The Alchemist (1988 Portuguese, 1994 English) By Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho was/is one of those trendy books everyone, and I do mean everyone, was reading back in the 1990’s -- only I never read it, until now.  As is my usual habit, I read some reviews of the book after I finished it.  What I discovered was that some 50,000 reviews of The Alchemist have been written, which underscores just how big of an international best seller it has been.

Many of the reviews insisted on categorizing it as a “self-help” book because of its “pursue your dream” message.  While I’m okay with that, I think it might be a bit simplistic – call it a related collection of philosophy essays, with more than a few religious undertones, and you get my vote.

The book follows the adventures of a shepherd boy living in Andalusia.  He has a vivid dream which repeats itself.  When he goes to a Gypsy for help in interpreting the dream, the adventures begin: he sells his sheep and follows his dream.  It’s a fun story that includes traveling across the Sahara Desert from Morocco to the Pyramids.  It includes tribal warfare, love, lots of hard work with business success, robbery and mysticism of the natural environment.  It includes shepherds, Gypsies, bakers, kings, crystal merchants, an Englishman, and caravans. 

While it’s not an original plot, it is a beautifully written version of it.

The 25^th Anniversary edition of the book, which is what I read, contains an introduction by the author that is interesting when placed in the context of the book.  Apparently when it was first written it did not sell many copies, but Coelho never gave up on his Personal Legend of being a major author.  

Recommendation: Make some tea, grab an afghan and pull up a chair.  Enjoy.

The Girl on The Train (2015) By Paula Hawkins

Earlier this year I thought I had read a book recommended by my friend Angela; it ended up I had picked up the wrong book.  I read The Girl on “A” Train, by A.J. Waines; while what she had recommended was The Girl on “The” Train, by Paula Hawkins.  But, we both agree: “A” is good, “The” is much better.

The Girl on The Train is a psychological thriller, somewhat similar to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  And like Gone Girl it is being made into a movie, to be released later this year (2016).

The girl in The Train is named Rachel, and she’s a mess, as you’ll figure out no later than the first chapter.  She’s a heavy drinker.  No that’s not right, she is an alcoholic.  She’s been on a binge ever since her divorce ... two years ago.  She’s also been fired from her job, but instead of telling her roommate about her work situation she gets up every morning and takes a commuter train into London, pretending to be going to the office.  What she sees each morning and evening through the train’s windows, at it passes through the town where she once lived with her ex-husband, is the plot of the book.

Of course, as an alcoholic, she has a credibility problem.  Life is frequently a blur to her, and complete blackouts are part of her history – or are they?

I had trouble with the beginning of this book because I had difficulty working up any sympathy for Rachel.  I (wrongly) have little patience for people who can’t seem to pull it together.  By the end of the book however, Rachel was the only character I had any empathy with.  She's clearly still trying to get her life in gear, but by the final chapter I’m pulling for her, and thinking she’s going to succeed.

Recommendation:  Great read.

The Boston Girl (2014) By Anita Diamant

The life of the main character of The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant is nothing exciting or unique.  She is, in a word: average.  It took me awhile to realize this is the author’s point. 

The Boston Girl is Addie Baum, the daughter of immigrants to the United States.  She was born in 1900. The story is as told to Addie’s granddaughter for a school project in 1985.  The novel is one part immigrant story, and another part the loving story of a grandmother telling her daughter what it was like being a girl/woman in her day.   One could fairly categorize it as a coming of age story.

First there are the do’s and don’ts all children must learn, and break.  Then there is first love and the “good girl” vs “bad girl” dating rules, and learning the hard way that they don’t apply to boys; chivalry is dead, assuming it ever existed.  Add the lessons that in pre-birth control America, unwanted pregnancies and abortions were common place, even though never talked about … ever.  Overlay all of this with women “don’t need” an education, and if they “must” work, they aren’t allowed to have “careers.”

As I was reading this, the 7 year-old girl who is my neighbor asked me what it was about.  I told her it was about a Grandma telling her granddaughter about what it was like to grow up “in the old days.”  (A warning for her grandmother … you have an interrogation coming next time you are in town).

Roughly 100 pages into this book it crossed my mind that what I was reading was a softer version, an individual version, of The Feminine Mystic by Betty Friedan (1963).  Yes, I’ve actually read and liked, The Feminine Mystic, it deserves its recognition as one of those rare books that helped change the course of history.  Then near the end of The Boston Girl, the author even acknowledges her debt to Friedan, by mischievously writing The Feminine Mystic into the storyline.

Recommendation:  While I would prefer that everyone, granddaughter and grandson, read The Feminine Mystic, I admit that’s not going to happen.  I’m comfortable with The Boston Girl being a compromise selection.

Girl on a Train (2013) By A J Waines

Several weeks ago, my close friend Angela recommended I read The Girl on The Train.  She says she warned me to be careful with the title, and though I don’t doubt that (she has a flawless memory) obviously, I forgot.  

