring a dictionary to life. Was it that he maintained a long distance relationship with Professor James Murray - strictly by correspondence - for decades, despite numerous invitations from Murray to attend fundraising dinners or just stop by the office to meet due to his prolific 10 thousand entries? Not even close. Was it that he thought Irishmen were ... and that one night he went out and ... and because of that he ended up living in ... ? Yes. Yes. And yes.

I don't want to spoil the book for someone wants to know why it took 70 years to create the OED - Murray worked on it for 40 of those years but died before it was released - which contained almost 2 million quotations that helped define more than 400 thousand words. As an aside to those who love words and where they came from, one of the challenges of completing this monumental masterpiece was the stated goal that the OED would provide literary quotations, from oldest to most recent, to illustrate each word's first usage, evolution, and current definitions. Is it any wonder that the publisher had London book sellers place advertising tracts in the books they sold to solicit research help from the general population?

But back to Minor. I guess since I've already let you know that Murray was the professor, it is safe to reveal that Minor was the madman. When Murray finally insisted that he must meet the good doctor face-to-face out of respect for his unequaled contributions to the OED- and yes, if Minor wouldn't leave his home and travel to Oxford, he would come to him - you can imagine the shock he must have felt to show up at the front door and discover Minor was an insane murderer living at the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

Who knows? Let this book rise to the top of the stack beside your nightstand and you might be shocked to discover yourself enjoying a scintillating read about the history of a dictionary!

Ender's Game

I like Science Fiction just fine but must not love it because there have been many years I don't read even a single SciFi title. I had read a few of the standards over the years without much prompting and recommend them all - Frank Herbert's Dune Series, Philip Dick's Valis Trilogy and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (became the movie Bladerunner), Asimov's I, Robot, Ray Bradburry's Farenheit 451, Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Arthur Clarke's 2001: Space Odyssey, C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet trilogy, and I'm sure others.

My son Merrick introduced me to Orson Scott Card and his child genius Andrew Wiggin - Ender. A slow start - probably because of my own low expectations - and an ending that was so unexpected that it made me want to read the book again. Immediately. I'll leave it at that so I don't even stray towards a spoiler. My reading of preferred genres goes in streaks I admit, but I devoured all the books in Card's series as quickly as I could get to them: Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, and I'm sure I'm leaving something out. (Thanks Merrick!)

Ender grows up in a home with a cruel older brother, Peter, and the love of his life, Valentine, his older sister, the only one who doesn't seem to resent his brilliance. Card does have an ability to see the future - his description of communication over the Internet before Al Gore had the thing really up and going is amazing - and in a world of overpopulation Ender wasn't even legally allowed to be born. Peter and Valentine are both eligible to be selected for Battle School but Peter's anger turns to lethal hatred when it is Ender who is chosen to train as a fighter to repel a hostile alien forces's next invasion.

My description may make this sound trite but the psychological, moral, and physical conflicts are brilliant and emotionally exquisite. Off topic: Did 'they' ever make the Ender movie? I saw ads so I'm sure they did. Was it any good?

Like Frank Herbert in the Dune books, as you read through Card's series you find an author who doesn't just create other settings or even worlds - but whole cosmologies complete with religions, races, histories, and complex moral dilemmas, including definitions of the soul and consciousness. (Yes, there are some slow sections, particularly in Xenocide, but the whole experience is more than satisfactory.)

Just a note or two about Card. He is a descendent of Brigham Young and graduated from BYU and the University of Utah, and did doctoral work at Notre Dame. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While passing through Salt Lake City on a Delta flight I saw that he has also written the novels Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel and Leah, which are known as the Women from Genesis Series. The Internet says he lives in North Carolina now. I don't know anything about his ongoing personal religious life but would simply observe that as with other author's from a high identity religious background, there is a discipline and training of thought that seems to spawn a counter-intuitive imaginative freedom with the ability to dream up huge, comprehensive, and interconnected realities as he's done in his Andrew Wiggin novels.

The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan by Ben Macintyre

I loved the Michael Caine and Sean Connery movie, The Man Who Would Be King, that came out when I was in high school. The John Huston film was nominated for four Academy Awards. Christopher Plummer played the role of a young journalist by the name of Rudyard Kipling - and the film was based on the Kipling's short story by the same name.

But who knew that Kipling's literary bon mot was inspired by a true story - and that truth truly is stranger than fiction?

In 1989, Ben Macintyre was sent to Afghanistan to cover the final stages of the 10 year war between the Soviets and the CIA-backed Mujahideen guerrillas. While there he read Kipling's tale of Daniel Dravot (written in 1888 but looking back to the middle of the Victorian Age, the 1820s and 30s), who made it to the heart of Afghanistan disguised as a Muslim holy man to become king of a fierce tribal empire. It was several years later, while combing through stacks of books in the British Library that Macintyre first discovered the name of a man who "reputedly inspired Rudyard Kipling's story, 'The Man Who Would Be King.'"

So began Macintyre's search for an elusive footnote in history - all his papers were assumed to have been destroyed in a house fire in 1929 - that culminated in The Man Who Would Be King, a fascinating slice of history that is relevant to today's most pressing geopolitical hotspot. Following clues that led him from Britain's war archives to the Punjab, San Francisco, and Pennsylvania, Macintyre was finally able to find a box hidden away in the basement of the archives in a tiny U.S. museum of this mysterious man's birthplace. At the bottom of the box was a "document, written in Persian and stamped with an intricately beautiful oval seal: a treaty, 170 years old, forged between an Afghan prince and the man who would be king."

The first American in Afghanistan had many titles: Prince of Ghor, Paramount Chief of the Hazarajat, Lord of Kurram, personal surgeon to Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Five Rivers, King of Afghanistan ... and many others. His highness Halan Sahib - who in 1839, enthroned on a bull elephant, raised his standard and made claim to the Hindu Kush - was known back home in Chester County, Pennsylvania, as Josiah Harlan. The man who followed Alexander the Great's winding mountain path 21 centuries later and led an army made up of Afghan Pathans, Persian Qizilibash, Hindus, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazaras who were descendents of the Mongolian Hordes, a pacifist Quaker of Chester County, Pennsylvania.

If you like history, biographies, and tales that seem too fanciful to be true, you'll love The Man Would Be King.

The Road

A father and son push a shopping cart along a broken concrete highway. The sky and landscape are gray and desolate. Nuclear holocaust? We can assume but are never told. Father remembers what it was like before. The son has known only this world of ash and danger and survival. What happened to the father's wife and son's mother? We think we know but even that is left to the imagination.

As father and son head for the coast - we don't know why - they carry scavenged food, anything they can find for warmth, and a handgun. The rule is there must always be two bullets left. We find out why when they almost fall into a trap at what seems to be a deserted farmhouse.

Bleak. Despairing. Sparse. And yet The Road is a story of love and faith.

This is a road and journey I highly recommend.

I read The Road before Oprah (along with the people who made the movie No Country for Old Men) took Cormac McCarthy mainstream. But I must confess in my years of reading and spending time in the book publishing industry, I somehow missed McCarthy as a brutal, unrelenting force in American fiction. I did go back and read a number of his other works, including Blood Meridian - I agree that it is his true classic (the portrait he draws of the Devil in human flesh in the last scene is as terrifying as anything you read from Dante) but I'll save that for another post.