Last weekend, we had brunch while she was changing from a train to a plane in Chicago. In conversation I told her I had started the book and was around page 100.  In briefly discussing the plot however, we weren’t making a/the connection. Ends up I caught on the wrong train.  But, it wasn’t a bad trip.  It also turns out that I’m not the only person to make this mistake because sales of Girl on a Train by A J Waines are surging.

While considered “new” in the US market, Waines is a best-selling author in Great Britain with such titles as: Dark Places to Hide, The Evil Beneath, and No Longer Safe.  You can tell by her titles that psychological thrillers and crime stories are her specialty.  She’s less gritty than Sara Parestky, and less political than Matt Benyon Rees, standing comfortably on her own.

The plot of Girl on a Train begins – obviously -- with a train, boarding at Portsmouth, England. Anna Rothman, the lead character who is a freelance journalist, sits next to a young woman who seems merely aloof at first and then later crosses over to out-and-out stressed.  Both are headed back to London. 

Yet when the train stops at an intermediate station, this other passenger will exit, but not before secretly slipping a locket into Anna’s carry-on.  While in the station, Anna’s carry-on gets stolen, but then abandoned by the thief without anything of value, including the locket, being taken.   

When the train commences again, it hits and kills a pedestrian, who is of course the stressed out young woman.  The rest of the novel entails the “why” of the locket and some improbable clues and subplots.  Police are determined to call it a suicide, Anna thinks otherwise.

The rule of thumb for grading a mystery novel is was it suspenseful?  “A” train begins its trip rather slowly, but then speeds into the Station quite fast. 

Recommendation: Yes, and I’ll probably read some of her other books.  Oh, I’ll also read The Girl on “The” Train.

City on Fire (2015) By Garth Risk Hallberg

At a mammoth 903 pages, City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg provides ample proof there really are only six degrees of separation.  By the novel’s end, we’ve met everyone in New York, or at least their stand-in, and have had to draw a genealogy-like chart to connect them.  It’s a suspense filled book, with a convoluted plot (my only criticism).  But, let me emphasize, it is a phenomenal read.

How does one begin to summarize this book without providing a spoiler?  Not an easy task.

It’s set mostly in Manhattan and the Bronx, with chapters in Brooklyn Heights, Staten Island, and for suburban angst, trips to Long Island.  The time frame is 1977, the bicentennial is over, disco is reigning, punk is rebelling, and the plague has not yet arrived.  It is the time period immortalized by images of subway graffiti.  Oh, and the finale happens during a city-wide electricity blackout.

In reality, the main character is New York.  The supporting cast includes many people, and it would be difficult to single out just one, they all play significant roles.  In no particular order:

• William – the gay son of the Hamilton-Sweeney bluebloods.
• Regan – William’s sister
• Charlie – the epitome of suburban wannabee part of the action.
• Sam(antha) – the epitome of suburban girl who is part of the action.
• Keith – who is married to Regan, and having an affair with Sam
• Mercer – William’s boyfriend
• Amory – a.k.a. Demon Brother, William & Regan’s step-Uncle.
• Richard – a reporter
• Dr. Zig – a radio shock jock
• Larry – a NYC police detective
• Sewer Girl, Sol, DT, Jenny and many more … and Ex Post-Facto, the punk rock group that connects the dots.

I will often “dog-ear” pages when I read a book, and did so twice with City on Fire because of short quotes that so perfectly capture a larger topic.

The first was to mark a passage from a chapter about the riots that occur during the blackout, Mercer gets attacked when he tries to prevent a school from being ransacked.  He gets rescued by a drag queen named Venus de Nylon.  “I had no idea you had it in you,” says Mercer to his rescuer.  Venus’ response:  “No one ever does, Mercer, until they get pushed too far” – a clear flashback to the start of the modern day gay rights movement a few blocks away (New York, 1969) when drag queens led the counter-charge during a police raid on the Stonewall Inn.

It was like a waiting room where they kept not calling your name.

My other “dog ear” is from a flash forward.  It alludes to one of the gay characters who later contracted AIDS, as he is being treated with early, less effective drug regimens: “They put him on drugs, things went up and down, but he lived.  He lived.  It was like a waiting room where they kept not calling your name.”  An entire genre of books has been written on this subject.  Hallberg got it in one sentence.

Recommendation:  I loved the book, convoluted plot or not.  Do I recommend it?  Hard to say, you may have to make that call yourself.  There is a lot of "airing of dirty laundry" in this book, particularly on the 70's rampant sex and drug culture, but I cannot say there are any inaccuracies. What I can say is there is a lot in this book that many will not want to read, and others will deny.

Dreaming in Cuban (1992) By Christina Garcia

I suspect we are witnessing the end of a genre.  In 1959 a revolution led by Fidel Castro succeeded in toppling Cuban President Batista, a puppet of the United States, resulting in a shutdown of relations between the two countries -- one authoritarian dictatorship replaced by another.  In 2015, the “normalization” process, brokered by Pope Francis, began, its future is still largely uncertain. 

Between those two dates are 56 years of intense, controversial, fiercely debated, history and culture; tinged with enough conspiracy theories to keep Hollywood and the National Inquirer in script for decades.  This background includes the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, the (John) Kennedy assassination, the Peruvian Embassy & Operation Peter Pan, the Mariel Boat Flotilla, the Tropicana and the “Mob,” the Buena Vista Social Club, and the Malecon, … not a complete list.  And, let’s not forget that decidedly Cuban-American cultural icon from my childhood, Ricky Ricardo.

Much has been written about these 56 years, both fiction and non-fiction, including a fun little book I read earlier this week called Dreaming in Cuban, by Christina Garcia.  Her book is almost unique in the “Cuban Revolution” genre because it let its characters make the value judgements, not the author, and the characters have different takes on their shared history.  It’s also interesting because in this decidedly “macho” culture, its main characters are entirely female.

The copy I read has a library stamp in it from the International School in Panama, which is probably an interesting story in its own right.

 

The characters span a multi-generation family who are divided politically.  The matriarch is Celia, a devoted follower of El Lider (Fidel Castro).  She provides much of the history of the rich-poor divisions in the country that allowed the revolution to happen in the first place.  She has two daughters and a son: Felicia, is a practitioner of native religion and ends up being institutionalized for mental health reasons – Celia raises Felicia’s son (who plays only a minor role in the book, until the very end); Lourdes, marries a wealthy man, they lose everything in the revolution, fleeing to the U.S. and eventually settling in Brooklyn (her father will eventually join them); and Javier, who is raised in Cuba and joins the Communist Party, eventually taking a teaching position in Prague – when his wife leaves him, he returns to Cuba to drink himself into oblivion.

Playing an outsize role in the book is Lourdes’ daughter Pilar, raised in the U.S., she is a fan of Lou Reed and all things punk – the contrast between her political indifference, and her mother’s vehement anti-Castro tirades are the core of the book. 

Recommendation: Because of its many dream sequences, the book is confusing at times, but it is also an interesting read.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) By Erich Maria Remarque

Twenty-five years from now history books will note that at the end of 2015, we (the World) were embroiled in what will then be called World War III.  Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Ukraine, Mali, Lebanon, North & South Korea, China-Taiwan, the Congo, a Japan that is re-militarizing, a Germany that has re-militarized, an egomaniac in Russia who thinks he should be respected, and another egomaniac leading his party’s race for President in the United States.  Sorry if I left out some trouble spot somewhere. Oh did I mention genocide? Throw a dart at a globe and you’ve found it. 

Although we don’t officially call it WW III, be there no doubt that is what it is. 

With that to set the stage, I picked up a “classic” that I had never read: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.  Published in 1929 and set during World War I (ironically the “War to End War), the book is marketed as “The Greatest War Novel of All Time.”  I must agree, though a more accurate tag might be the “The Greatest Anti-War Novel of All Time.” 

For those of you who have not read it, the book is about a group of recruits serving on the frontline during WW I, which is generally conceded to be one of if not the deadliest war in history, with an estimated 11 million military deaths, and another 7 million civilian ones; double those figures to get an estimate of the number of wounded. The seven recruits are German; though it is precisely the point of the book that which side the soldiers fought on is not important – the life of a soldier is same whether their gun is pointing east or west, north or south.

Link to the 1930 film of All Quiet on the Western Front.

One can pull a profound quote from almost any page in this book, but two exchanges led me to dog ear pages.  The first is as a wounded soldier in a hospital looks across the dead and wounded surrounding him in the infirmary.

 

“And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia.  How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible.  It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands.  A hospital alone shows what war is.”

In their trenches the soldiers talk about the fate of soldiers. 

“True, but just you consider, almost all of us are simple folks.  And in France, too, the majority of men are laborers, workmen, or poor clerks.  Now just why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us?  No, it is merely the rulers.  I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards to us.  They weren’t asked about it anymore than we were.

“Then what exactly is the war for?  There must be some people to whom the war is useful”

Fast forward to 2015 and to the United States and the answer to that question becomes less theoretical. In recent days, the military industrial complex-owned Department of Defense has argued forcefully that they’ve used up 20,000 bombs on ISIS already and need more [Pause, think about that, because no one in the press corps has, they’ve used 20,000 bombs already and somehow have managed to not kill every man woman and child in Syria?  And at what number does “precision” bombing become “carpet” bombing?].  And then yesterday, December 18, 2015, the compliant bi-partisan Congress voted to appropriate $607 billion that they don’t have, for “defense.” I’ve got no problem with defense spending mind you, but I have lots of problems with being ripped off in the name of Homeland Security.  

I believe in all countries politicians must cite some type of Oath of Office when they win elections and take charge.  My sincere wish would be that they also be required to read All Quiet on the Western Front.